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<\/p>\n
Henry Rood Palling was only 15 when he fronted a Bristol magistrate at the beginning of 1852.<\/p>\n
He was found guilty and sentenced to nine months imprisonment while his accomplice, Mary Bennett, spent six months behind bars.<\/p>\n
For Henry senior, it is likely that emigration provided a chance to flee from both grief and the social ostracization stemming from his son\u2019s imprisonment.<\/p>\n
However, Henry Rood Palling was young and hot-headed with a penchant for finding trouble.<\/p>\n
He married Jane Graham on 11 April 1856 at Heathcote, six days shy of his 21st birthday although the certificate gives his age as 21.<\/p>\n
While the couple did go on to have a long marriage and 12 children, Henry\u2019s wandering eye would get him into serious trouble within a few short years.<\/p>\n
By February 1860 he was accused of shooting with intent to kill after a scuffle with local publican Henry O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n
Henry Rood Palling was having an affair with O\u2019Neill\u2019s wife Mary and things came to a head when O\u2019Neill confronted him and challenged him to a fight.<\/p>\n
Palling\u2019s gun was discharged during the brawl and O\u2019Neill was wounded.<\/p>\n
Contemporary court reports record that bad blood between the two men had been festering for some time.<\/p>\n
Palling was quoted as saying, \u201cYou knocked me down and bit me nearly two years since and I’ve had it in for you ever since\u201d.<\/p>\n
The charges were serious enough for the case to be transferred to Melbourne and although Palling was found guilty, he received a three-month sentence after O\u2019Neill pleaded for leniency.<\/p>\n
Henry\u2019s affair with Mary O\u2019Neill continued and she was to later receive an ongoing annuity from his will, while her daughter Emily, born in 1862, received a specific bequest which points to her being his child.<\/p>\n
Like many of his small-town contemporaries, Henry had a number of business ventures on the go at any given time.<\/p>\n
His marriage certificate lists his occupation as butcher, but he also became a barber as well as a cordial and aerated waters manufacturer.<\/p>\n
He was elected to the Sandhurst Mining Board in the 1870s, he served on the hospital and mechanics institute committees, and was also a McIvor Shire auditor.<\/p>\n
By the time he died in 1898, at the age of 62, he had amassed a sizable estate worth \u00a34751.<\/p>\n
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