Conroy, Adelaide Mary

One of the many sad inquests that we have researched concerns that of two little girls – Adelaide Mary Conroy, ten months and Jane Setter, three years.  The baby’s father was Joseph Conroy, a contractor working on Darr River Downs in the Muttaburra area. Jane’s father was William Setter, also working and camped on Cattle Creek, about two miles from the out station on Darr River Downs. The first child to die was Adelaide Conroy on 19th November 1888. Mrs Conroy had gone down to Mrs Setter’s camp, about two hundred yards away, to sleep, taking the baby with her. At about 11pm Joseph Conroy was awakened by the women screaming, and he ran down to the camp. He found the women trying to give the baby a drink, but she was already dead. He took the baby from his wife and tried for two hours to revive her, by rubbing her, and putting her in a hot bath. About midnight William Rasier was awakened by Joseph Conroy, asking him to go to the out station and get some whisky or brandy for his child. On going outside the tent, Mrs Setter told him that she could not hear the child breathing. Rasier went to the out station but could not get any whisky or brandy. On returning to the camp, Conroy told him that the child had been dead about half an hour, and to go into Darr River Station and report the death, which he thought had been caused by a snake bite. Mrs Conroy told her husband that she had been awakened by the child struggling and clutching at her neck. After the child’s death, poor Mrs Conroy left immediately for Rockhampton.

Not a week later, on the night of Saturday 24th November, James Lime heard William Setter come into his camp and wake Joseph Conroy saying, “It is our turn now, our little girl is dead”. Conroy immediately went to the other camp and soon came back and asked James Lime and William Davidson if they were awake, and would they come down and help him find the snake and kill it.  Mrs Setter had seen it slide under a flour bag and some clothes in the tent. The men went down to the tent, found the snake under the clothes, killed it and threw it on the fire. It was a dark coloured snake, about three or four foot long, with a small head.  Mrs Setter had been awakened by the child crying, and after she had attended to the little girl, she bent down to pick up a handkerchief and she felt the snake glide beneath her hand. The next morning Setter said he had found the marks of the snake bite on Jane’s right hand between the little finger and the wrist. William Setter and his wife left the camp shortly after the child had died and went to Muttaburra. James Lime helped to bury the little girl.

The inquest found that the two children died from snake bite, even though no marks were found on the first child.  Darr River Downs is over fifty miles distant from Muttaburra where the nearest doctor lived, and he was not summoned to the inquest. It is interesting to note, that neither mother of the girls was questioned at the inquest, (they may not have even attended) even though they would have been the main witnesses. Joseph Conroy the father of Adelaide, gave evidence, but William Setter was not called.

Information from Anne Alloway and Roberta Morrison.