Outcast: The Extraordinary Life and Death of Etienne Jean Brocher
by Brian Stoddart
At a few minutes after 8am on Wednesday 21 April 1897, in a small courtyard inside Wellington’s Terrace Gaol, a hooded Frenchman ended a murmured prayer with, “Mon Jesu, Miserere”. Whereupon the hangman flanking him pulled a lever and precipitated Etienne Brocher into both eternity and judicial controversy.
If ever there was a story of a square peg in a round hole, Brian Stoddart’s tale of Etienne Brocher / Stephen Bosher is it. But while that expression usually carries an implication of censure for the lack of malleability shown by the ‘square peg’; a lack indeed amply demonstrated by Bosher throughout his life, Stoddart’s examination of the ‘round hole’ that was Victorian New Zealand pulls no punches in its examination of its flaws, foibles and mores. So it is pertinent—at some risk of over-simplification—to look at the society delineated by those flaws, foibles and mores.
The principles guiding British settlement of these shores of ‘Little Britain’ were largely designed to create planned communities that replicated existing British society, rather than any form of theoretical socialist utopia. This included the social inequality of ‘Home’ as part of the right and proper nature of things, together with those social structures that not only made it right and proper, but included pathways to improvement dependent upon aspiration bolstered and monitored by an efficient police force and legal system. Put simply and briefly, New Zealanders of the 19th century were interested in improving their status in life by working hard, obeying the Queen’s laws , honouring God and amassing the blessings of life.
Etienne Brocher was an affront to all these notions. In a xenophobic age when ‘Rule Britannia’ was top of the pops and ‘Wogs began at Calais’ he was French, for a start. But that was the only thing he couldn’t help, and the author does a magnificent job of tracing the trail of larceny, false pretences, bigamy and imprisonment for which ‘poor education and behavioural development had completed his preparation for an erratic life’.
In and around his odyssey of offences and hand-to-mouth existence in New Zealand eyes, Bosher also managed to offend the conscription laws of his homeland to the tune of no longer being welcome on or in French territory either.
In August 1896, two Petone storekeepers, Mr and Mrs Joseph Jones, were found murdered in their premises, apparently in the course of a robbery. The first suspect was a local celebrity as a rugby player and sportsman who had a problem with alcohol, but the police case against him was exceedingly thin and, as enquiries continued, became even thinner because of the outpourings of sympathy in his favour. Stoddart makes the point that public confidence in the Petone police at that time was uniformly low, and wasn’t helped by their inability to pursue the case. In a word, they needed a win.
At that point, police interest switched to Bosher, who had volunteered evidence against the first accused, Shore, and they carried out a series of interviews that became ever more pointed as time went on until they felt confident enough to charge him with the murders, even upon the flimsiest of evidence, although it is notable that they kept Shore in remand as a ‘backup’.
In the chapter entitled ‘Vortex’, Stoddart outlines a ‘perfect storm’ of legal anomalies and conflicts of interest that would have the Crown case instantly thrown out of a modern court. He sums up brilliantly in the words: “So Stephen Bosher was on trial for his life before a judge who was hearing his first murder case; the prosecutor, on poor terms with that judge, came from the social elite’ the defence counsel was distracted [He was concurrently pursuing election to a seat in Parliament: MJB] and the populace wanted revenge”. He goes on to note the social gulf between Bosher and the jury that makes nonsense of the requirement of ‘a jury of his peers’.
The development of the trial and the evidence presented is meticulously examined by Stoddart, and the reader’s mounting sense of horror is equalled only by the amount of evidence either suppressed, not presented or not followed up. Yes, Bosher was a thoroughly unwholesome fellow. Yes, he’d done some pretty nasty things to others. But the age didn’t recognise the handicap of a poor start in anyone’s life. Nor did it offer him credit, in its assessment, for abstaining from alcohol nor for his membership of a religious organisation owning the highest of principles, nor for the fact that, when all was said and done, the catalogue of Bosher’s offences involved property rather than people, and certainly nothing remotely like murder.
And, topping the list of things Victorian New Zealand didn’t offer him, was anything like a fair trial.
The summation on the back cover—“this stunning biography makes a vital contribution to our understanding of how colonial New Zealand shaped its ideal society and what could happen when ‘outsiders’ didn’t fit the mould.”—says it all.
by Brian Stoddart
At a few minutes after 8am on Wednesday 21 April 1897, in a small courtyard inside Wellington’s Terrace Gaol, a hooded Frenchman ended a murmured prayer with, “Mon Jesu, Miserere”. Whereupon the hangman flanking him pulled a lever and precipitated Etienne Brocher into both eternity and judicial controversy.
