THE CORRUPT MELBOURNE CUP ORIGINS, EVERY AUSTRALIAN SHOULD KNOW.
By Staff Reporter
You may have thought that the cruelty of racing horses and the excessive gambling on it were the biggest reason to boycott ‘the race that stops a nation’ and, especially to boycott the Melbourne Cup Carnival. Many people share concerns on the fallout to families and society too from gambling addiction such as those that racing animals creates for so many.
There’s an even bigger reason to boycott the Melbourne Cup and it goes all the way back to corrupt Police and Freemasons in the 1800s, during the Kelly Gang era.
Chief Police Commissioner Frederick Charles Standish who was also Grand Master of the Freemasons in Victoria was a heavy gambler who lived in Melbourne and the Victoria goldfields from the 1850s to the 1880s. Buried with a Catholic ceremony, he was either double-dipping as a Freemason AND being Catholic or denouncing Catholicism, then denouncing Freemasonry as he met his maker, dying in 1883. (The Catholic faith opposes everything Freemason and demands choosing between the two – especially back then.)
Double-dipping was common and favored trait of Standish, who created and named The Melbourne Cup. He controlled the gambling trade, drug trade, sex trade, and whatever else his indulgent leanings could provide for him and his cohorts as he held supreme powers in his dual roles over Melbourne and across Victoria too.
His love of the sex industry was shared by Queen Victoria’s son Prince Albert who visited four times during Standish’s reign with one brothel declaring their facility “By Royal Appointment”. Prince Albert was victim to an assassination attempt and was shot on his first visit to Australia but that didn’t deter him from eagerly returning each year, for the next three years in a row, to visit with Standish and indulge in his debauchery.
Some of Standish’s underlings joined in on all the double-dipping too whilst others were so totally against it, they diarised their distain and in one instance, one of them attempted to throw Standish out of the window of the Melbourne Club – his home until his death.
Standish fled England and arrived to Australia with a new name to hide from gambling debts and troubles he left behind in England but reverted back to the family name once he began working for the Victorian Police Force. Rising fast through the ranks of Police and Freemasonry to Chief Commissioner and Grand Master respectively, at the same time.
He is also known for pausing the pursuit of the Kelly Gang because the weights for the Melbourne Cup had come in and he wanted time to study them.
The VRC appreciated Standish and his pursuits so much, they appointed him the Chairman of the Committee. They also run a race every year on January 1st in his honour titled “The Standish Handicap”. There were no handicaps or restraints in the life Standish led and led many others in to, during his reign as the Chief Commissioner and Grand Master concurrently.
Now that you know this and if you’re not liking the energy connected to the origins of the Melbourne Cup, this is the year to declare you want something better, something more meaningful, more purposeful and more valuable to animals, the planet and humanity to celebrate and stop a nation for a day, from next year onwards.
There are plenty of ways to incorporate the glitz, glamour and excitement built around the race to draw in people who otherwise would not associate, align or connect with it.
PS: You may be interested to know that the Victoria Police and Freemasonry have kept these tight ties over the centuries and in 2020, The VicPol website offers you face masks decorated with the Freemason logo. It is the ONLY mask the Victoria Police website sells. With this Police Force and Freemasonry connection spanning a 170-year history, there are many more tales to tell of how closely these organisations truly are and the support they offer to one another, amidst Victoria’s dark, dangerous and deadly under-belly of crime and corruption. Some stories already reported, some to still be revealed.
