The Execution of Alexander Pearce 1824

The Execution of Alexander Pearce 1824

These crimes occurred at a time in Australian History when newspapers were in there infancy and accounts of these events are sparse by modern standards. Alexander Pearce had been sent to one of the most notorious hell holes of a penal colony in the history of Australia.

The after the initial shock of transportation, Convicts in Australia felt that they had landed on their feet there was many letters sent to the homeland encouraging family members of Convicts to steal something and get themselves sent out to Australia. The British establishment decided to send a harsher Governor. In 1822 Governor Brisbane established a penal colony in Morton Bay to be a Prison within a Prison. This colony had a weather pattern so pleasant it kind of defeated its purpose. Governor Brisbane next established a Penal colony in the inhospitable and geographically isolated Macquarie Harbour on the western coast of Tasmania. Bleak is not putting a too fine a point on this place. This is where Alexander Pearce was sent as he was a repeat offending absconder.

To quote Mark Twain, Australian History is made of the most delicious lies, or rather  that the truth is stranger than fiction, to imagine that a prisoner confessed to eating his fellow escapees to be not believed and sent back to the prison camp to do it again is one of those particular and peculiar Australian historical moments.

The newly established Supreme Court of Tasmania cast it first death sentence on Alexander Pearce and was hung in Hobart gaol 1824.

THE TRIAL

Hobart Town Gazette
25/6/1824
THE SUPREME COURT,
OF VAN DIEMEN’S LAND.
Alexander Pearce, a convict, was arraigned for the murder of a fellow-prisoner named Thomas Cox, at or near King’s River, in the month of November last, and he pleaded—Not Guilty.
The circumstances which were understood to have accompanied the above crime had long been considered with extreme horror. Report had associated the prisoner with cannibals; and recollecting as we did, the vampire legends of modern Greece, we confess, that on this occasion, our eyes glanced in fearfulness at the being who stood before a retributive Judge, laden with the weight of human blood, and believed to have banquetted on human flesh! It was, therefore, with much satisfaction we heard His Majesty’s ATTORNEY- GENERAL, whilst candidly opening his case for the prosecution, entreat the Jury to dismiss from their minds all previous impressions against the prisoner; as, however justly their hearts must execrate the fell enormities imputed to him, they should dutiously judge him, not by rumours—but by indubitable evidence.
The Learned Gentleman then proceeded to detail, certain confessions made by the prisoner, before the late much-lamented Lieutenant CUTHBERTSON, (Commandant at Macquarie Harbour), and at his examination by the Rev. ROBERT KNOPWOOD—confessions which, although in some respects inconsistent, would yet, when coupled with all the facts, merit the most serious attention.

From them it appeared, that as other evidence would prove the prisoner and the deceased, on the 13th November, absconded from their duty into the woods, each of them taking his axe, and the prisoner being heavily ironed;—that they for several days wandered on without provision and reduced by weakness, until, on the following Sunday evening, the deceased and prisoner arrived at King’s River;—a quarrel then arose because the deceased could not swim, and after prisoner had struck him on the head three times with his axe, the deceased seeing him about to go away (his irons having been knocked off), said, in a faint voice, “for mercy’s sake come back, and put me out of my misery!” Prisoner struck him a fourth blow, which immediately caused death; he then cut a piece off one thigh, which he roasted and ate, and after putting another piece in his pocket, he swam across the river, with an intent to reach Port Dalrymple.
Soon afterwards, however, he became so overwhelmed with the agonies of remorse, that he was constrained to recross the river, and, on seeing a schooner under weigh from the Settlement, he made a signal-fire, which on being seen, induced the pilot boat to put off and take him on board. He was then conveyed to the harbour, where he publicly owned the murder, and said “he was willing to die for it.
The Attorney-General concluded a thrilling tale of almost incredible barbarity, by calling Thomas Smith, who swore, that in November last he was coxswain to the Commandant at Macquarie Harbour; he knew the prisoner and the deceased; they absconded from Logan’s gang on the 13th; on the 22d, Pearce made his signal fire on the beach, near King’s River, and was taken back to the Settlement; he said Cox had died, and he had cut off a bit of his flesh to show what had become of him.
Witness, on the following day was ordered by the Commandant to go with prisoner, and get Cox’s body; he went, and it was found. The head was away, the hands cut off, the bowels were torn out, and the greater part of the breech and thighs gone, as were the calf of the legs, and the fleshy parts of the arms. Witness said to the prisoner, “how could you do such a deed as this?” he answered, “no person can tell what he will do when driven by hunger.” Witness then said, “Where is the head?” the answer was, “I left it with the body.” Witness searched for and found it a few yards off under the shade of a fallen tree; witness then picked up what appeared to be the liver of the deceased, and an axe stained with blood, on which prisoner was asked “if that was the axe with which he had killed Cox,” and he answered, “it was.” The fragments of the body were quite naked; near them were some pieces of a shirt, and the cover of a hat.
There had been a fire near the body, and not far from it lay a knife, which witness picked up. The body was then placed in two rugs, and witness, with the prisoner, returned to the Settlement. Prisoner on being asked “where Cox’s hands were,” said “he had left them on a tree where the boat landed;” a search was then made for them, but they could not be found.

