John O'Connell Bligh

John O'Connell Bligh (3 March 1834 – 12 October 1880) was a Native Police officer in the British colonies of New South Wales and Queensland. He achieved the rank of Commandant of this colonial paramilitary force from 1861 to 1864. Bligh is probably best known for an incident in Maryborough, where he conducted a number of summary executions of Aboriginal Australians along the main street and into the adjoining Mary River. After retiring from the Native Police, Bligh became a police magistrate in the towns of Gayndah and Gympie.

John O'Connell Bligh was born in 1834 in Buckinghamshire, England. His parents, Richard and Elizabeth Bligh, were 3rd cousins. As Elizabeth was the third child of Vice Admiral William Bligh of the mutiny on the Bounty fame, John was therefore a grandchild of this well known former Governor of New South Wales. Bligh emigrated to Australia probably around 1850 and lived with his brother Richard John Bligh who had been Commissioner for Crown Lands and head of the Border Police at Warialda since 1847. John was appointed Registrar of the Small Debts Court at Warialda in 1852.

Bligh was appointed by the New South Wales Government to the position of sub-Lieutenant in the Native Police on 7 April 1853. He was nineteen years old. Bligh seems to have been posted to the Wide Bay region on a regular basis early on in his career. He captured a runaway convict named John Fahey (a.k.a. Gilberry) who had been living with the local Kabi Kabi for around eleven years. In order to arrest Gilberry, Bligh and his troopers handcuffed all the "station blacks" at Barambah pastoral station around a large gum tree to prevent him from receiving any information that the Native Police were nearby. Fahey was sent to Cockatoo Island prison but was soon assigned to be an interpreter on the exploratory journey of A.C. Gregory.

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