The Inquest, 1902

He is Cristina's three-times-great-grandfather: William Hartley Sneyd → Arthur William Hartley Sneyd → Ivy Miriam Sneyd → Kenneth Lindsay D'Arcy → Ian → Cristina. The family tree carried a death date for him and nothing else at all. This is what was behind it.

Victoria Park, 11 September 1902

He left home a little before nine o'clock on the morning of Thursday 11 September 1902. He was sixty-four, a contractor by trade, and he had not been able to work for about twelve years because of an injury to his arm. He had had asthma for ten or twelve years, and a bad attack of it two months before.

At about ten the next morning two men walking the railway line through Victoria Park found him lying between two stacks of railway rails, roughly two hundred yards in from Gregory Terrace. There was a bottle near him. The Government Analyst found an ounce and a quarter of crude carbolic acid in his stomach. The minimum fatal dose is about an eighth of an ounce.

The magisterial inquiry sat at the Brisbane Police Court on 29 September 1902 and entered the cause of death in three words: "Poisoning (suicide)." The police summary closes:

Deceased had been suffering from asthma for about 12 years and he often stated he wished some one would put him out of his misery… The case was apparently one of suicide. No suspicious circumstances.

What was ordered, and what came

Queensland State Archives has digitised this file and serves it free. It was found by searching the QSA catalogue for the surname and reading all forty-one hits — the archive did not know an inquest existed until that search. documented

The formal record

Four witnesses were called: John Williams, labourer; Miriam Sneyd, widow; Edward Law, retired; and Patrick Moroney, constable. All four depositions survive, and all four are below.

John Williams, labourer, of Roche Street, Spring Hill

I remember 12th September inst about 10 A.M. I was in company of Alfred Hutchison walking along the railway line in Victoria Park. I saw a man lying between two stacks of rails. I went up to within three feet of him & said to Hutchison "That man dead". I went & reported the matter to Mrs. Costello, caretaker of the park. I remained with the body until the arrival of Const. Moroney when I saw remove the body. I visited the spot later in the day & found near where the body had been a bottle containing some liquid. (The bottle produced is the same) which I handed to the police.

Miriam Sneyd, his widow

They had married at Brisbane when he was twenty-two. She had six living children by him, and she was asked, as widows were, to supply the registrar's particulars — which is why the most valuable single sentence in this archive is buried at the end of the worst day of her life.

I am the widow of the late William Hartley Sneyd. I remember the morning of 11th September instant, my husband left home a little before 9 o'clock. I heard next day about 11 o'clock by the police that his body had been found in Victoria Park. His body was brought here by the Undertaker the same evening.

I did not notice anything unusual in his appearance when he last left home. But his health was not so good as usual. He had been suffering from Asthma for 10 or 12 years & had a very bad attack about two months ago. He has never threatened to take his life but when suffering greatly has said he wished some one would take him out of his misery.

I was not aware he had purchased any carbolic or other poison. I never saw the bottle produced before.

He had not been able to work for about 12 years in consequence of an injury to his arm.

His age was 64 years, born in ——, his father's name was Samuel Sneyd, Gaol Governor, his mother's name was Catherine. — Hislop was the Undertaker, he was a Contractor, he was married at Brisbane when 22 years, to Miriam Wakefield. Thomas George 41, Louisa Miriam 39, Catherine Isabel 37, Arthur William Hartley 35, Ernest Ephraim 33, Ada Zillah 30 — and the whole living.

Edward Law, retired, of Hartley Street off Gregory Terrace

I know the deceased William Hartley Sneyd for many years. I remember the 11th Sept instant I saw Sneyd about 4 on that day walking along Gregory Terrace. I remarked to him that he was looking well & he passed on. I had not seen him since.

The following morning I heard his body had been found in Victoria Park.

He is the last person known to have spoken to him: about four in the afternoon, on Gregory Terrace, a few hundred yards from where he would be found.

Patrick Moroney, police constable, Brisbane

I remember about 10.20 A.M. on 12th instant in consequence of something I heard I went to a spot in Victoria Park beside the Railway line & about 200 yards from Gregory Terrace. I there found the body of William Hartley Sneyd lying between 2 stacks of railway rails. John Williams was there.

I examined the body & found no mark of violence. In the clothing I found a knife, a pair of spectacles, & 2 handkerchiefs, which I handed to a son of deceased.

