"Untitled" (Northern West N.S.W near QLD border)

Date of creation: late 1970s

A former prison officer at Boggo Road Gaol bought his painting at c.1978(1) in a barber shop in Brisbane, from William John O'Meally who was working there as a barber.

Writing on the back of the painting:

Bill O’Meally was the last prisoner to be flogged in Pentridge Jail; (Melb.) 

I obtained this painting from him after he cut my hair in Llod Watt’s Golden Goose Barber Shop in Adelaide Street, approx. 1978.

He spent most of his life in jail.

Last I heard of him he was found unconscious on a  Brisbane City footpath 1978(1).

Scene is in Northern West N.S.W near QLD border.

William John O'Meally (born Joseph Thompson, November 25, 1920 – 1995) was a notorious Australian criminal who gained infamy as the last man to be flogged in Victoria in 1958.

O'Meally had a lengthy criminal history, starting in his youth with offences like assault and housebreaking. By 1952, he had accumulated 42 convictions, including five for assaulting police. In February 1952, he murdered Constable George Howell and was sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment without parole.

In March 1957, he escaped with another prisoner, John Henry Taylor, during which a chief penal officer was shot and wounded. Both were recaptured and sentenced to further imprisonment and twelve strokes of the cat-o'-nine-tails.

The flogging was controversial, and while legally carried out, it marked a turning point and contributed to the eventual decline and abolishment of corporal punishment in Australian prisons. Although some isolated instances of birching (a form of corporal punishment with a bundle of birch twigs) occurred later in other states for juvenile offences, O'Meally's flogging with the cat-o'-nine-tails is the generally accepted "last" of its kind for an adult in Australia.

O'Meally served 27 years in prison before being released on parole in 1979. His criminal career and the controversial flogging he received made him a significant figure in Australian criminal history. He passed away in rural Queensland in 1995.

(1) O'Meally was released from Pentridge on 5 July 1979.

Original location: Brisbane?

Private Collection