Prisoner said, “he had cut off Cox’s flesh to support him on his intended journey to Port Dalrymple, but when he had crossed the river, something came over him, and forced him to return; he threw the flesh into the river, made a sign, and gave himself up.”

William Evans, of the Waterloo schooner, had gone on shore to take the prisoner, who said, ” Cox was drowned in the King’s River.” Prisoner’s hands were fastened, and his pockets searched, in one of which was a piece of flesh; he was asked “what that was?” and said, “it’s a piece of Cox, and I brought it to show that he is lost.”Witness heard the Commandant say to prisoner, “tell me, Pearce, did you do the deed?” prisoner answered “yes, and I am willing to die for it.” Witness asked him “why he had killed Cox ?” he said, “I’ll tell no man, until I am going to suffer.”

Many other witnesses were then called, who corroborated the above depositions in every essential point; and proved, that the clothes and hat, worn by the deceased when he absconded, were those which the prisoner wore when he was taken on board the pilot boat; but that the hat covering had been taken off.

The prisoner’s written confessions were afterwards most fairly commented on by the CHIEF JUSTICE, who addressed the Jury at considerable length with much solemnity, and submitted to their consideration, whether or not it was fully proved that the deceased had died from blows inflicted by the prisoner? and then, even if he had so died, whether, as a quarrel had been stated to have occurred before death, the prisoner was guilty of the crime charged, or of manslaughter? The Jury retired for a short time, and found a verdict of—Guilty.

THE HANGING
24/7/1824
Hobart Town Gazette
Executions.—On Monday, Alexander Pearce, for murder, and yesterday, John Butler, for sheep stealing, John Thompson, Patrick Connolly, James Tierney and George Lacey, for burglary and highway robbery, were executed in this town pursuant to their sentence

Pearce’s body was, after it had been suspended the usual time, delivered at the hospital for dissection. We trust these awful and ignominious results of disobedience to law and humanity will act as a powerful caution; for blood must expiate blood and the welfare of society imperatively requires, that all whose crimes are so confirmed, and systematic, as not to be redeemed by lenity, shall be pursued in vengeance and extirpated with death !

We have reason to expect that by next week, we shall, through the kindness of an esteemed Clergyman, be empowered to communicate some extensive information, of a very interesting kind, respecting the murderer Pearce!

THE PREIST’S ACCOUNT OF THE CONDEMNED MANS CONFESSION
6/8/1824
Hobart Town Gazette
ALEXANDER Pearce. –
In our Paper the week before last we noticed the execution of this criminal for the Murder of Thomas Cox, the leading facts of whose untimely death have already been reported in this Gazette. From much respected Gentleman, in whose Knowledge and veracity the most un-bounded confidence may be placed, we derive the following particulars, which it is to be hoped may excite a proper feeling among that class of society to which it is earnestly addressed:-

The Rev. Mr. Connolly, who attended this unfortunate man, administering to him the consolations of Religion, addressed the crowd assembled around the scaffold, a few minutes before the fatal drop was let to fall, in words to the following effect:- He commenced by stating, that Pearce, standing on the awful entrance into eternity on which he was placed, was desirous to make the most public acknowledgment of his guilt, in order to humble himself, as much as possible, in the sight of God and Man; – that, to prevent any embarrassment which might attend Pearce in personally expressing himself, he had requested and directed him to say, that he committed the murder of Cox, under the following circumstances:

