News: John Sadlier, The Banker 1885
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Contributed by: Susie Warren  susieissassy@gmail.com
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JOHN SADLIER, THE BANKER. 1885
Early one Sunday morning, in the February of 1855, on the
rise of a small mound at the back of Jack Straw's Castle
Hotel, on Hampstead Heath, the passers-by noticed a
gentleman stretched as if in sleep — his head resting near
a furze-bush, his clothes undisturbed, his hat lying at a
distance. A silver tankard had fallen from his nerveless
hand, and lay upon the ground. It smelt strongly of
essential oil of almonds. A crowd soon gathered round the
body, which was at length borne to the workhouse hard by.
It was the corpse of John Sadlier, M.P. for Sligo.

For many years John Sadlier had been connected with the
Irish representative party — that party which was known
outside the walls of St. Stephen's as "The Irish Brigade,"
but within those time honoured walls as "The Pope's Brass
Band." An Irishman by birth — he was a native of Tipperary
— and a solicitor by training, John Sadlier made his way
while yet a young man to London, where at first he pursued
the special avocation of " Parliamentary agent." Then he
turned his attention to finance. " Seeing," — writes A. M.
Sullivan in his "New Ireland," " what he could do with
money in the great world of London, and well-knowing that
the Irish banking systems had not yet been brought to the
doors of the people so as to tap the humble boards of the
farming classes, he determined to set up a local bank, and
so " The Tipperary Joint Stock Bank," was established. It
became a great success. Wherever a branch was set up it
supplanted that venerable institution, the 'old stocking,'
and a receptacle for savings or depository of marriage
portions. From the Shannon to the Suir" Sadlier's Bank" was
regarded with as much confidence as the old lady of
Threadneedle-street commands from her votaries"

At the general election of 1847, John Sadlier aspired to
parliamentary honours, and was returned for the borough of
Carlow, which borough he continued to represent until 1852.
Being a man of remarkable talent, and of far more
remarkable audacity, he soon made himself prominent in
Parliament, and became the leader of the "Tenant League
Party," which party had gained ascendancy among the Irish
representatives at Westminster, and the members of which
had solemnly pledged themselves to "hold themselves
perfectly independent of and in opposition to all
Governments which did not make it a part of their policy,
and a Cabinet question, to give to the tenantry of Ireland
a measure embodying the principles of Mr. Sharman
Crawford's Bill." But when the "Who Who Ministry," under
Lord Derby, gave way to the "Ministry of All the Talents,"
under Lord Aberdeen,   it was found that John Sadlier, with
others, had abandoned his professed principles, and had
been made a Lord of the Treasury. When, however, he
presented himself for re-election, the Carlowelec- tors
manifested their disapprobation of his conduct by recording
their votes against him. Rejected at Carlow, he turned to
Sligo, where, by the aid of the almighty dollar, he managed
to head the poll. That there was great bribery at this
election goes with- out; saying, but as in the judgment of
the Parliamentary Committee appointed to consider a
petition lodged against his return Mr. Sadlier was supposed
to have no personal knowledge of these crimes, he was
allowed to retain his seat.

The newly-elected Lord of the Treasury, however, did not
long enjoy the honours and emoluments of his office. During
his unsuccessful election campaign at Carlow he had used
the resources of Tipperary Bank (which had a branch in the
town), and "the mechanism of bills, bonds, debts,
executions, and seizures to influence the result." On that
occasion he had caused to be arrested a man named Dowling,
who was well known to be a supporter of the opposing
candidate. In this way Mr. Alexander lost one vote, but the
game was hardly worth the candle, as the high-handed banker
soon discovered. Dowling brought an action for false
imprisonment in the Court of Exchequer, Dublin, in the
November of the following year. The revelations made in
court concerning the Carlow election and the part taken by
the M.P. for Sligo were damaging in the extreme. But the
noble Lord entered the witness box, and, as it was well
expressed, " denied every- thing and disowned everybody."
For all that the jury found a verdict for Dowling and thus
expressed its disbelief in the evidence of the defendant.
After such a verdict the retention of Mr. Sadlier, as Lord
of the Treasury, was out of the question. Accordingly, in
the January of 1854, he resigned his office.

About the same time unpleasant rumours gained currency that
things were not what they seemed with the supposed
millionaire. For years he had stood apparently on the very
pinnacle of prosperity; Midas-like, whatever he touched
turned to gold. There were few men outside the house of
Rothschild who speculated to such an extent in foreign and
continental railways and mining under- takings. He had
large shares in the Royal Swedish Railway, the Grand
Junction Railway of France, the Rome and Frascati Railway,
and a variety of other foreign enterprises. At one time he
was said to have owned every cargo of sugar in port or at
sea, between England and India. At the height of his
supposed prosperity, in order to silence the Nation, the
Freeman, and the Tablet — three opposition journals — he
actually started the Telegraph as a rival paper, and flung
£50,000 boldly into the vain and futile enterprise.

But there was nothing real about John Sadlier's prosperity.
It had no solid foundation. Many of his huge speculations
turned out to be disastrous failures, and to maintain his
credit and to supply himself with the sinews of war he
resorted to fraud and forgery. One false step led to
another, until he found himself in that declivity which
leads to a precipice. The inevitable came at last. Early in
1856 a draft of the Tipperary Bank was dishonored at
Glynn's. The news came upon many like a thunderbolt out of
a perfectly clear sky. Next day it was announced that the
draft had been dis- honoured by mistake, and would not
occur again. But the news had crossed St. George's Channel,
and there was a run upon every branch of the Tipperary
Bank. On Saturday, the 15th of February, James Sadlier, who
lived in Dublin, wired to his brother John, at the Reform
Club, London, “All right at all the branches. Only a few
small things refused there. If from twenty to thirty
thousand be over on Monday morning — all is safe."

