WILLIAM JOHN MACKAY

NSW POLICE COMMISSIONER1935-1948

Born in the industrial heartland of Glasgow, Scotland in1885 William Mackay's childhood was spent, in his own words,"hanging out on street corners with friends,looking for something to do". Without any organised activities, sports or places to play, they made their own fun, and consequently he and his friends quickly found themselves in conflict with people, property and the law. At age19,William followed in his father's footsteps and joined the City of Glasgow Police. However, he soon became discontent in his duty and encouraged to travel to other parts of the British Empire, found himself in Australia, where he joined the NSW Police Force.

As he moved up the ladder in NSW Police, Mackay had already recognised many of the similarities between his own adolescence in Glasgow and the offending patterns of young people in inner-city Sydney. In1928, he was appointed superintendent of the CIB (Criminal Investigation Branch).

At the opening of Sydney Harbour Bridge in1932, it was William Mackay who pulled Col.Francis de Groot, a member of the right-wing New Guard, from his horse. An opponent of NSW Premier Jack Lang, de Groot had used his sword to cut the opening day ribbon, and holds a notorious place in Australian history for this high-profile upstaging of the event.

Further making his mark in1933, Mackay introduced the system of Police Cadets into the ranks of the New South Wales Police Service. The innovation was not immediately popular with members of the force because it was feared that cadets would become a "select group" of potential officers. However, the cadets were an immediate success and on 1October of that year, an additional18 Cadets were recruited.

Of this intake, only a few were sons of Policemen, and they earned £2 a week. By1936 many were sworn and 25 years

later, many had become Sergeants and Detective Sergeants. In1935, William Mackay was appointed NSW Police Commissioner. In1936, the NSW Government sent him overseas to study methods of ‘combating and preventing' crime. In Norwich England, he found a Police Boys Club that had been established by the Chief Constable, and its results confirmed his ideas that, given an opportunity, young people of the city could often overcome the disadvantages of their upbringing. He then went on to visit Germany, Italy and the United States, and in the USA he saw the Police Athletic League in full action.

Returning to NSW, Mackay set about taking the best of all the programs he had seen. A guest-of-honour at a Rotary luncheon, he expressed his views and asked the Rotarians for their help to raise money to provide suitable places where young people living in poverty could meet, play sport, engage with Police and "keep themselves occupied, away from the other stresses of their lives".

Taking up the challenge, the Rotarians ran a drive for funds, while the NSW Government helped in contributing a disused Police Station at Woolloomooloo. Together with the funds raised by the Rotarians, the first Police Boys Club (now PCYC) was opened on 1April1937 at Woolloomooloo, Sydney.

The first Club included a gymnasium, a library where boys could read, and areas where they could wrestle, box and play games. Mackay's other achievement that year was to introduce to NSW Police a radio- telephone system. In1941, as the result of a recommendation by Commissioner Mackay, a permanent police prosecution branch was established within the CIB. Prior to this, summary prosecutions were conducted by either individual officers or by ad-hoc appointed prosecutors - usually at Sergeant level. By1965, the branch had become a separate, specialist department.

In March1944, after10 years of investigation, Tony Agostini confessed to Police Commissioner Mackay that he had killed his wife. Famously known in 1934 as the Pyjama-Girl case, police had discovered the charred remains of a body outside Albury, dressed in oriental- style pyjamas. A coroners inquest in 1938 failed to establish identity, although witnesses had declared the corpse to be Linda Agostini. The body was brought to Sydney and preserved in formalin in a bath at Sydney University, and shown to hundreds of people, though it remained unidentified for all those years, until the confession to William Mackay. 

William Mackay died in1948. PCYC named ‘Camp Mackay' at Kurrajong in his honor. For many years, thousands of young people enjoyed a camp where the problems and stresses of the city could be put behind while they found strength and renewal in fun, new friends, teamwork and community. While financial pressures later led to its sale, many still hope to one day witness the resurrection of a similar initiative with such vision and initiative.   In1949, NSW Department of Corrective Services established the WJ Mackay Memorial Technical Library, in honor of the late Commissioner. The library, like the one at PCYC Woolloomooloo many years earlier, lends books to those looking to better themselves.