Having been arrested here, after his escape from Macquarie Harbour, Pearce was sent back to that Settlement, where the deceased (Cox) and he were worked together in the same gang. Cox constantly entreated him to runaway with him from that Settlement, which he refused to do for a length of time. Cox having procured fishhooks, a knife, and some burnt rag for tinder, he at last agreed to go with him, to whom he was powerfully induced by the apprehension of corporal punishment, for the loss of a shirt that had been stolen from him. For the first and second day they strayed through the forest – on the third made the beach, and travelled towards Port Dalrymple until the fifth, when they arrived at King’s River.

They remained, for three or four days, in an adjoining wood to avoid soldiers who were in pursuit of them, and were all the time, from the period they started, without a morsel teat. Overcome by famine, Pearce determined to take Cox’s life, which he effected by the stroke of an axe while Cox was sleeping. Soon after the soldiers had departed, Pearce occupied the place they had been in, where he remained part of a day and a night, living on the mutilated remains of Cox; he returned to the Settlement, made signal, and was taken up by the pilot, who conveyed him to Macquarie Harbour, where he disclosed to the Commandant the deed he had done, being weary of life, and willing to die for the misfortunes and atrocities into which he had fallen.
The Rev. Gentleman then proceeded to state, that he believed it was in the recollection of every one present, that eight men had made their escape, last year, from Macquarie Harbour. All these, except Pearce, who was of the party, soon perished, or were destroyed by the hands of their companions. To set the public right respecting their fate, Pearce is desirous to state, that this party, which consisted of himself, Matthew ravers, Bob Greenhill, Bill Cornelius, Alexander Dalton, John Mathers, and two more, named Bodnam and Brown, escaped from Macquarie Harbour in two boats, taking with them what provision the coal-miners had, which afforded each man about two ounces of food per day, for a week.

Afterwards they lived eight or nine days on the tops of tea-tree and peppermint, which they boiled in tin-pots to extract the juice. Having ascended a hill, in sight of Macquarie Harbour, they struck a light and made two fires. Cornelius, Brown, and Dalton placed themselves at one fire, the rest of the party at the other; those three separated, privately, from the party, on account of Greenhill having already said that lots must be cast for someone to be put to death, to save the whole, from perishing.

Pearce does not know, personally, what became of Cornelius, Brown and Dalton; – he heard that Cornelius and Brown reached Macquarie Harbour, where they soon died, and that Dalton perished on his return to that Settlement. – After their departure, the party, then consisting of five men, lived two or three days on wild berries, – and their kangaroo jackets, which they roasted; at length they arrived at Gordon’s River, where it was agreed, that while Mathers and Pearce collected fire-wood; Greenhill, and Travers should kill Bodnam, which they accordingly did. It was insisted upon that everyone should partake of Bodnam’s remains, lest, in the event of their ultimate success to obtain their liberty, any of them might consider himself innocent of his death, and give evidence against the rest. After a day or two, they all swam across the river, except Travers, whom they dragged across by means of a pole, to which he tied himself. Having spent some days in distress and famine, it was proposed to Pearce, by Greenhill and Travers, that Mathers be killed, to which he agreed.
Travers and Pearce held him while Greenhill killed him with an axe. Living on the remains of the deceased, which they were hardly able to taste, they spent three or four days, through weakness, without advancing beyond five or six miles, Travers being scarcely able to move from lameness and swelling in his foot. –

Greenhill and Pearce agreed to kill Traver’s, which Greenhill did, while Pearce collected fire-wood. Having lived some time on the remains of Travers, they were for some days without any thing to eat – their wants
Were dreadful – each strove to catch the other off his guard, and kill him. Pearce succeeded to find Greenhill asleep – took his life – and lived on him for four days. He was afterwards for three days without any sustenance – fell in, at last, with the Derwent River, and found some small pieces of opossums, &c. at a place where the Natives had lately made fires. More desirous to die than to live, he called out, as loudly as he could, expecting the Natives would hear him, and come to put an end to his existence! Having fallen in with some bush-Rangers, with whom he was taken, Pearce was sent back to Macquarie Harbour, from whence he escaped with Cox, as has been already stated, for whose death he is now about to suffer.