At one time this would have been a small amount for the
great spectator to raise. But it was not so now. He had
reached the end of his resources, and ruin stared him in
the face. However, he drove into the city to see what could
be done, and called upon Mr. Wilkinson, of Nicholas Lane.
But this gentleman destined to advance the required loans
on the securities offered. The interview, however,aroused
the suspicions of Mr. Wilkinson. On previous occasions he
had advanced various sums of money upon title deeds which
Mr. Sadlierhad presented to him, and he now determined to
test their genuineness. On that very Saturday evening he
despatched his partner, Mr. Stevens, to Dublin to make
inquiry respecting a certain deed which Mr. Sadlier had
given to him as security.

Mr. Stevens arrived in Dublin on Sunday, and on the
following morning the deed was discovered to be a forgery.
Before this discovery, however, Mr. Sadlier had broken that
"sacred canon which the Almighty hath set against
self-slaughter." He returned from the city to his home that
Saturday afternoon a ruined and despairing man. Shutting
himself up in his study, he devoted some time to letter
writing. One of these letters was addressed to his cousin,
Mr. Keating, the substance of which reads thus :—

1, Gloster Terrace, 16 Feb., 1856.

Dear Robert, — To what infamy have I come step by step,
heaping crime upon crime, and now I find myself the author
of numberless crimes of a diabolical character and the
cause of ruin and misery and disgrace to thousands, aye,
tens of thousands. Oh, how I feel for those on whom all
this ruin must fall. I could bear all punishment, but I
could never bear to witness the sufferings of those on whom
I have brought such ruin. It must be better that I should
not live. No one has been privy to my crimes — they spring
from my own cursed brain alone. I have swindled and
deceived without the knowledge of anyone. It was a sad day
for all when I came to London. Oh that I had never left
Ireland! Oh that I had resisted the first attempts to
launch me into speculation. If I had less talents of a
worthless kind and more firmness, I might have remained as
I once was — honest and truthful; and I would have lived to
see my dear father and mother in their old age. I weep and
weep now, but what can that avail? — J. SADLIER.

The crime of suicide must have been contemplated, by Mr.
Sadlier some time before he committed the act, for he had
purchased " Taylor on Poisoning," a large thick volume, and
had evidently read it through until he came to the chapter
on "Essential Oil of Bitter Almonds," when he turned down
the page as if he had made up his mind that that was the
means to which he would resort for putting an end to his
existence.

The full extent of Sadlier's embezzlements and forgeries
was never exactly known. One fraudulent transactions, in
respect to the Swedish Railway consisted of an over issue
of shares and obligations to the amount of £150,000. In
respect of the Tipperary Bank, the manager, his brother,
had per- mitted him to overdraw more than £200,000, and
with other fraudulent mismanagement the deficit of the bank
exceeded £400,000. The assets were stated to be little more
than £30,000. For months after his death fresh revelations
of fraud, forgery, and robbery came daily to view. By the
month of April the total of such discoveries had reached
£1,250,000. In the history of the world there is no case on
record in which frauds and forgeries have been committed to
the same extent as in that of the suicide banker. Those of
Robson, and Redpath, and Roupell are not only much smaller
in amount, but they are tame compared with his; and the
affair furnishes another instance of the consequences of
that fearful system of gambling in trade which has been far
too common in this over- speculative age. If anything could
be more wonderful than the fact that fraud and forgery
should have been going on, on that enormous scale for years
without being detected, it would be the other fact that a
man could be found who could eat, drink, sleep, and mix in
society, just as if nothing was the matter, with so
frightful an amount of guilt weighing on his mind, which
was sure, sooner or later, to be discovered.

At the inquest the jury had some difficulty in deciding as
to the sanity of the deceased at the period of the dreadful
act, but after an adjournment and very long deliberation a
verdict was found " That the deceased, John Sadlier, died
by his own hand while in a perfectly sane state of mind."
The coroner observed that this was a verdict of
self-murder, and stated his own conviction that after the
most careful investigation, they could have come to no
other decision. Yet so fraudulent had John Sadlier's life
been that many persons persisted in believing that his
supposed suicide was but another fraud. "In one of the
greatest of German romances-the 'Flower, Fruit, and Thorn'
pieces of Jean Paul Richter — the hero passes him- self off
for dead and seeks a new life far from his old home,
leaving behind him an afflicted widow and sorrowing friends
under the conviction that he is no more." There were many,
says Justin McCarthy, who believed that John Sadlier, like
another Siebenkas, had died only in name, and was quietly
enjoying the rewards of his deception in the security of
self-chosen exile; that somehow he had got possession of a
dead body which bore some resemblance to his own form and
features, and had palmed this off as his own corpse, done
to death by poison. The fact that such an in creditable
story found many believers shows what public opinion at the
time thought of John Sadlier. In closing we may remark that
Mr. Joseph Hatton's story-"John Needham's Double" — is
obviously founded on the fraudulent career and ultimate
tragic fate of John Sadlier, the suicide banker.

The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser (NSW :
1843 - 1893) Thursday 28 April 1892 p 3 Article