Inquest: Alexander McQueen

Melbourne, Australia

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This is the first in the series of inquests that have been held for members of my family, who lost their lives suddenly, and not from natural causes. 

Alexander McQueen 1844-1854

Alexander McQueen was born on 14 December 1844 in Launceston, Tasmania to parents, Thomas James Jonathan McQueen and Janet Young.¹ In about 1850, the family relocated to Collingwood, Melbourne. Victoria. Thomas McQueen was my great great grandfather.

Alexander was the first born child, and by 1854 there were six children in the family. Tragedy struck on 30 November 1854, with Alexander’s sudden death by drowning, just two weeks before his tenth birthday.

Inquest

The inquest into Alexander’s death was held at The Duke of Wellington Hotel, Flinders Street, Melbourne, on 30 November 1854

DEPOSITION OF WITNESS
The examination of Thomas McQuein, Painter, off Condel Lane, Collingwod taken on oath this 30th day of Nov A.D. 1854, at Melbourne before the undersigned, a Coroner, in the said Colony.
This Deponent on his oath saith as follows:-
The deceased was my son, his name Alexander McQuein, his age, ten years. He left his home yesterday morning at about nine o’clock to go to school. At about two o’clock in the afternoon, a young man came to where I was at work, and told me that a little lad, who he thought was my son, had been drowned. He conducted me to the Duke of Wellington Hotel, where the boy had been removed to. Immediately I recognised it to be the body of my son. I know that he was in the habit of bathing between school hours, but he was very careful not to go in deep water. He could not swim. From what I have been able to ascertain, it appears that my son was bathing with some other lads in the water between the water works, Flinders Street and the River Yarra, and that he slipped into the water in the cutting which conveys the supply of water to the water works. 
(signed, Thomas McQuein)

Coroner’s finding: Accidentally drowned while bathing in the water between Flinders Street East and the waterworks.²

There were no morgues in Melbourne, in the early days of settlement. Inquests took place in public houses, and bodies awaiting inquest were stored in outbuildings. The first morgue was established in the late 1850s and by the 1890s, coronial inquests were held there.

The body of Alexander McQueen was taken to the Duke of Wellington Hotel, Flinders Street Melbourne. While waiting for the inquest he was kept in a fowl-house behind the hotel. ³

“At the end of 1854, dead bodies were still being conveyed to public houses, a practice which served to keep the issue of the morgue alive. The body of Alexander McQueen, a boy who had drowned, was ‘deposited in a fowl-house, exposed to the heat of the atmosphere’ while awaiting inquest, to the distress of his friends and the Argus” -

During the 19th century this name appeared with various spellings: McQueen/McQuein/McEwan

1. Alexander McQueen birth certificate, citing birth on14 December 1844 at Launceston, Tasmania 590/1844; Jones Family History Collection, privately held by Jennifer Jones, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia

2. Public Records Office of Victoria, Coroners Inquest VPRS 24/P Unit 22 File 1854/67, retrieved 5 August 2019

3. Brown-May, A., & Cooke, S. (2004). Death, decency and the dead-house: The city morgue in colonial Melbourne. Provenance: The Journal of Public Record Office Victoria, (3).