Alluding particularly to those who ought to be deterred from the commission of crime by examples like the present, how often, said the Rev. Mr.Conolly, does the justice of Providence bring to light the dark deeds of death and how frequently do we see it verified, that “Whoever sheds the blood of Man by Man shall his blood be shed !” Having stated that the unfortunate Pearce was more willing to die than to live, he concluded by entreating all persons to offer up their prayers, and beg of the Almighty to have mercy upon him

 

The Execution of Nicholas Baxter 1907

The Execution of Nicholas Baxter 1907

Nicholas Baxter was the last man hung at Darlinghurst Gaol, hangings after that time were performed at Long Bay Prison. The newspaper report made mention of the older traditions of a hanging were pared away. NSW  in the later part of the  1800’s had the same hangman (read the post Robert Rice Howard, Executioner NSW 1873-1903) for 30 years, he retired just a few years prior to this hanging and must have had his own ways of going about the hanging.

THE CRIME

17/7/1907

Cootamundra Herald

The Enmore Tragedy.

BAXTER COMMITTED FOR MURDER.

Sydney, Monday.

The inquest concerning the death of Mrs. Mary MacNamara, who was murdered at Sarah Street, Enmore, on 5th instant, was held today.

Nicholas Baxter was present in custody. The prisoner occupied a seat at the table, and appeared composed. Sergeant Curry said that at the police court, Baxter said, ‘ I don’t know what possessed me to do it.

I must have been mad. I did not intend to hurt the poor old lady, but she would not’ keep quiet. After what I had done I took train for Homebush.’ Baxter said his ‘object was money.

”If I had got a few pounds, he said, ‘I would have gone to Queensland. It is a bad job for the wife and children. ‘The Coroner found that Baxter wilfully murdered deceased, and committed him for; trial. 

THE CONFESSION

13/7/1907

Maitland Mercury

The Enmore Tragedy.

Nicholas Baxter, the man held for the brutal murder of Mrs. Mary Macnamara, at Enmore, on Tuesday made a confession.

At 9 a.m he was driven in a cab with two officers from the Burwood police station to the morgue at Circular Quay, and in the presence of the City Coroner (Mr. A. N. Barnett), Dr.Hardman, nephew of the murdered woman, and the police, identified the body.

It’s rather dark, I can’t see, be remarked as he stood before the glass partition running along the front of the chamber. He was taken along through a doorway, and allowed to stand beside (he slab, ‘ That’s the body of Mrs. Macnamara — I know her, ‘were his words Baxter was next taken to the Water Police Court, and while Sergeant Curry was Standing near the door be leaned forward, and, speaking in a low, husky voice, confessed that lie was guilty. He intimated that later he would put his statement in writing.

Five charges were shortly afterwards preferred against’ the prisoner He pleaded guilty to having been drunk in Bridge road, Strathfield, on Monday, and was fined 5 shillings, or the rising of the court. A charge of having murdered Mrs. Macnamara was read, and on the application of the police a remand was granted till Tuesday next. The following charges were also held over till Wednesday: — having in his possession two gold brooches, suspected of having been stolen; assaulting Constable Holtsbaum while in the execution of his duty, and damaging that officer’s trousers. Later in the day Baxter told the police how he entered the house, and conceded with a full confession of the murder.

On Thursday last he left his home, a cottage next door to the factory, on the opposite side to where he committed the terrible deed, and took with him a tent and other things. He told his wife be was going to Nyngan.

He walked along the railway line, and pitched his tent in the scrub near Homebush. He remained there until Sunday, when he started to return, and at 1 o’clock on Monday morning he went to his home.

He did not enter the cottage, however; but passed along the yard, and by climbing: to the roof of an outhouse built against the factory wall, it was an easy matter to reach up a few feet still higher, and then drop over into the factory yard.

The locality was very dark, and Baxter, stealing along the outskirts of the buildings, reached the email double gates leading to the house near the office. Both doors leading to Mrs. Macnamurra’s room were securely looked.

