Amy Bock

New Zealand con artist (1859–1943)

Amy Maud Bock (18 May 1859 – 29 August 1943) was a Tasmanian born New Zealand female confidence trickster. Her usual pattern involved making emotional claims to her employer or other acquaintances in order to obtain money or property, or committing some other petty scam like taking watches for "repair" and then claiming to have lost them, making purchases under her employer or acquaintance's name without permission, or claiming to sell tickets to concerts or events. She would then abscond from the area, and once caught, would immediately admit to the fraud. She often gave away the proceeds of her crimes, and pled guilty to all charges that were brought against her (except on one occasion). After thirteen periods of imprisonment totalling sixteen years and two months, her most audacious fraud involved impersonating a man named "Percy Redwood" in order to marry the daughter of a wealthy Otago family. Both during her life and since her death, Bock has been the subject of significant media attention and interest within New Zealand. Fiona Farrell, writing in The Book of New Zealand Women (1995), described her as the country's "most unusual and energetic con artist".

Bock was born to Alfred Bock and Mary Ann Parkinson in Hobart, Tasmania, on 18 May 1859. Two or three of her four grandparents were transported convicts, with the exception of her maternal grandmother, who had travelled to Australia as a domestic servant, and the possible exception of her paternal grandfather (it being unclear whether her father's father was Alexander Cameron, a mariner, or his mother's second husband Thomas Bock, an artist and former convict). Her father was an artist and photographer at the time of her birth, and in 1861 he introduced the carte de visite to Australia. She was the eldest of six children, only four of whom survived infancy. In 1867 the family moved from Hobart to Sale in Victoria. Her mother was in fragile mental and physical health, amongst other things suffering from a delusion that she was Lady Macbeth, and was committed to a psychiatric institution in January 1872. She died in January 1875. Historian Jenny Coleman has suggested that Bock's mother may have suffered from bipolar disorder. In later years, a schoolfriend of Bock's described her as "clever and popular" at school and an accomplished pianist and horsewoman. She also had a reputation as an accomplished actor from a young age, and often took on boy's roles in character plays. In a statement to the Dunedin City Police Court in 1888, Bock herself said:

When I was very young I remember going to a shop in the town we lived in and buying a lot of books without my father's knowledge, and giving them away. Well, when the account was sent to my father he came to me and told me never to get anything without first receiving an order from him. He told me that anything I needed I must go to him for, and I should have it; but his saying that only seemed to increase the desire to get things without his knowing. I did so many times, and at last, when his patience was worn out, he took me into his room and told me of my mother's fate, and said he feared I showed the same symptoms.

In 1876, at the age of around 17, Bock was sent to boarding school in Melbourne, where she stayed for nearly two years. Her family's financial situation was poor and she took up schoolteaching in order to contribute to the family income. Her father helped her obtain a position as the only teacher at a rural school. A local newspaper, The Gippsland Times, reported that Bock was "always strange in her manner, from earliest childhood, and most impatient of restraint, indeed at times quite uncontrollable". On the basis of her ill health and lack of responsibility for her actions, she was discharged without conviction, and bound on a pledge of good behaviour for twelve months. Her father subsequently persuaded her to emigrate to New Zealand, where he lived in Auckland with his second wife (who was only a year older than Bock). The judge hearing the case commented that kleptomania was "only another name for stealing". On the basis of her previous record, the court sentenced her to the maximum sentence of three years' penal servitude.

After serving two years and four months of her sentence, with time off for good behaviour, Bock resettled in Timaru in October 1892. She almost immediately presented herself as a wealthy tourist and obtained a loan of £1 from a local school principal, claiming to have lost her pocketbook. After disappearing with the money, she was quickly caught and sentenced to a term of one month's imprisonment. She claimed that she had been disturbed by news of her father's death, but he was in fact still alive and had moved to Melbourne. After her release, she first made contact with local branch of the Salvation Army, and committed several further thefts, including pawning her landlady's husband's watch in April 1893, which led to a six months' prison sentence. On her release in October 1893, she moved to Oamaru at the invitation of a Salvation Army friend, where she sought to purchase a six roomed house and section in repayment for her friend's kindness, claiming to have received a substantial inheritance. She also borrowed various sums of money from a furniture seller, after having advised him that she would be spending £75 on furnishings for the house. She now applied for formal membership into the Salvation Army, but the local captain was aware of her history and said he would await proof that she had changed her lifestyle. After defrauding Salvation Army members out of thirty shillings for tickets to an event, she left Oamaru and headed to Palmerston. She was swiftly apprehended, and in January 1894 imprisoned again for four months with hard labour (her eighth prison sentence since 1886). In October 1895 she was imprisoned again for three months for not paying her board and lodging. Bock earned a reduction in her sentence for good behaviour, and was freed in October 1904. She was admitted to the Samaritan Home in Christchurch but left within two days. She found work at Rakaia as "Amy Chanel", but was charged in February 1905 with attempting to alter a cheque. The morning after the wedding, the bride's parents and a number of close family friends confronted Redwood about his finances and gave him a week's grace to pay his debts, on the basis that there would be no honeymoon until he had done so. Two of the family friends subsequently made further enquiries and found they were unable to trace the existence of Redwood's mother; they reported their concerns to the police. A local detective recognised the tell tale signs of Bock's fraudulent activity, and showed them a photo of her; she was immediately identified.

