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Imperial Servicemen and Police Killed in Direct Aboriginal Attacks, 1788–1934
These companion research schedules record identified British imperial servicemen and police personnel killed in direct Aboriginal attacks in the British colonies that later became Australia. The military schedule covers the period from the arrival of the Royal Marines in 1788 until the final British regiment left Australia in 1870. The police schedule begins with the establishment of Australia’s first civilian police force, the Night Watch in Sydney in 1789, and continues to 1934. Both are working research schedules and will be updated as additional primary-source evidence is identified and verified.
What does the evidence actually show?
To date, this research identifies 14 British imperial servicemen killed in direct Aboriginal attacks between 1788 and 1870. They were not killed in set-piece battles between opposing armies. The recorded deaths occurred principally in isolated frontier incidents, often involving individuals, small parties or detachments far from anything resembling a conventional battlefield.
Police deaths belong in a separate category. Colonial police were law-enforcement bodies, not military forces. Police officers could be armed and could take part in violent frontier operations, but the death of a police officer does not, by itself, transform civil violence into war.
The distinction matters. Violence is not automatically war; an armed victim is not automatically a soldier in battle; and the presence of police or troops does not, without more, establish warfare
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