Introducing Charlotte King Charlotte is a researcher with the ABC’s Regional Investigations...
Twilight Talks 2024, Season 3 | How James Became King…details coming soon
This date is still tentative
Humffray Room
Subject: The True Story of James 'King' O'Malley
‘King’ O’Malley is known to history as a ‘larrikin’ and maverick politician, member of the first Australian Federal Parliament and Federal Minister, whose political career spanned two decades.
Arriving from America in the late 1880s he quickly drew attention through his public shenanigans; his theatrical storytelling, fashionable accoutrements, and ‘larger than life’ Yankee persona. However, his past remained shrouded in mystery.
Yet, on the other side of the Pacific another mystery remained unresolved. Following the notorious 1882 New Haven, Connecticut, trial and acquittal of James Malley, main suspect in the death of Jennie Cramer, Malley disappears from official records in the north east United States, and the saga begins.
This is the story of how James became ‘King’.
Speaker: Brian O'Malley
Brian O’Malley is a retired Australian Federal public servant with experience in law enforcement functions and wide range of work and travel experience.
Has has won the ACT Marjorie Graber-McInnes short story competition and was short listed in Shoalhaven national short story competition.
He has been an amateur genealogist for 40 years, has lived in United Kingdom for 8 years, and two years in Canada on secondment to Canadian Government.
Brian has uncovered the dark secret taken to the grave by a founding father of Australia’s 1901 Federal Parliament, ‘King’ O’Malley.
A 100 year old scrapbook of family memorabilia.
In the book is an errant photograph of a high-profile namesake of the author – a politician and member of the first Australian Federal Parliament. This arouses curiosity about a possible family connection.
During the 1890s this parliamentarian obfuscates his past, claiming Canadian birth to enable him to stand for Australian parliament, elaborating a fantastical story of his nativity and early years in North America to enable him to be elected.
The author commences a search to uncover a family connection.
Reconstructing the purported family tree of the main actor reveals a family in New Haven, which was the centre of a sensational murder in 1881 and the subsequent trial in 1882 . The trial was a national and internationally identified miscarriage of justice, bankrolled by an uncle of the accused. Witnesses and the judiciary allegedly have their mouths ‘covered with greenbacks’. The author locates a photograph of the accused – James Malley – and it bears a striking resemblance to the Australian Politician ‘King’ O’Malley – and the journey begins…
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