Three days after the wedding, Bock was arrested at the Ottaways' guesthouse; the Ottaway family were shocked and surprised, although the bride's father was said to have commented, "Well, it might have been worse." Newspapers in both Australia and New Zealand reported extensively on the events; the New Zealand Herald said the situation was "more like a romance than anything else". Bock pled guilty to all charges against her. She was convicted of obtaining by false pretences (including in relation to her Christmas thefts as Agnes Vallance) and making a false declaration under the Marriage Act, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labour. She was also declared a "habitual criminal", She was only the second woman in New Zealand to have been declared a habitual criminal. In a summary of her previous convictions and sentences given to the court, the prosecutor noted that she had been convicted on thirteen occasions and subject to prison sentences totalling sixteen years and two months, with the duration of her sentences ranging from one month to three years. Agnes Ottaway subsequently petitioned the Supreme Court for the annulment of the marriage, which Bock did not oppose. At the hearing, her counsel noted that it was clear that the marriage was not binding in the circumstances but that it would be desirable to have this legally recorded. He noted that a similar case had come before the Supreme Court in Dunedin eight years previously, with the difference being that in that case the two women had lived together for eight years before they parted. Ottaway was described as looking "pale and worried" in the witness box, and said that at the time of the ceremony she had "no reason to believe that [Bock] was not a man". The petition was granted. In April 1910, it was reported that Ottaway had married a stock inspector and widower some twenty years' her senior. After his death in September 1918, in 1927 she married a soldier she had known since childhood. She died in 1936.

The events of Bock's marriage quickly became notorious. Robert William Robson, a journalist who worked for the Otago Daily Times, wrote a four part serialised pamphlet that was published widely, and newspapers saw unprecedented demand for editions covering the story. Items from the wedding were auctioned off at an event on 17 May 1909, with the Otago Daily Times describing the auction rooms as "packed to suffocation" with spectators. Joseph Ward, then the prime minister, compared another politician's false statements to Bock's marital promises. Postcards were sold by local entrepreneurs, and a number of newspapers published poems about the events. In 1910, a wharf worker brought a private prosecution in the Magistrate's Court against another wharf worker, saying the latter had persistently insulted him by calling him "Amy Bock". The defendant wharf worker was convicted of using insulting words and fined 20 shillings with costs.

Bock's behaviour in prison was exemplary, and she was released on probation in early February 1912 notwithstanding her "habitual criminal" status. Upon her release, Amy Bock worked at a New Plymouth retirement home and subsequently as a housemaid in the small town of Mokau. She also assisted the teachers of the local schools and became a popular member of the community. She married Charles Christofferson, a Swedish immigrant and ferryman, in November 1914. As a result of her marriage, she was granted an unconditional discharge from her probation in 1915. However, due to Bock's indebtedness, the marriage foundered within that year. Bock was given a two year probationary sentence in October 1931, conditional on her residence at a Salvation Army home supervised by Annie Gordon. There are no records of her time there and it is not known where or how she spent the final years of her life. Bock died in Auckland on 29 August 1943 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Pukekohe Public Cemetery. In support of the latter theory, there is evidence that she often gave the proceeds of her frauds to servant girls or female friends. On the other hand, Agnes Ottway quickly had the marriage annulled when she found out her "husband's" actual gender, and there is no other evidence of Bock having romantic relationships with women. It is unclear what Bock's long term plan was, but historians think it was unlikely that she was planning to remain with Ottaway; she may have been planning to abscond shortly after the wedding with jewellery and other items obtained on credit. In 1997 New Zealand playwright Julie McKee, then a recent drama school graduate, wrote a play called The Adventures of Amy Bock, which was professionally staged at Yale Repertory Theatre. A review for Variety was critical of the play, saying McKee "does not make Bock's adventures as involving as they could be". In 2009, to mark the centenary of the Redwood Ottaway marriage, South Otago Museum organised various events including a re enactment of the wedding with the audience encouraged to wear period costume, an afternoon tea and a brass band concert. More than 300 people attended the re enactment. Her great niece, textile artist Lynne Johnson, and New Zealand artist Fiona Clark also hosted a multimedia art exhibition with works relating to Bock and her life at the South Otago Creative Arts Centre. Clark's grandfather had met Bock while she was living in Mokau, and Clark has said that she has been fascinated by Bock's story since she was 14. In 2010, historian Jenny Coleman published a comprehensive biography of Bock.