Sand on the Gumshoe

RANDOLPH BEDFORD

Bedford was born at Camperdown, Sydney, in 1868, and a taste for adventure that was never quite fulfilled propelled him across the continent from a very early age. By the late 1880s he had settled into journalism, writing for a number of newspapers and magazines, including The Bulletin.

A continuing interest in mining, both as a promoter and amateur engineer financed his travels. He combined mining and journalism with the creation of the Clarion, a much respected journal that ran from 1897 until 1909. He spent the early years of the twentieth century in Europe, where his first novels, including True Eyes and The Whirlwind (London, Duckworth, 1903), were published.

Bedford produced novels, short stories, plays and articles although his mining endeavours often took precedence. At one time or another, so it was said, Bedford inhabited every mining field in Australia and New Zealand and doubtless turned a profit in each one. In 1923, for example, he was the promoter of a fledgling field at a distant north-west Queensland location known as Mount Isa.

Bedford ’s third career was as a politician. He unsuccessfully campaigned in a number of elections until 1917 when he won a seat in Queensland ’s Legislative Council. In 1934, after assisting in the dismantling of the Upper House, he transferred to the Legislative Assembly, representing the outback seat of Warrego until his death in 1941.

During his lifetime, Bedford was much read and admired although his reputation is now negligible. In 1965 Norman Lindsay, with whom Bedford worked at The Bulletin, commented perhaps rather too cruelly: ‘His novels have long since sunk into that mysterious abyss where all the transient art of a generation goes.’

The Billy Pagan stories, published in 1911, display Bedford ’s descriptive skills and keen eye for detail. The locations vary from Western Australia to Tasmania and northern Queensland as Pagan, a largely autobiographical character who first appeared in True Eyes and the Whirlwind, displays a cerebral approach to crime detection that would do Sherlock Holmes proud.