On a dusty road somewhere between Warrnambool and Nirranda, a tinker limped from farm to farm in search of work. He was dressed in a shabby shirt and vest, with dirt under his fingernails and the smell of a man who hadn’t washed in days. He carried scant possessions, a small swag and his tinker’s tools, a hammer, shears and a soldering iron. He looked more like a vagrant than a talented tinsmith. One night, as he made his camp by the Red Waterhole, a mounted constable approached and questioned him. It was a small district where everyone knew everyone else’s business, and any outsiders stuck out like a sore thumb. But the tinker passed the constable’s scrutiny, dismissed as a simple man out looking for work.

Only he wasn’t.

Left: Christie disguised as a tinsmith, taken during his years in the Customs Department. Det. John Christie, [ca 1961], Herald & Weekly Times Limited portrait collection; H38849/742. Right: A young Detective Christie, taken during his time as a Melbourne police detective. Carte de Visite (John Christie), Johnstone, O’Shannessy & Co, Reproduced with permission from the collections of Victoria Police Museum; VPM2629

The man behind the disguise was Detective Inspector John Christie of Melbourne’s Customs Department, and he was undercover. His target? A series of illegal whisky distilleries and the moonshiners who were evading the liquor taxes and costing the government a fortune in lost revenue. Christie had trained for weeks in Melbourne to learn the craft of a tinsmith to pass muster and had wandered the district previously disguised as a swagman preparing detailed maps of potential sites for the illegal stills.¹ He was a man on a mission, a ‘skilful impersonator’,² a ‘shadow’³ and a ‘master of disguise’.⁴

Born in Clackmannan in 1845, a town in a rural area of Scotland to the east of Stirling, Christie emigrated to Australia in 1863 at the age of seventeen. He’d had a regimental upbringing, his father and grandfather had both been military men, and Christie had intended to follow in their footsteps, but providence intervened. He was one of eight children, in a crowded, noisy household and it was decided that Christie should join his uncle, Hugh Reoch, out in Gippsland, Victoria, where he was turning his hand to mining and farming. Leaving behind the rolling hills and the heather of his homeland, Christie sailed to Australia onboard the Commodore Perry,⁵ a young man in search of freedom and adventure.

His uncle’s tragic death by drowning and an unsigned will that robbed Christie of a promised inheritance, meant that within a year of arriving, Christie found himself alone and in need of a new life plan.⁶ According to legend, in 1866 Christie walked into the detective’s office on Little Collins Street and declared his wish to become a detective. He handed over a letter of recommendation that ran for just two lines, declaring Christie to be ‘good with head and hands’.⁷ With that glowing reference, Christie was promptly made a detective. And thus, a legend was born.

There was no training, no need to prove skills of detection and investigation, just an enthusiasm to join a force that was still in its teens in a colony that was rife with violence, corruption and unsavoury characters. Melbourne had established its detective force in 1844 as a separate team to the police constables of the city and mounted constables of the bush. These detectives wore plain clothes (or sometimes disguises) and relied on informers, colloquially known as ‘fiz-gigs’, to feed them information about criminal activities.⁸

Christie served on the detective force from 1866 until 1875, and during that time he was praised for his accomplishments in apprehending all manner of thieves, ruffians and swindlers. When he announced his resignation, a group of thankful residents of the city all chipped in to give him a purse of sovereigns as a sign of their appreciation for his work in ridding Melbourne’s streets of criminals.

But not everyone loved Detective John Christie. In 1870, Christie single-handedly apprehended a gang of seven thieves in a night-time adventure while disguised as a swagman. Among those arrested was George Edwards, an English thief who was convicted of breaking, entering and receiving stolen goods. Christie provided damning evidence at his trial and Edwards was found guilty and sentenced to eight years hard labour at the notorious Pentridge Prison in Coburg.

Edwards spent his years of penal servitude cursing Christie, writing letters on scraps of paper using contraband pencils, protesting his innocence, and Christie’s alleged corruption. In one letter he called Christie a ‘perjurer dog’, a ‘scoundrel’ and a ‘fiend’, and that’s just the names we could publish!

Edwards also recorded daily life in the prison in what he dubbed ‘the short chronicle of the sorrows of George Edwards’, as well as compiling poems and writing a short play. State Library Victoria holds this treasure trove of secret letters in its collection, an intriguing record into the battle between detective and criminal.