One opened from the hall of the foot of the staircase and tho other stood faking the small verandah overlooking tho factory yard. The watchman was somewhere about tho factory on his rounds, and Baxter pushed his bludgeon through the glass in the double doors outside. He placed his hand through, turned the catch back, and was beside the sleeping women.

Whether he first of all murdered the woman or was disturbed in his search of the boxes and then committed the murder has not been told.

That Mrs. Macnamurra found beaten about the head and with a strip of sheeting round her throat wore subsequent facto. Baxter left tho room by the door he had entered, walked along the verandah, and then opened an unlocked door and was in the hall.

He passed on by the front door of the house, as was shown by bloodstains there, and went away to Homebush again.

About eight hours later he was arrested in Bridge road for drunkenness. When news of the murder reached the Burwood police the bloodstained articles in Baxter’s possession aroused their suspicions, and, as has before been told, he mode a dash for liberty when returning from the bush where, he told the police, he had his humpy. The bludgeon used By Baxter was made from a piece of wood obtained on his way to Homebush.

When found on the roadside on Monday night the unstained port revealed the fact that it bad been made quite recently. ‘ I took it with me to defend myself,’ he remarked to the police on Tuesday. The City Coroner will open an inquest on the victim at noon on Monday next.

The Burwood police on Tuesday made a search in the bush for what Baxter bad called his ‘ humpy,’ and to which he was supposed to have been leading them after he was arrested.

The officers at first thought, when they had been, walking through the scrub, that it was nothing but a hoax, had returned to the station, Subsequent happenings, however, proved that Baxter had taken a tent from home, It was still pitched when the police came across it in tho scrub at Flemington, on the outskirts of Homebush. They gathered in the tent, blankets, and miscellaneous articles belonging to Baxter, and took them to the Burwood Police Station.

THE TRIAL

The Byron Bay Record

31/8/1907

The Enmore Murder.

Sydney, Tuesday.

The trial of Nicholas Baxter, charged with the murder; of Mrs. Mary McNamara, aged woman, at Enmore, was concluded at the Criminal Court to-day.

Accused made a lengthy statement in which he said he did not know what he was doing at the time of the murder, as he was not in his right mind. He attributed the collapse of his mental faculties to the fact that for years he had worked 90 hours a week.

He called as a’ witness his wife, who stated that he had been strange in his’ manner for 18 months. ‘Dr. Bohrsman. who had attended accused for several years, regarded him as of weak intellect. Dr. Paton stated that accused had shown no signs of insanity during his confinement in goal. The jury after a brief retirement returned a verdict of guilty, and accused was sentenced to death.

The only, request made by the prisoner was that his wife should ‘not be present while the sentence was passed.

THE HANGING

Execution of Nicholas Baxter.

DEATH INSTANTANEOUS.

Tuesday.

Nicholas Baxter was hanged in Darlinghurst Gaol this morning for the murder of Mary McNamara at Enmore. The whole affair was carried out quietly and quickly.

Apart from the representatives of four daily newspapers, only officials were spectators of the scene. During the morning the condemned man was visited by the Rev. Father Barry, of St. Mary’s Cathedral, who had been in constant attendance on him since Baxter, was placed in the condemned cell, and from whose, ministrations he derived much consolation.

He was also visited by two Sisters of .Mercy, who left him a few minutes before 9 o’clock this morning Father Barry, however, remained with him to the last, and sought to comfort, him with words of hope. The many formalities of old executions were dispensed with, according to high authority the demanding, of the body by the sheriff is a fiction.

A few minutes before 9 the Executioner and his assistants went to the condemned cell and pinioned Baxter’s arms.

About three minutes after the gaol clock struck – the condemned man appeared at a doorway leading on to the drop. His spiritual adviser was concealed from view behind the doorway, although he accompanied him to the edge of the scaffold.

Baxter was clad in the regulation grey gaol uniform, wearing a tight fitting whitecap, and his arms tied behind, him.

From a momentary glance which was obtained of him he did not appear to have suffered by his incarceration. Although pale, he looked fuller in the face than at the time of his arrest, while his short beard appeared to have thickened and grown more regular.

