No-one was charged over the murder of Auckland pharmacist Arthur James Blomfield. Photo / Herald, National Library
No-one was charged over the murder of Auckland pharmacist Arthur James Blomfield. Photo / Herald, National Library
A fish and chip wrapper used by a bank robber was a key piece of evidence in the hunt for the murderer of elderly Auckland pharmacist Arthur James Blomfield.
Blomfield, 75, was fatally bashed at Mackay's Dispensary in Wellesley St near Queen St at just after 5pm on Friday, October 30, 1931.
A customer walked in moments later, rang the bell, and watched as a man came around the dispensing table, said, "He will be here any minute", and walked quickly out of the shop, disappearing among the many people on the street.
After a few minutes a shop assistant, who had been out, returned and went into the back room where he found Blomfield lying injured and bleeding on the floor. The till was on the floor too and around £6 (about $650 today) was missing, suggesting the murder was a robbery gone wrong.
The Wellesley St, Auckland pharmacy where Arthur Blomfield was murdered in 1931. Photo / Auckland Star, National Library
Blomfield had 16 wounds on his head and died in Auckland Hospital several hours later from brain injuries. The blunt weapon with which the injuries were inflicted wasn't found.
Enter Oswald Coulton, an unemployed 24-year-old Australian, and Fred Youngs, the sole teller at the Bank of New Zealand Remuera branch, who carried a gun.
Coulton, a former Papakura farm worker, was a frustrated writer, a lover of mystery stories and aviation, a convicted forger, the son of wealthy Australians.
Oswald Coulton, shot dead while robbing an Auckland bank, was suspected by some in the police of being linked to an earlier murder. Photo / Auckland Star, National Library
Twenty-five days after the attack on Blomfield, Coulton was shot dead while trying to hold up Youngs' bank.
Coulton's ruse had been to ask Youngs to read a document.
"I commenced to read the letter and had only read about two lines," Youngs told an inquest, "when he stepped back and glared at me and raised his arm.
"He had something like a piece of canvas in his hand and he struck me on the head with this, inflicting an injury to the top portion of my head."
The canvas concealed a fire brush.
"I reeled backward against the wall," Youngs continued. "The deceased stepped back and shut the front door. I had a loaded revolver in my right hand coat pocket. When deceased rushed across from the front door to the counter I pulled the revolver out and pointed it at him."
Coulton crouched to hide at the front of the counter. Youngs, dazed from the blow to his head, lifted the counter flap to hunt his attacker. He fired. Coulton bolted and got out the door. Youngs told Coulton to stop but he kept running.
"... I was just going through the door of the counter when I fired the second shot … I saw deceased stumble at the corner of the building and fall on to his face on the footpath."
Shot through the back and heart, Coulton died outside a Remuera Rd bakery.
Bank of New Zealand Remuera branch manager F. W. T. Youngs leaving the bank on the November 1931 day on which he shot and killed a robber. Photo / Herald, National Library
Youngs was summonsed for manslaughter as a formality but the charge was dismissed at the inquest by coroner and magistrate F. K. Hunt.
Hunt told Youngs: "You have no reason to regret what you have done, Mr Youngs. I think you have the sympathy of the general public. You are discharged."
Police had begun to wonder if Coulton was linked to the Blomfield murder. A car jack handle, which could have been the murder weapon, was found at his rented Grafton apartment and a revolver and Bowie knife were found at another place he had stayed.
"In the opinion of at least one police officer," the Herald wrote in the days after Coulton's death, "there is no doubt that Lawrence Oswald Coulton was connected in some way with the murder of Mr Arthur James Blomfield …"
There were two potential identity witnesses: the pharmacy customer and the woman proprietor of a nearby fish and chip shop.
A man had bought fish and chips from the shop shortly before the murder. A fish and chip wrapper was found in the pharmacy.
The two witnesses were shown Coulton's dead body at the mortuary, but neither identified him as the man they had seen.
Later they were shown a Papakura rugby league photo of Coulton and although some resemblance was noted, again there wasn't definite identification.
Then the police obtained another photo of Coulton, from Australia.
"It was found that the woman possessed a clearer memory of the man and the investigating detectives tended to rely more upon her testimony than on that of the customer," the Herald said. "The woman was positive that the parcel of fish and chips found in the pharmacy was purchased from her shop …"
On seeing the new photo of Coulton, she stated definitely that he was identical with the man who was in her shop.
Before he came to New Zealand, Coulton's conviction at Scone in New South Wales had resulted from his forging a farmer's signature on a series of cheques of a value today of several hundred thousand dollars. The farmer was named Mackay, perhaps coincidentally the same name as Blomfield's pharmacy.
After several months in prison he eventually came to New Zealand and Papakura, where, after Coulton's death, his employer spoke highly of him.
"He was one of the finest fellows I have ever met," said Robert Slack, a Beach Rd farmer. "He remained with us for 14 months and he was a splendid worker, very reliable and scrupulously honest. Of placid, even temperament, he was very fond of home life, spending his evenings reading and writing until far into the night."
Members of the league team Coulton had played for said he had received several severe head injuries during the previous season. He was "not of criminal instinct", they said, and, commenting on the bank hold-up, they wondered if the injuries had affected his mental state.
Coulton had wanted to buy a plane to fly from England to New Zealand, although doubts were raised about his private pilot's licence. His possessions included a plot outline for a story called "Scotland Yard and the Underworld" about a band of bank robbers.
He told an Auckland firm interested in movies that a friend was willing to invest £2000 (about $200,000 today), but the money never materialised. He also offered a scenario for a film to be called "Let the cat out", that was not highly thought of by the firm's adviser.
Coulton's father, also called Oswald, said his son was bright at school, but became a visionary and wanted to be a writer or airman.
"I was unable to finance his long flights. He possibly became despondent and now has paid a terrible penalty for this mad-cap thing in New Zealand."
The Herald asserted in January 1932 that the fish and chip wrapper and the confirmed sighting of Coulton at the fish and chip shop was "the most definite evidence so far obtained" of Coulton's connection to the Blomfield murder.
At Blomfield's inquest, two months later, the lawyer for his parents said: "... I understand it is going to be put forward by the police that Coulton was the murderer.
Coroner W. R. McKean replied: "You apparently understand wrongly."
McKean issued an open verdict: the evidence did not reveal the identity of the killer.
