The Curious Case of the Stolen Mace

In 1891, the sacred symbol of the Victorian Parliament, its ceremonial mace, was stolen. A long, heavy club topped with a crown, it was popularly thought to be made of solid gold. The colony’s best detectives, a dour Scot named Tom Nixon and the famous Ned Kelly-hunter Mick Ward, were assigned to the case, but the mace was never recovered. No one was ever charged and a substantial reward remains unclaimed. Was the thief a corrupt politician who took the mace to a brothel on a drunken lark? A parliamentary worker who was seen with an odd-shaped package? A carpenter who snuck in through an open window? Or a political activist? In The Curious Case of the Missing Mace, old and new evidence – including letters, witness statements and police reports – are pieced together after 135 years to reveal the thief and how he got away with the political crime of the century just as Melbourne was sinking into political and economic chaos caused by theft on a much grander scale.