New year horror left blood in the dust of Broken Hill

A century ago four people died in a gunfight between cameleers and New Year revellers on the dusty plains of far western NSW.

A body (believed to be William John Shaw) being removed from the train station by local undertaker Dave Mangelsdorf (left, in white) and placed into the morgue horse cart. His 18-year-old assistant, Bill Waghorn, is pictured middle of the back row. This photo is owned by Joyce Douglas (Mr WaghornÕs daughter).

The mercury was still rising as Broken Hill families clambered up ladders to board 40 open ore wagons for a Saturday morning train ride to the 14th annual Manchester Unity Lodge new year picnic, 25km away at Penrose Park, Silverton. Offering a rare expanse of shade over vast orange plains, elders planned to stretch out ­beneath pepper trees along Umberumberka Creek. Youngsters could compete in sports events then collect complimentary toys and lollies, while Unity officials lunched at the Silverton Hotel.

Instead, just after 10am on January 1, 1915, shots rang out 3km from Broken Hill’s Sulphide St station. The shots came from an ice cream van on an embankment 30m above the tracks. The engine stoker ­noticed a red cloth fluttering from the white cart; the driver saw what looked like an insignia of a yellow crescent and a star on the cloth. Suddenly a pair of white turbans bobbed up from a trench. The attackers fired off about 30 rounds from two ­rifles, killing two passengers, Elma Cowie, 17, of the Friberg Hotel, Railway Town, and Sanitation Department foreman William Shaw.

Six passengers, Mary Kavanagh, George Stokes, Thomas Campbell, Lucy Shaw, Alma Crocker and Rose Crabb were wounded. The train, carrying about 1200 people, kept moving until it was out of range, when police were alerted.

As the attackers fled, they shot Alfred Millard in his hut. Pursued by police and a local army unit, the attackers were identified as ice-cream vendor and former cameleer Badsha Mohammed Gool, and Mullah Abdullah, a lame halal butcher and immam.

Police found them near the Cable Hotel, where police constable Robert Mills was shot and wounded. Gool and Abdullah sheltered behind a white quartz outcrop known as Cable Hill, engaging police, militia and civilian volunteers in a 90-minute gunbattle. Resident James Craig, chopping wood 500m away, died from a stray bullet.

“The attacking party was constantly reinforced by eager men who arrived in any vehicles they could obtain or on foot,” Broken Hill’s Barrier Miner newspaper reported.

“At just about one o’clock a rush took place to the Turks stronghold, and they were found lying on the ground behind their shelter. Both had many wounds. One was dead, the other died at the hospital later. They were in the dress of their people, with turbans on their heads.”

Abdullah died at the scene, where police found a Martini Henry rifle, one Snyder rifle, two pistols and about 100 rounds of ammunition.

Although described as Turks, Abdullah, 61, was born in northern India or Pakistan. Gool, 40, belonged to a Pashtun clan from Afghanistan. Both likely came to Australia among 2000 Muslim cameleers who arrived from 1870 to drive camel trains around Kalgoorlie, Coolgardie, Bourke and up the Birdsville Track.

Abdullah had taken on the role of priest in “Ghantown”, the North Broken Hill cameleer camp, in the absence of a trained religious leader. He was also the community butcher, slaughtering animals in the Islamic halal manner.

But he did not belong to the butchers’ union, bringing him into conflict with officials in the staunch union town. Sanitary inspector, Irishman Cornelius Brosnan, had twice prosecuted him for slaughtering sheep on premises not licensed for slaughtering. Abdullah had also complained to police he had to stop wearing a turban after “larrikins” threw stones and harassed him.

Broken Hill residents had formally protested in 1893 against “unrestricted immigration” of Afghans into NSW. The Barrier Miner newspaper campaigned to drive cameleers from the town.

Gool boasted that he had fought four campaigns in the Turkish Army under Sultan Abdul Mohammed Rasheed before returning to Australia to find cameleering in decline. He worked as a miner but lost his job when silver prices collapsed with the outbreak of WWI months earlier, then pushed an ice-cream cart around the streets.

After Gool’s death a bag of marijuana was reportedly found in his hut, neighbouring Abdullah’s. Gool’s attack was attributed to drug use, and the November 1914 declaration of a holy war against Great Britain and her allies, “the mortal enemies of Islam”, by Muslim caliph and Turk Ottoman Sultan Mehmed V, who had signed a treaty with Germany.

Suspecting Germans had instigated the train attack, a mob marched on the German Club, a popular target 15 years earlier during the Boer War when members were suspected of favouring the Dutch in South Africa. After breaking windows and setting fire to the Delamore St clubhouse, rioters chopped up fire cart hoses to ensure the building burned to the ground.

Shouting “Remember our women who were shot”, the mob then marched on Ghantown, deterred by civilians and military forces with fixed bayonets lined up across the road outside the camel camp.

Broken Hill mines next day fired all employees deemed “enemy aliens” under the 1914 Commonwealth War Precautions Act; six Austrians, four Germans and one Turk were ordered out of town.

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Originally published as New year horror left blood in the dust of Broken Hill