He held the licence for the next four years, before it was taken on by local horse trainer and jockey Martin Ryan. Ryan had previously been in charge of the Toorale stud, when Toorale was renowned for the quality of its horses. While competing in a steeplechase at Randwick as a young man, Ryan had a bad fall from a horse named “Kangaroo” and lay unconscious for three weeks.
Ryan held the licence for the Commercial Hotel until 1897 when it was taken on by the unfortunate John Connell. A keen sportsman, Connell held horse racing and sports days at a track near the pub. At one such sports day in December 1899, which included running races and quoits, The Western Herald reported that a large number of people had travelled down from Bourke and declared the occasion “a decided success”.
“They speak in glowing terms of the princely way they were treated down there. Their express determination to go to any other sports held at the hotel speaks for itself.”
But it was Connell’s love for pigeon shooting that almost cost him his life. Spying some pigeons on the road nearby, Connell went into the hotel and loaded his gun. Deciding to have a quick drink before departing, he grabbed his gun by the barrel and was walking around the bar, when one of the hammers struck a chair and the resulting gunshot tore away his right cheek.
The accident occurred around 3.30pm, but it wasn’t until 1am the next day that a doctor was able to attend the hotel, by which time Connell was near dying from loss of blood. Despite initial reports that Connell’s wounds were dire, he appears to have made a fairly speedy recovery and was advertising a sports day at the hotel just months later.
Sadly, John Connell’s tenure at the Commercial Hotel came to a tragic end in June of 1901 when his wife Marie Teresa Connell fell victim to typhoid.
“Only three and a half weeks ago Mrs. Connell, as good, as kindly and as true a woman as ever blessed humanity, became a victim to the awful typhoid which has robbed us and continues to deprive us of some of the best and worthiest of our estimable people. Only 37 years of age, a naturally robust woman, a devoted wife and affectionate mother of three children, one boy and two bonnie little girls, poor Marie Teresa Connell adds one more to the long list of the cruel typhoid’s many victims in Bourke. Tenderly cared for and nursed in the hospital, it was confidently hoped that Mrs. Connell, endowed as she was with a splendid constitution, would survive the attack of fever, but, despite all that tenderness or skill could suggest and so, on the 22nd day of her illness, that fatal 22nd, the poor woman succumbed.”
Western Herald, 27 June, 1900.
William Gale, of the Central Australian Hotel, purchased the Commercial from the unfortunate Connell, but the pub was to remain active just another year with the licence closed in 1903.
Phillip Ridge of Jandra Station recorded the following incident nearby:
“In 1912 a portion of Jandra (13,400 acres) on the river bounding Yanda station was resumed for closer settlement and became the property of Charles O’Mally who called it Glen Villa. Glen Villa comprised additional country on the western side of the river which was taken off Fort Bourke station. Charles was born near Grenfell the son of Patrick O’Malley (as their surname was originally spelt) who had come to Australia from County Mayo Ireland. After coming from an overseer’s position on Orange Plains station on the Bogan River near Tottenham in 1886, Charles and his wife both worked for some years on Jandra and later he was the proprietor of the Commercial Hotel 13 km downstream from the homestead. Charles was the publican in 1902 when an Aboriginal boy named Tommy Green was murdered nearby. A traveller (many men walked the stock routes looking for work during the Federation drought) reported finding Tommy dead at an Aboriginal camp near the Commercial Hotel and was told by the elders that he had been shot. However, on feeling the boy’s head the traveller claimed it felt as if it was battered in. The Government medical officer Dr Scott and two policemen came from Bourke to do a post mortem and an inquest followed – no verdict was given but it was supposed “one of the gins had committed the deed”. The remnants of the hotel building are beside the river in what is now called Ryan’s Paddock – named after Martin Ryan who was the publican there in 1894-96. Succeeding generations of the O’Mally family owned land at Bourke over the next century and contributed to the community in both service and sporting circles – Wayne O’Mally of Warraweena station was mayor of Bourke for nine years from 2000 and in that role hosted the visit by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth to Bourke in March 2000.”
Phillip Ridge, Jandra Station