[Editor: This article, regarding the misreported death of the Rev. George Otter, was published in The Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer (Geelong, Vic.), 20 January 1854.]
The Rev. Mr. Otter.
— It will be remembered that the Rev. Mr Otter, formerly of Van Diemen’s Land, and more recently a resident of Geelong, left the latter place, and went to Mount Alexander to dig — left there, disappeared, and was supposed to have come to an untimely end — who was placarded on gum trees, and paragraphed in papers as lost, lost, lost! to the regret of hundreds who did not know the rev. gentleman, but who had heard of his trowsers and small clothes, and a written document found therein, bearing the mystic name of Otter.
Well; this gentleman, after exciting so much sympathy and morbid curiosity, has the impudence to be alive! He has been spoken to by several, and when last seen was busy brewing on the township of Ballarat.
If he were not dead, why didn’t he say so? In fact, he ought to be considered so; and, as he was last seen “making his own BIER,” there rests an air of suspicion over the affair. The Rev. Mr Otter ought to make a public declaration that he is alive, for his friends have made up their minds to believe him dead long ago.
Source:
The Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer (Geelong, Vic.), 20 January 1854, p. 4
Also published in:
The Banner (Melbourne, Vic.), 24 January 1854, p. 7
Editor’s notes:
Reports on the alleged death of the Rev. George Otter were published in:
1) Hobart Town Advertiser (Hobart Town, Tas.), 1 March 1853, p. 2 (column 6) [as part of a longer article]
2) The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser (West Maitland, NSW), 30 March 1853, p. 4 (column 3) [short version, being an extract from the Hobart article of 1 March 1853]
The reference to “making his own BIER”, in the context of the supposedly dead man brewing beer, is a double entendre, referring to a bier, which is a stand for a coffin, commonly used at a funeral or a burial.
bier = a stand upon which a coffin is placed prior to burial
the Rev. Mr Otter = the Rev. George Otter (1803-1884), a Church of England clergyman; he was born in Bolsover (Derbyshire, England) in 1803, came to Australia in 1845, returned to England in the 1850s, and died in Radcliffe-on-Trent (Nottinghamshire, England) in 1884
See: “Rev. George Otter”, Company of Angels
rev. = an abbreviation of “reverend”, regarding someone who is worthy of reverence (i.e. worthy of being revered: held in high regard; highly respected; regarded with awe or devotion; venerated); typically used regarding a member of the clergy
Rev. = an abbreviation of “Reverend” (a title given to a minister of a church, a priest, a member of the clergy)
small clothes = (also spelt: smallclothes) underwear (e.g. singlets and underpants) and other small items made with cloth (e.g. handkerchiefs); (archaic) knee-length breeches, especially close-fitting breeches (especially worn in the 17th-19th centuries)
trowsers = an archaic spelling of “trousers”
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