William Bairstow Ingham

A young Anne Brontë was employed as a governess at Blake Hall to educate the Ingham children, whose behaviour included spitting at her and throwing her belongings out the window.

With a considerable amount of money acquired through his family, he decided in 1873 to travel to the British colonies in Australia where he joined his brother at the Malahide property near Fingal in Tasmania.

He abandoned growing sugar and instead constructed a saw mill and bought a small stern-wheel paddle steamer to ferry goods on the Herbert River and along the coast.

[2][3] In 1876, Ingham utilised his vessel to assist Sub-Inspector Robert Arthur Johnstone of the Native Police in his expedition to find a supply route and a suitable port for the Hodgkinson goldfields.

[2] In his memoirs, Sub-Inspector Johnstone recalled how Ingham placed the mummified remains of an Aboriginal person on the water-tank on board the Louisa which subsequently caused an illness among the passengers.

[6] Acting on reports that gold was to be found in the vicinity of Port Moresby in New Guinea, Ingham borrowed money in early 1878 and chartered a vessel to go there to establish a trading store.

A large group of prospectors aboard the Colonist arrived at the port in April 1878 and Ingham was appointed as an "agent for Government of Queensland".

The British High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, Sir Arthur Gordon, advised that Ingham's role be reined in to avoid embarrassment.

Despite expecting violence, Ingham and his crew were welcomed by the people of Utian when he arrived there on 24 November 1878, organising him a feast and helping him collect the beche-de-mer equipment.

[13] When news of Ingham's and the crew's murder and cannibalism reached the Australian colonies, newspapers such as The Queenslander called for "swift and severe punishment" of the "treacherous and bloodthirsty savages" of Utian Island.

It was suggested that a Royal Navy war vessel from the Australia Station be despatched immediately and that "every male native in the village at Brooker Island of 15 years up to the oldest greybeard of the tribe has deserved death".