Without a sign or word he walked unassisted to the drop. Ho gave one glance down to the yard in which the reporters were standing, then gazed on the drop, made a light movement as if to plant his feet solidly upon it, and in another couple of seconds the executioner emerged and placed the rope round his neck, drawing tho knot tightly round under the right ear.

That official then drew down the long flap of the cap over Baxter’s face. Giving the signal the bolt was quickly drawn the doors of the trap opened, and Mrs.’ Macnamurra’s murderer hung lifeless, with a string of rosary beads in his right hand.

Death was instantaneous, not the movement of a muscle being discernible.

During his incarceration Baxter had given no trouble, to the gaol officials. He had been visited frequently by his wife and children, and a commutation of his sentence never appears, to have been considered seriously, by him.

He was perfectly resigned to his fate, last night he, slept, fairly well and awoke quite, refreshed this morning.

The Execution of Charlie Deen 1913

Charlie Deen was the last man to be hung in the State of Queensland and Queensland was the first State in Australia to end Capital punishment in the Country in 1922.

THE CRIME

19/4/1913

Queensland Times

Northern Tragedies.

Commutation and Confirmation.

The Executive Council had before it yesterday the case of Paddy Flyn, an aborigine, against whom a sentence of death was recorded at Townsville, on the 4th March last, by Mr. Justice Shand, for the wilful murder of  an aborigine named Roderick; also the case of a Cingalese, named Charlie Deen, who was sentenced to death at the same sittings, for the wilful murderer of another Cingalese, named Peter Dins.

The sentence on Paddy Flynn was commuted to imprisonment with hard labour for the term of his life, but it was decided that’ the law should take its course in the case of Charlie Deen, at Brisbane Gaol, at 8 a.m. on the 5th May 1913.

The Judge’s notes in connection with the trial of Paddy Flynn, state that at about midnight on the 30th December, the prisoner went into the yard of the Great Western Hotel, Hughenden, where Roderick and two others aborigines where camping and shot Roderick through the head with a revolver, killing him instantaneously, in his sleep. The motive suggested was a desire, not apparently of Roderick himself, but of another aborigine to obtain possession of the prisoner’s gun.

The facts in the case against Charlie Deen briefly were as follow: The prisoner, the deceased, (Peter Dins), a kanaka, and a Chinaman were boarding at a work-shop in Innisfail, kept by a China man named Kum Koon.

At the end of January last the cook-shop was flooded, and on Saturday, 1^st February, the house was still surrounded by water.

On the morning of that date the prisoner and Dins were helping. Kum Koon to clear the water out of the house and scrub the walls. A quarrel occurred, in the course of which Dins struck the prisoner with his fist. Kum Koon separated them, and Deen went away to a back room, in which he, the deceased, the kanaka, and others were accustomed to sleep. 

Deen got up into the loft or shelf where he usually slept. The kanaka who did not sleep at the cook-shop on the night of the 31st January, went back to room the morning of the 2^nd February and got up into a loft opposite to that occupied by the prisoner.

Dins came into the back room from the front part of the house, and was standing at a side door looking out into the yard, when the prisoner jumped down from his loft, and, coming behind Dins, stabbed him in the right side, under the ribs, with a knife. The prisoner then got back into the loft, and Dina managed to rise and stagger into the front portion of the house. Dins died at about 7 a.m. on the 3^rd February.-“Telegraph.”

 

THE HANGING

Townsville Daily News

6/5/1913

Charlie Deen Hanged.

(By Telegraph.) BRISBANE,

May 4.

Charlie Deen, a Cingalese, suffered the extreme penalty of the law in Boggo Road Gaol this morning. Punctually at eight o’clock the prisoner who was rather short and thick set, walked from the condemned cell, escorted by a number of warders, and accompanied by Major Geo. Wilson, of the Salvation Army. The Army officer was reciting the Lord’s Prayer in slow measured tones as the condemned man walked into view of the scaffold. Deen walked with firm steps, and did not require any assistance from the warders. He walked with a steady tread up the stairs to the drop, where he stood unflinchingly, gazing down upon the small group of prison officials and pressmen.

