John Christopher Coffey : Short Biography

John enlisted in the British Army on 7 December 1812 and was placed in the 3rd Regiment of Foot (Buffs). The muster papers recording his enlistment state that he was born in Currans, Co Kerry. He served in the Peninsula against Napoleon's armies, then in Canada during the last year of the War of 1812 against the United States. He was then in France for a period as part of the occupying force following Waterloo, and following that was stationed back in Ireland. In 1824 he was sent to New South Wales, Australia, as a detachment guarding transported convicts. Shortly after arriving in Sydney he was sent north to Maitland in the Hunter Valley, where he gained a moment of fame for shooting and killing the leader of a gang of bushrangers known as Jacob's Mob. Shortly thereafter, in 1825, he was attached to the first group of mounted police in New South Wales. The mounted police was drawn entirely from the most highly regarded men in the Infantry Regiments stationed in the colony, and its intended role was to pursue bushrangers and to protect settlers from depredations of the aborigines. The role against the aborigines was considered a policing matter at the time, but today is often referred to as Australia's Frontier Wars. 

John moved around as a trooper with the mounted police, and found himself stationed in an area known as Berrima in the 1830s. There he married an Irishwoman named Margaret Legass. Margaret was an orphan from a Wicklow family descended from Huguenots who had fled France some time past. She spent her childhood in the Foundling Hospital before being moved to the Workhouse. She eventually took a payment of 10 pounds to emigrate to Australia as part of the 'bounty brides' scheme. In 1834, John discharged from the Army, as the mounted police was beginning the process of transitioning from a military unit to a civil administered and funded unit. In 1835, he briefly became the Chief Constable of an area known as Bong Bong near Berrima. His time as Chief Constable was not the highlight of his career, as he was involved in an unfortunate incident that made the newspapers back in Sydney. John's discharge gave him the unflattering description of 'drunk and irregular'. It had been a decade between John being considered one of the best men in his regiment and him being characterized as drunk and irregular. Quite likely the role of the mounted police in the early days had negatively effected him in significant ways. 

According to court documents, John turned up at a bakery one morning with another constable and a shackled prisoner in tow. Apparently John was very intoxicated at the time. He overheard a man, Joseph Paget, complaining about high prices, which John took offence to for some reason. So John did what any reasonable person would do under those circumstances and beat the snot out of Mr Paget and then took him into custody (on what charge we will never know). Mr Paget started screaming 'murder', so a servant from the bakery came running. John then did what any well-balanced and reasonable person would do under those circumstances; he pistol whipped the servant into unconsciousness. After all this excitement, John and his constable left the building and yelling was heard, followed by several gunshots. Apparently, while beating the men inside the bakery, they had forgotten they had a prisoner outside, who had taken his opportunity to do a runner. So John did what any reasonable person would do under those circumstances; he went back inside, said to Mr Paget 'Damn your eyes! Because of you we have lost our prisoner' and proceeded to beat him again. John found himself convicted of assault. He was dismissed from his position in Bong Bong after a tenure of only four months. Interestingly, he still managed to remain a police officer for another year after this event before he was discharged.

John and Margaret moved to Sydney after his discharge and settled in the Castlereagh Street area. His profession was listed in various documents over the ensuing years as 'labourer' and 'dealer', although dealer of what is never mentioned. They had a handful of children, who scattered around the colony over time. John died in 1861 following a short illness, and Margaret survived almost into triple figures before dying of 'senile decay' in Newington Asylum, Sydney.