Frederick Pottinger

Sir Frederick William Pottinger, 2nd Baronet (27 April 18319 April 1865) was a police inspector in New South Wales, Australia, who gained fame for his fight against bushrangers.

Early life Pottinger was born in India, son of Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Pottinger of the British East India Company, and his wife Susanna Maria, née Cooke, of Dublin. He was educated privately before attending Eton from 1844 to 1847.

Career In 1850, Pottinger purchased a commission in the Grenadier Guards and served in England until 1854. Active in social life, he lost much of his adoring mother's wealth on the race-course. In 1856, he succeeded his father as second baronet and soon dissipated his inheritance. Forced by debt to leave England, he migrated to Sydney. After failing on the goldfields he joined the New South Wales police force as a mounted trooper. A superb horseman, he spent the next few years on the gold escort between Gundagai and Goulburn. That incident earned Pottinger the nickname "Blind Freddie", which has since entered into the Australian vernacular.

The police arrested a young boy on suspicion of being an accomplice of Gardiner, and allowed him to remain in the lock-up without comforts. The boy's death from gaol fever in March 1863 further diminished Pottinger's reputation. On 27 September 1862, Pottinger appeared before a Bathurst court on a charge of assault.

He again became the subject of public notice in February 1863, when he attended the Sydney trials of the escort robbers and was jostled by larrikins in the street. He also threatened politician Joseph Harpur with his whip for charges made against him in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly. Meanwhile, the bushrangers in his district became more active. He later captured Patrick Daley but, on 17 August 1864, failed to arrest James Alpin McPherson.

In May 1863, the inspector-general had directed the police to act on their own initiative. Early in January 1865, hoping to lure Hall and his associate, fellow bushranger John Dunn, into the open, Pottinger rode in the Wowingragong races, in breach of police regulations. Despite his claim that his action "fully warranted the discretionary departure in point from the letter (tho' not the spirit)" of the regulation, he was dismissed from the police force on 16 February 1865. Protest meetings against his dismissal were held on the diggings and in the towns, with petitions for his reappointment.

Death On 5 March 1865, at Wascoe's Inn in the Blue Mountains, while boarding a moving coach on his way to Sydney to seek redress, Pottinger accidentally shot himself in the upper abdomen. He recovered sufficiently to be moved to the Victoria Club in Sydney, but he died intestate on 9 April 1865, and was buried at St Jude's Anglican Church, Randwick. He was succeeded by his brother, Henry, as 3rd Baronet.