David Thompson Seymour

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (December 2006) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

David Thompson Seymour (1831-1916), soldier and police commissioner, was born on November 5, 1831 at Ballymore Castle, County Galway, Ireland, son of Thomas Seymour, gentleman, and his wife Matilda Margaret, née Lawrence. Educated at Ennis College, he entered the army as an ensign on February 1, 1856, was promoted to lieutenant in the 12th Regiment on February 23, 1858, and served at Limerick and Deal before he arrived in Sydney on July 7, 1859 in command of a draft. On January 13, 1861 he arrived in Brisbane in command of the first detachment in Queensland after separation. He was appointed aide-de-camp and private secretary to the governor on May 11, 1861. On January 1, 1864 he retired from the army to become acting commissioner of police under the Police Act of 1863 and was confirmed in office in July. The force consisted of 150 white officers and 137 Native Mounted Police to protect a population of 61,497. Beginning with the establishment of a detective force in 1864, he soon expanded and improved the service. A select committee of 1869 supported his complaints against the appointment of police magistrates as officers and his recommendations, based on observations during extensive travel, for improved pay and conditions. The committee also approved his new-found opposition to phasing out the Native Mounted Police. He showed his faith in the native police in 1880 by sending black trackers to Victoria, Australia to participate in rounding up the Kelly gang.

Seymour was never afraid to use force. In the Brisbane riot of September 1866 he ordered his men to fix bayonets and load with live ammunition to disperse a large crowd in Queen Street. Giving evidence to an 1887 board of inquiry on management of gaols, he was enthusiastic for flogging. In the 1894 pastoral strike the police were given sole power to 'preserve order and secure liberty to all alike' to avoid the expensive and controversial involvement of the military as in the 1891 strike, and he took command in Longreach, Winton, and other centres. After his request for greater legal power to compensate for limited manpower the government introduced the controversial peace preservation bill, which permitted detention without trial for periods up to two months.

On June 30, 1895 Seymour retired on a pension of £700: he had increased police strength to 907 men which still included 104 Native Mounted Police. He had given some attention to social questions: his suggested new route via the Red Sea and Torres Strait for immigrant ships reduced the time of the voyage by half, and in 1878 he advocated a reformatory for girls under fourteen years of age. But his chief private interests were horse-racing and athletics. A foundation member and a committee-man of the Queensland Turf Club for over thirty years, he was also a committee-man of the Queensland Club. He died on January 31, 1916 in London. On June 28, 1864 in Brisbane he had married Caroline Matilda (d.1884), daughter of William Anthony Brown, sheriff of Queensland; they had six daughters. He married Sara Jane Stevenson, aged 23, on 6 June 1888; of their two sons, one became a well-known engineer in Kuala Lumpur.