Person:Richard Porter (13)

RICHARD JOHN was born at Black Hill on December 18th, 1867, the seventh child of Richard and Phyllis. Like James, Richard was named as one of the “Old Boys” of Scarsdale school in 1911 and it is believed he transferred from a private school in 1871, when Scarsdale school opened. Richard married Norah Jones in 1902, they had one son, Richard. The following obituary from a Melbourne newspaper tells us of the “Man” and the “Policeman”.

STRONG MAN RESTS

POLICE OFFICER WON RESPECT

HIS RAPID RISE

Many people quite apart from his ex-colleagues of the police force, will mourn the death of ex-Superintendent Richard John Porter. Well over six feet in height, enormously heavy, strong as a Colossus, he was a man full of laughter, who made friends and kept friends, and never let them down.

The men who knew him and worked under him in the police force remember him mainly for his fearlessness and downrightness. He was a man who loved to face an, angry mob. Fear was an unknown emotion to him. For a long time he worked on the wharves during troublous times, during past seamen’s and wharf labourers’ strikes. His strength was such that, with an open-handed blow, he could send an ordinary man spinning half across a street, and many were the strikers who felt the weight of his fist at times.

Yet even these men, it is said, liked him and respect him, perhaps because he never sought trouble of his own accord and never presumed upon his uniform to act the bully. He joined the police force in May, 1891. Promotion was a long time in coming. It was not till September 1916 that he became as much as a senior-constable. When it started however, it was rapid. In June, 1921, he was made a second-class sergeant. By December, 1923, he had won to first-class rank. His sub- inspectorship followed the following year. A year later, still, in 1925, he became a full inspector, and, in June, 1926, a superintendent.

He helped to organise the Police Traffic Branch and was closely associated with it from 1922 to 1926. Then as superintendent, he was sent to take charge of the southern division, with headquarters at Geelong. But little time was left to him in the service. In 1927 he reached retiring age and it is only the old hands who remember him clearly now. Nine years is a long time in human memory. He died at his home in Gardiner Street, Richmond, on Saturday last, after a long illness. He was 68. A wife and son survive him.