If ever there was a story of a square peg in a round hole, Brian Stoddart’s tale of Etienne Brocher / Stephen Bosher is it. But while that expression usually carries an implication of censure for the lack of malleability shown by the ‘square peg’; a lack indeed amply demonstrated by Bosher throughout his life, Stoddart’s examination of the ‘round hole’ that was Victorian New Zealand pulls no punches in its examination of its flaws, foibles and mores. So it is pertinent—at some risk of over-simplification—to look at the society delineated by those flaws, foibles and mores.
The principles guiding British settlement of these shores of ‘Little Britain’ were largely designed to create planned communities that replicated existing British society, rather than any form of theoretical socialist utopia. This included the social inequality of ‘Home’ as part of the right and proper nature of things, together with those social structures that not only made it right and proper, but included pathways to improvement dependent upon aspiration bolstered and monitored by an efficient police force and legal system. Put simply and briefly, New Zealanders of the 19th century were interested in improving their status in life by working hard, obeying the Queen’s laws , honouring God and amassing the blessings of life.
Etienne Brocher was an affront to all these notions. In a xenophobic age when ‘Rule Britannia’ was top of the pops and ‘Wogs began at Calais’ he was French, for a start. But that was the only thing he couldn’t help, and the author does a magnificent job of tracing the trail of larceny, false pretences, bigamy and imprisonment for which ‘poor education and behavioural development had completed his preparation for an erratic life’.
In and around his odyssey of offences and hand-to-mouth existence in New Zealand eyes, Bosher also managed to offend the conscription laws of his homeland to the tune of no longer being welcome on or in French territory either.
In August 1896, two Petone storekeepers, Mr and Mrs Joseph Jones, were found murdered in their premises, apparently in the course of a robbery. The first suspect was a local celebrity as a rugby player and sportsman who had a problem with alcohol, but the police case against him was exceedingly thin and, as enquiries continued, became even thinner because of the outpourings of sympathy in his favour. Stoddart makes the point that public confidence in the Petone police at that time was uniformly low, and wasn’t helped by their inability to pursue the case. In a word, they needed a win.
At that point, police interest switched to Bosher, who had volunteered evidence against the first accused, Shore, and they carried out a series of interviews that became ever more pointed as time went on until they felt confident enough to charge him with the murders, even upon the flimsiest of evidence, although it is notable that they kept Shore in remand as a ‘backup’.
In the chapter entitled ‘Vortex’, Stoddart outlines a ‘perfect storm’ of legal anomalies and conflicts of interest that would have the Crown case instantly thrown out of a modern court. He sums up brilliantly in the words: “So Stephen Bosher was on trial for his life before a judge who was hearing his first murder case; the prosecutor, on poor terms with that judge, came from the social elite’ the defence counsel was distracted [He was concurrently pursuing election to a seat in Parliament: MJB] and the populace wanted revenge”. He goes on to note the social gulf between Bosher and the jury that makes nonsense of the requirement of ‘a jury of his peers’.
The development of the trial and the evidence presented is meticulously examined by Stoddart, and the reader’s mounting sense of horror is equalled only by the amount of evidence either suppressed, not presented or not followed up. Yes, Bosher was a thoroughly unwholesome fellow. Yes, he’d done some pretty nasty things to others. But the age didn’t recognise the handicap of a poor start in anyone’s life. Nor did it offer him credit, in its assessment, for abstaining from alcohol nor for his membership of a religious organisation owning the highest of principles, nor for the fact that, when all was said and done, the catalogue of Bosher’s offences involved property rather than people, and certainly nothing remotely like murder.
And, topping the list of things Victorian New Zealand didn’t offer him, was anything like a fair trial.
The summation on the back cover—“this stunning biography makes a vital contribution to our understanding of how colonial New Zealand shaped its ideal society and what could happen when ‘outsiders’ didn’t fit the mould.”—says it all.
Review by MJ Burr
Title: Outcast: The Extraordinary Life and Death of Etienne Jean Brocher
Author: Brian Stoddart
Publisher: Quentin Wilson Publishing
ISBN: 9781991103833
RRP: $35.00
Available: bookshops
Author: Brian Stoddart
Publisher: Quentin Wilson Publishing
ISBN: 9781991103833
RRP: $35.00
Available: bookshops
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