I had the body removed to the morgue. On the same day I was present when a post mortem was made by Dr Dods… The same evening Const. Henry handed me the bottle produced. On the morning of 13th I handed these to the Government Analyst.

A knife, a pair of spectacles and two handkerchiefs. One of his sons came to the morgue for them.

Post-mortem, and analysis

Hospital Morgue, Brisbane, Sept 12 1902. I hereby certify that on the 12 day of September 1902, I made a Post-mortem Examination of the body of a male named Wm Hartley Sneyd, by order of E. M. Murray, Esq., P.M., and I forwarded in a sealed jar, Stomach with contents, a portion of the Liver, Kidney, and Spleen to the Government Analyst.

I found 1¼ ounces of crude carbolic acid in the stomach. The part of the intestines submitted also contained crude carbolic acid. The bottle contained crude carbolic acid. The crude carbolic acid consisted of 30 per cent of Carbolic and Cresylic Acids mixed with tar oils.

"Taff's" Medical Jurisprudence states that the minimum fatal dose of Carbolic Acid is about ⅛ of an ounce.

Ten times the fatal dose. Crude carbolic — the coarse disinfectant grade, black with tar oils — was in every yard and stable in Brisbane in 1902 and cost pennies. Miriam had not known he had any.

What the file settles

1. The parentage, on oath. Miriam names his father as Samuel Sneyd, Gaol Governor, and his mother as Catherine — Samuel Charles Sneyd, Governor of Brisbane Gaol from 1859, and Catherine Margaret Mulcahy, whom he married at Camden in 1837. The link is no longer an inference.
2. He was born on 30 September 1837 — and this archive got that wrong for several hours on 9 September 2026, in public, on this page. See the note below.
3. Married at Brisbane aged 22 to Miriam Wakefield — consistent with the recorded marriage of 15 November 1859.
4. Six children, all living in 1902, with ages that match the tree exactly: Thomas George 41, Louisa Miriam 39, Catherine Isabel 37, Arthur William Hartley 35, Ernest Ephraim 33, Ada Zillah 30. Arthur William Hartley is Ivy's father.
5. He was a contractor who stopped working at about fifty-two, after an injury to his arm — twelve years of a man not able to do his trade, and ten or twelve years of asthma, which is very nearly the same twelve years.
6. The undertaker was Hislop — John Hislop & Sons of Peel Street, South Brisbane, the same firm that would bury his granddaughter's husband Lindsay D'Arcy thirty-four years later.

The archive got his birth year wrong from this very file

When this page was first published on 9 September 2026 it said, in the list above, that Miriam's sworn "His age was 64 years" put his birth in 1838 and ruled out the 30 September 1837 that Find a Grave carries. That was wrong, and the error was mine.

He died on 11 September. His birthday was 30 September — nineteen days after his death. A man born on 30 September 1837 is therefore 64 on 11 September 1902, with his sixty-fifth birthday still three weeks away. Miriam's answer was exactly right; the arithmetic laid over it was not.

It is left visible rather than quietly edited, because a site that asks to be trusted about other people's errors has to be legible about its own — and because the failure is instructive. A stated age is not a birth year. It is a birth year minus one for everybody whose birthday has not yet come round, which is most of the year for most people. How claims are labelled here →

Two notes on the document itself

Image 3 is somebody else's tragedy. The third page of the PDF is a summary sheet for an entirely unrelated case — Peter N. Paulsen, a farmer of Meringandan — bundled into the same wrapper at some point in the file's life. It has nothing to do with this family, and is noted here so that nobody else reading the same download has to work it out twice.

The scan carries no text layer. Every word on this page was read off the images by eye. Where a word is illegible it is marked; where the sense is certain but the hand is not, the reading is the obvious one. The transcription is the archive's, and any error in it is the archive's.

Why this is published

A hundred and twenty-four years is a long time, and the man deserves better than a date with nothing behind it. The tree recorded that William Hartley Sneyd died on 11 September 1902 and stopped. What actually happened is that a man who had been unable to work for twelve years, and could not breathe, walked out of his house one morning and into the park — and his neighbour, the afternoon before, thought he was looking well.

This archive publishes what the documents say. It does that for the gold medal at Orthes and the organ at All Saints', and it has to do it here too, or the method means nothing. The decision to publish this file was the family's.

The Sneyds → · His father, the gaol governor → · How this archive labels claims →