After hanging up his detective hat in 1875, Christie turned his attention to other passions. He was a skilled and champion boxer and set up his own athletic hall first on Little Collins Street and then on Swanston Street.⁹ Not content with just one sport, Christie was also a talented rower and the sight of Christie sculling along the Yarra was a familiar one after his departure from the force. He was also a great supporter of charitable organisations, and by the end of his life it was said that he had raised nearly £30,000 for numerous causes.¹⁰

By 1884, Christie was getting the itch for detective work again and took on the role of Detective Inspector in the Customs Department, and it was here the legend of Detective John Christie really grew into notoriety. Descriptions of Christie are numerous, newspaper articles lauded him as a ‘terror to evil-doers’, ‘fearless’, ‘cunning’, stern-faced’ and a ‘steel-eyed nemesis’,¹¹ but also a dignified gentleman; someone who ‘might have been an ambassador’,¹² or who ‘should have been on the stage’.¹³

Disguised as a sailor, Christie acted as bodyguard to the Duke of Edinburgh on his visit to Australia in 1869, a role he repeated in 1901 when the future King and Queen, then Duke and Duchess of York, toured Australia. So impressed were the royals by Detective Christie that they offered him a job in the royal household, a job which Christie regrettably declined saying his ‘heart was in Australia’.¹⁴

At the Customs Department, Christie’s adventures read like those of a Boys Own Annual story, a popular magazine for boys of that time that featured tales of daring escapades from likable heroes. In one case, Christie apprehended a woman suspected of smuggling tins of opium in false pockets in her voluminous skirts.¹⁵ In another, he discovered a man transporting sly grog in a coffin. His list of disguises featured swagman, tinsmith, minstrel, sailor, a steward, a labourer, a seller of the War-Cry magazine, a clergyman, and interestingly a disguise that one newspaper called ‘the book fiend’ which Christie adopted to catch imports of banned books.¹⁶

In 1898, Christie was also involved in a bizarre case in which a doctor smuggled bubonic plague microbes into Australia from India, causing a public health panic and a stand-off at a house in Macarthur between the doctor and the customs officials.

Left: Cover of The reminiscences of Detective-Inspector Christie. Right: Handwritten manuscript of John Christie recounting his life story for the book, in Papers of John Christie, c 1866-1910; MS 13666

Many of Christie’s exciting escapades are recounted in the book The reminiscences of Detective-Inspector Christie, which was published in 1911. State Library Victoria holds several copies of this title which provides a fascinating insight into crime, detectives and Victorian history. We also hold Christie’s personal papers related to the book, which includes his handwritten accounts of the stories that feature in the text.

Christie retired from the Customs Department in 1910 not long after sustaining injuries when a gang of opium smugglers attacked him while he was on a stake out at Victoria Docks. He never fully recovered from the attack and was forced to retire through ill-health on his sixty-fifth birthday.

When Christie died in 1927 at his home in Northcote, the newspapers recounted tales of his escapades, near-misses and daring adventures, with some even comparing him to Sherlock Holmes. His extraordinary life is captured in newspapers, his book of reminiscences, and through Christie’s own scrapbook and papers kept at State Library Victoria. These are a permanent reminder of a career and life of adventure.

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References

1. Lahey, J, 1993, Damn you John Christie! The public life of Australia’s Sherlock Holmes, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, pp 1-2
2. The Advertiser, 12 January 1927, p 9
3. The Herald, 11 January 1927, p 1
4. Sun News-Pictorial, 11 August 1932, p 7
5. Christie, J M, 1911, The reminiscences of Detective-Inspector Christie, George Robertson, Melbourne, pp 9-10
6. As above, p 13
7. As above, p 15
8. Victoria Police, 1997, ‘Detective story’, Journal of Police History, Autumn edition, pp 5-17
9. Anderson, H, 2006, Christie, John Mitchell (1845–1927), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, viewed 6 March 2025
10. The Herald, 11 January 1927, p 1
11. The Register, 20 December 1913, p 4
12. As above
13. Lahey, J, 1993, Damn you John Christie! The public life of Australia’s Sherlock Holmes, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, p 1
14. Christie, John, Scrapbook, 1897-1905, MS 12720, State Library Victoria
15. Christie, J M, 1911, The reminiscences of Detective-Inspector Christie, George Robertson, Melbourne, pp 172-3
16. Christie, John, Scrapbook, 1897-1905, MS 12720, State Library Victoria

Tags: detectives — John Christie — melbourne — police — Royal visits