A Female Con Artist Posed As A Man And Coaxed An Heiress Into Marriage
Amy Bock, who lived between 1859 and 1943, was a con artist. She became infamous throughout New Zealand, having gone to the most extreme lengths conceivable to earn a dishonest living. But history is littered with tricksters and cheats: what makes her so special? Well, her legacy is a complicated one. She was a grifter, to be sure, but her actions inadvertently came to challenge the conservative social attitudes of her day. Whether she meant to or not, Amy Bock became a symbol for a new way of living.
Crazy, criminal, or heroic?
Bock’s life story and career as a crook have inspired books, songs, poems, plays, and a TV show. Her likeness even became a popular fancy dress costume for a time! Her bizarre crimes, for one reason or another, really seem to have struck a chord with people through the years.
In general, though, people can’t seem to agree on how to feel about Bock. Was she crazy? Was she simply a clever, but immoral, criminal? Or was she an unlikely folk hero? Frankly, it all depends on your perspective.
A taste for the dramatic
Bock arrived into the world in 1859; she was born on the island of Tasmania. Having spent her formative years on the isle, she made a move to mainland Australia alongside her parents. They first settled in Victoria, before moving on again to Melbourne during Bock’s early teens.
As a youngster, Bock developed a taste for the dramatic. She was something of an actor in the making, a trait which was basically encouraged by her dad. As an artist and photographer, he was a creative man in his own right.
Her mother’s illness
Bock’s mother, sadly, wasn’t around for terribly long. She suffered from poor mental health, which ultimately led to her being institutionalized while Bock was still young. In 1875 she passed away in a psychiatric hospital. According to Dr. Jenny Coleman, who spoke to New Zealand media outlet RNZ about this, “[Amy’s mother] would have very manic episodes and then episodes of melancholia.”
Dr. Coleman is something of an expert on Bock, having written the book Mad or Bad: The Life and Exploits of Amy Bock. From her perspective, modern mental-health professionals would have had more sophisticated ways of diagnosing the young girl’s mother. Of her condition, she speculated it was “probably what we would think of now as manic-depressive [or bipolar disorder].”
Strange behavior
Bock wasn’t able to see her mother in the three years leading up to her death. And when that happened, the people in her life started to worry about the young girl. That’s understandable, of course, given that she had just lost her mother. But the worries went a little deeper than that.
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In addition to the grief the girl was carrying, there were concerns that she, like her mom, was suffering from poor mental health. She took to acting a little strangely, in ways that, with the benefit of hindsight, seem to have foreshadowed her eventual turn towards conning people.