49 Facts About Amy Bock

Amy Maud Bock was a Tasmanian-born New Zealand female confidence trickster.

Amy Bock often gave away the proceeds of her crimes, and pled guilty to all charges that were brought against her.

Amy Bock was born to Alfred Amy Bock and Mary Ann Parkinson in Hobart, Tasmania, on 18 May 1859.

Amy Bock's father was an artist and photographer at the time of her birth, and in 1861 he introduced the carte de visite to Australia.

Amy Bock was the eldest of six children, only four of whom survived infancy.

Amy Bock's 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.

In later years, a schoolfriend of Amy Bock's described her as "clever and popular" at school and an accomplished pianist and horsewoman.

Amy Bock had a reputation as an accomplished actor from a young age, and often took on boy's roles in character plays.

Amy Bock 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.

In 1876, at the age of around 17, Amy Bock was sent to boarding school in Melbourne, where she stayed for nearly two years.

Amy Bock's father helped her obtain a position as the only teacher at a rural school.

Amy Bock was regularly absent, claiming illness, and on at least two occasions was found by inspectors to have falsified the school attendance rolls in order to make it appear that more children were in attendance, thereby inflating her salary.

Amy Bock incurred extensive debts in Melbourne, using her status as a teacher to obtain credit.

In May 1884 Amy Bock was arrested and charged with obtaining goods by false pretences.

Amy Bock subsequently moved to Lyttelton, where she entered service as a governess to family friends from Victoria who now ran a hotel.

Amy Bock subsequently obtained goods on credit again and travelled to Wellington, but was apprehended and brought back to Christchurch before the Resident Magistrate's Court in April 1886.

Amy Bock was convicted and sentenced to one month's hard labour and imprisonment at Addington Prison.

Amy Bock obtained employment as a matron at the Otaki Maori Boys' College, where she used some of her ill-gotten funds to purchase boots for her pupils.

Amy Bock was discharged in January 1888 and took up independent music instruction, only to fall afoul of the law and appear back in court in April 1888 for her habitual offence of receiving goods under false pretences.

Amy Bock was sentenced to another two months' imprisonment, despite requesting that she be admitted to a lunatic asylum and claiming that she had inherited madness and kleptomania from her mother.

Amy Bock again found work as a governess, but reoffended and was brought before the Christchurch Magistrate's Court again.

Amy Bock was unrepresented in court and did not deny charges of obtaining money by false pretences and forging a promissory note.

Amy Bock 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.

Amy Bock 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.

Amy Bock was swiftly apprehended, and in January 1894 imprisoned again for four months with hard labour.

On release, Amy Bock was sent to the Catholic-run Mount Magdala Home in Christchurch.

Amy Bock had developed a reputation with the police by this stage as being curiously moral, in that she was known for giving away her ill-gotten gains, particularly to young female servants.

Amy Bock earned a reduction in her sentence for good behaviour, and was freed in October 1904.

Amy Bock was admitted to the Samaritan Home in Christchurch but left within two days.

Amy Bock found work at Rakaia as "Amy Chanel", but was charged in February 1905 with attempting to alter a cheque.

Amy Bock served two-and-a-half years, and was released in 1907, whereupon she took up residence at the Samaritan Home.

Amy Bock befriended members of the Pollard's Lilliputian Opera Company at this time who were performing at the Theatre Royal, travelled with them to Dunedin, and committed a number of small frauds in order to present herself as a patron of the company.

In January 1909, under the invented name of "Percival Leonard Carol Redwood", and posing as an affluent Canterbury sheep farmer, Amy Bock became a popular guest at a respectable boarding house in Dunedin.

Amy Bock maintained her male impersonation through adept use of letters purported to be from lawyers and from Redwood's family, postal orders and small loans.

Amy Bock was convicted of obtaining by false pretences and making a false declaration under the Marriage Act, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labour.

Amy Bock was declared a "habitual criminal", which meant that she would be detained in prison "till such a time as the Governor is convinced that she can be granted her liberty with perfect safety to the public".

Amy Bock was only the second woman in New Zealand to have been declared a habitual criminal.

Agnes Ottaway subsequently petitioned the Supreme Court for the annulment of the marriage, which Amy Bock did not oppose.

Amy Bock 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 [Amy Bock] was not a man".

Amy Bock assisted the teachers of the local schools and became a popular member of the community.

Amy Bock married Charles Christofferson, a Swedish immigrant and ferryman, in November 1914.

In March 1917, Amy Bock appeared before the New Plymouth Magistrates Court on further fraud charges.

Amy Bock admitted having obtained fifteen pounds from a local flax mill manager for the purchase of a piano on false pretences.

Amy Bock lived quietly in Mokau for a few years after, known locally for her talents as a musician.

Amy Bock was described in newspaper reports as "a faded old lady in a dove grey alpaca cloth costume with a drooping hat of lace straw, grey gloves".

Amy Bock was given a two-year probationary sentence in October 1931, conditional on her residence at a Salvation Army home supervised by Annie Gordon.

Amy Bock died in Auckland on 29 August 1943 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Pukekohe Public Cemetery.

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.