As a young lad, John Bayliss’s chance discovery solved a fifteen-year-old mystery.
John Bayliss was born around 1856, the third child of John Bayliss and Ann McLaughlin. When young John was an infant, his father was admitted to Yarra Bend Asylum as a pauper and dangerous lunatic. He died from apoplexy six months later at the end of October 1857.
The following year, Ann married George Ball, a labourer and skilled dry stone waller. In 1869, George was employed by Hugh Murray on fencing work at Ti Tree Station on the shores of Lake Corangamite. He was accompanied by his stepson, John Bayliss.
While chasing a rabbit across a mound of volcanic rock, young John made a discovery that solved a fifteen-year-old mystery — the fate of missing shepherd Thomas Brookhouse.
John spent most of his working life as a labourer around Colac. Not long before his death he moved to Camperdown, where his mother became the licensee of the Hampden Hotel.
One Monday in early November 1884, John and his brother travelled to Melbourne for the Cup Day races. Shortly after arriving, John was seized with illness and never recovered. He died aged just twenty-three.
The young labourer who had unknowingly solved one of the district’s lingering mysteries was buried in Colac after a life shaped by hardship and extraordinary chance.
Research by Raye Loughnan
Story by Lynette Genua

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