Wattan at 10 Blakeney Street in 1926 (State Library of Queensland) and in 2025. (P. Granville).

In this post I’ll look at the characters involved, the incident, and the unexpected outcome of the shooting.

William Kirby alias Spider Raper

William Kirby aka Spider Raper is something of an enigma. His death certificate gives no clue as to his origins and there is no birth registration in either the name of Kirby or Raper. Police records state that he was born at Longreach in around 1899. His mother was Rebecca Kirby, formerly Madden, and his father was unknown.

Kirby was a well known taxi driver who often worked from the Supreme Court rank in George Street. He gained the nickname of “Spider” due to his diminutive stature. In 1924, he drove the wedding car for Joseph “Curley” O’Dea (aka Bertie O’Dea, Howard White, William Williams and Edward Williams) and Lizzie O’Brien (aka Elizabeth O’Dea, Lizzie Stewart, Myrie Conroy, Myrie Johnson and Elizabeth Stuart).

In 1927 Curley was convicted of murder, sentenced to life imprisonment, and let out under parole 20 years later. In accordance with the conditions of his parole, O’Dea returned to prison to complete his sentence less than a year later after committing a crime of bodily harm. Lizzie O’Dea is the subject of the novel “Treading Air” written by Ariella Van Luyn.

The Truth newspaper claimed that Spider had been the previously unnamed driver in a 1925 heist of McCarthy Brother’s warehouse in Woolloongabba. Well known criminal Thomas Hood and his accomplices were pulled up by police outside the workshop. Nearby was a safe they had stolen which it turned out contained just £25. Hood was incriminated by the contents of his pockets, including half a plug of gelignite, a detonator, a piece of fuse, a torch, and a piece of soap.

Spider was not charged as Hood insisted that he had not taken part in the robbery, and there was no other evidence.

Hood was known by an impressive list of aliases including William George Ellis, William George Parsons, Thomas R. Elwell, William Jones, “Sugar” Parsons, William Ambler, William Rawson and William Marsden.

Spider had been fined from time to time for offensive language and other minor offences. By the time of his death, he had lost his driving licence, reportedly for his association with criminals.

Vera Meskell (also known as Miskell)

Lillien Vera Meskell was born in Casino in 1902. She was possibly the Vera Miskell, also known as Vera Norris and Vera Lewis, who was named in a 1927 divorce case in Sydney, referring to events that had occurred in 1924. In that year, there was also reporting of a Vera Miskell who was working as a barmaid in Brisbane. She had stolen a scent bottle and some underwear from Pearl Thompson when at her home for a party. Vera’s response was that she had seen Thompson take £5 from her bag. Vera was placed on a 12 month good behaviour bond.

By 1926, Vera had been living with Spider Raper at Spring Hill for 2 years. The relationship was stormy, and Raper was often violent. Early in December of that year, Vera had left him and gone to live at the Blakeney Street house. She had got to know John Howard, who was renting the house, as he had been a patron of a sly grog establishment also on Blakeney Street, where she had worked. It had been run by Anker and Beatrice Nielson, but shut down by the police in mid 1926.

Not long after Vera had moved to Blakeney Street, Spider began visiting to ask Vera for money and sound out her relationship with another occupant in the house, George Ward.

In its usual inimitable journalistic style, the Truth newspaper described Vera as having ”good looks, a fine figure, and somewhat attractive and seductive manner, just the typical outfit for snaring country bumpkins”. The last comment was a reference to George Ward, recently arrived from the country and also boarding at the Blakeney Street house.

George Ward

George Ward had arrived in Brisbane a few months before the shooting, having decided on a change of scene from Tambo, where he had been born in 1897. There he’d worked as a drover and shearer.

On his way to Brisbane, George had met John Howard who was visiting Toowoomba. George ended up sub-letting a room in the house Howard was renting. He’d met Vera when accompanying Howard to the Blakeney Street “booze joint” before it was shut down, and they had a developing friendship.

The fateful night

On the Saturday night of the shooting, Spider had come around with a group of friends. Everyone had been drinking, but Spider was probably drunk. At around 11pm, Spider asked Vera to come out to the footpath with him for a private conversation, perhaps in an attempt to goad Ward into a fight. He asked Raper, “Are you going to touch her?” to which Spider replied, “No, everything will be alright”. Vera reluctantly went with Spider, and soon after, those inside the house heard Vera screaming. Ward and Howard ran outside and saw Spider with his hands around Vera’s throat and heard the sound of her dress ripping.

A fight ensued, with the unusually strong Spider ripping off a fence paling to use as a weapon, knocking Ward to the ground and then kicking him. Howard and a few of Spider’s friends pulled him off Ward and he, Howard and Vera ran into the house, locking the front door behind them, leaving Spider outside. Spider called out to his friend John O’Dea inside to let him in, but O’Dea didn’t have the key.

Spider started throwing flower pots at the door and bashing against it. Ward ran to get his loaded revolver. Perhaps he had the revolver at the ready as he had heard that the violent Spider was jealous of his relationship with Vera and had made threats. At the time, there were no controls over the selling or purchasing of firearms. Ward fired a few shots at the door to dissuade Spider from coming into the house. The door began to give way, and those in the house retreated to the breakfast room as Spider got back into the house.

Ward opened the breakfast room door just enough to get his revolver through and fired a few more blind warning shots. Unbeknownst to Ward, Spider was in the line of fire. A bullet passed through his shoulder, chest, heart, and part of his liver. He ran back on to the road where he dropped dead in front of his friends.

Ward jumped through a back window and disappeared into the night. The next day, after he read in a newspaper that Spider had died, he turned himself in at a police station.

George is arrested

George Ward was arrested for murder. He appeared before Magistrate Archdall on the 7th of January 1927 and was committed to trial. His father travelled to Toowomba where he was able to get a friend, Felix Probar, to guarantee the hefty £250 bail money. George was required to report to Roma Street Police Station daily.

The trial

The trial commenced on the 21st of February. George’s barrister Edward Stanley did not call any witnesses, but stressed that Ward did not shoot at Raper with any intention to kill. On the second day, after just 20 minutes of deliberation, the jury returned with a verdict of not guilty. Once again, colourful Truth reporting was used to describe the moment.

 The jury, filing into court, returns the verdict “Not Guilty”, and the prisoner in the dock turns and waves an excited hand to the crowd above him, from whom a sudden peal of joyous approbation is emitted.

Life goes on

George does not seem to have married and died in Alice Springs in 1975.

Vera made the news again a few times. In 1928 she was committed to trial for robbery, although there is no prison record indicating that she probably paid a fine. Vera had met a man called George Brown at a friend’s house. He called a taxi and they headed off towards Loganlea where the taxi stopped along the road and they disappeared into the bush. Moments later, Vera reappeared and got into the taxi, telling the driver that Brown wasn’t returning with them. He ran out a few moments later and accused her of stealing £19 from him. Subsequently, a policeman found the money hidden in her shoes.

In 1929 Vera received a hit on the head with a bottle and a badly cut hand from a razor. Her story was that after being out until late with a woman only identified as Mrs. Harris, Claude Thomas, who was living at Harris’s boarding house, had attacked Vera after an argument. His story was that she came home drunk and attacked him, but he was committed for trial, although there is no further reporting or record of imprisonment at that time.

Vera married Gordon Leslie Smith in 1929 and disappeared from public view.