"Funeral Procession" of Inspector B.C. Besley on May 1894, Port Augusta; two undertakers lead a procession driving a two-horse drawn bier carrying the casket, which is followed by a riderless horse with riding boots in reverse position; carriages and many others follow on foot.

Born in 1836 in Oxfordshire, Bryan Besley arrived in South Australia in 1851. With his brother he spent two years unsuccessfully on the Victorian goldfileds before returning to Adelaide in 1854. He joined the Mounted Police Force and was subsequently posted with others to Overland Corner on the River Murray to establish a police station. He served briefly with Jenkin Cole later Sir Jenkin Cole Speaker of the House of Assembly. He served with the Police Force in Mount Gambier, Naracoorte, Wallaroo before being appointed to the Northern police district in 1881 as Inspector. Initially based at Melrose, the station was later removed to Port Augusta.

The Northern Police District was the largest in Australia, extending from the New South Wales border at the Barrier Ranges to Port Lincoln in in the west, and reaching into the Northern Territory.

It was in Port Augusta that Inspector Besley died from cancer on 8 May 1894 and was buried the following Thursday at in the Carleton Cemetery near Port Augusta.

Besley, Bryan Charles, 1836-1894

Port Augusta (S. Aust)

Clyne, Robert, Colonial blue: a history of the South Australian police force, 1836-1916 Netley, S.A.: Wakefield Press, 1987

Schmaal, Jean Dead men do tell tales, Police journal, vol. 57, no. 7 (May 1976), p. 17, 18

The late Inspector Besley Adelaide observer, 12 May 1894, p. 31, col. c-d

The funeral of the late Inspector Besley Adelaide observer, 19 May 1894, p. 15, col. c

The late Inspector Besley Adelaide observer, 13 October 1894, p. 30, col. b