Am I related to the the ‘mad butcher of Queen Street’?

One of the richest and most notorious men in Queensland’s history also happened to be a Mayne. The “mad butcher of Queen St” as he is sometimes referred to, might just be a relative of mine.

Patrick Mayne came to Australia as a young Irishman with little to his name, and a relentless desire to make it big in a country that promised to reward hard work. Starting as a slaughterman in an abattoir, Mayne later opened his own butcher shop on Queen St, Brisbane, and with the profits of his business he continued to purchase many acres of the land available in the area. Before long he owned about 1000 acres in the Brisbane CBD, he was one of the richest men in Queensland.

He was always considered to be a rather volatile character and it was on his deathbed that is said that he confessed to the murder of a man, a crime for which the wrong man was also hanged for. It was not sure what to make of this at the time, but a year before Mayne opened his butcher shop (which would have been very hard to achieve on a slaughterman’s wage) in 1849, a man named Robert Cox was brutally murdered – butchered you could say – with the £900 he was bragging about earlier in the night, stolen from his remains.

But is Patrick Mayne one of the Maynes on my family tree?

There is no definitive way to proof whether or not he is, but there is quite a bit of evidence that points to the possibility of him being a relative.

Mayne emigrated from the town of Cookstown, Tyrone in Northern Ireland. Cookstown is next town over from Omagh and he lived only 30 kilometres from the residence of Francis Maynes in 1830. This is no definitive proof but you would expect that someone living so close with the same surname would be somewhat related.

It is also said that one of the children of Peter and Edith Maynes was once contacted regarding inheritance to the Mayne family of Brisbane, although the offer was declined due to the disgrace surrounding the money.

Furthermore descendants of those immediately related to Patrick Mayne in Cookstown speak of distant relatives who live in Omagh. While these may be considered distant relatives now, if you were to jump back four or five generations they would have been much closer related.

Whilst there is no damning evidence, it would be hard to believe that Patrick Mayne wouldn’t fall into the family tree somewhere; after all he fits the bill in a few ways.