He called out in a firm voice: “Good-bye, all you gentlemen, I am going.” The noose was placed round his neck, and he was asked the usual questions as to whether he had anything to say before he died. Deen appeared to have become bewildered, and slowly replied: “Nothing to say.” The question was again put to him, and he replied “Nothing.” The white cap    was placed over his face and the rope adjusted.

The under Sheriff dropped his handkerchief by way of a signal, and the hangman pulled over a lever causing the trap doors to fly open with a crash. Death was apparently instantaneous, as there was not the slightest tremor in the body. After waiting 15 minutes Dr. Dods  examined the swinging body, and pronounced life extinct.

The body was quickly placed in a rude coffin and taken from the prison. The prisoner, who was middle-aged, weighed 11st. 7lb., his height being 5ft. 6½in., and he was given 7ft. 1in. drop. He gave the prison officials no trouble during the time he was under their care. Deen was sentenced to death at Townsville in March last for murdering a fellow countryman named Dins at Innisfail, after having a quarrel with him. Deen was a Buddhist prior to being placed in Boggo Road Gaol, but he became a convert to Christianity.

 

The Execution of Fredrick Bailey Deeming 1892

The Execution of Fredrick Bailey Deeming 1892

From all accounts, that I have looked into, Frederick Bailey Deeming (1853-1892), appears to be a socio path and serial killer long before those terms had been coined.

He was a self gratifying murderer, fraudster, braggard and bigamist. The retelling of his story will at times leave more questions unanswered than answers. He went by many names and smoozed and faked many occupations in his travels. He weaved many a tale about his past as it suited him at the time, making the facts and the fictions hard to separate. Many of these tales were disputed by his brother Albert at the time of his last arrest.

He married 3 times and was about to marry a fourth woman when apprehended, his victims were his wives and his four children. He was widely travelled, and came out to Australia  from the UK several times, he was caught for some of his minor offences in various countries and spent some time in various prisons. This relentless travelling and name changing aided with his subterfuge for both murder and bigamy. He was known to have at least 8 aliases.

He has been accredited as one of the Jack the Ripper suspects. I will concentrate on his exploits and offences carried out in Australia as this is where his final undoing was detected and where he was eventually executed.

 On Deeming’s last trip to Australia he murdered his most recent wife, Emily Lydia Mather and buried near the fireplace of No. 57 Andrews Street, Windsor (Victoria), the body being discovered after he had left the State, for Southern Cross in Western Australia, changing his name to Baron Swanston.

57 Andrews street Windsor as it is today

https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-37.851826,144.987608,3a,90y,9h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sRJjgwFYeN_E4jSjadwt4AQ!2e0!6m1!1e1?hl=en

Upon his arrest there was a frenzy of hysterical press coverage and it could be fairly said that this was the first incidence of trial by media in Australia. 

On 3 March 1892 the distinctive smell of death was emminating from 57 Andrew Street leading to the discovery of Emily Mather’s body.

A banquet invitation from Rainhill (UK) in the name of A. O. Williams was also found in the house and around this same time (16 March 1892), the bodies of Deemings first wife and four children were found within a recently cemented floor of the Dinham Villa at the Rainhill premises. On 11 March 1892 Deeming was arrested at Southern Cross, Western Australia.

THE CRIME

5/3/1892

Daily News

THE WINDSOR MURDER.

Further particulars of the Windsor murder shows that the body was built in in cement under the hearthstone, which was evidently done by an expert workman. The tenant of the cottage has not yet been traced.

 He was more than once seen seen at home with a female companion, about 35years of age, fair complexion, and light hair, who was showily dressed. The supposed murderer is of gentlemanly appearance, medium height, square shoulders, wore light moustache, and in appearance generally was a Swede or Norwegian, but betrayed no foreign accent. He had plenty of money, sovereigns and notes. The parties had evidently only just arrived from a long sea voyage, as they had sent a large quantity of linen to be washed.

 

16/3/1892

Border Watch

THE WINDSOR MURDER

About half-past seven last Friday evening the following message came through from

Western Australia to Melbourne:

“Perth, Western Australia,

“March 11, 1892.

“Telegram for the Chief Commissioner of Police, Victoria.

“Williams, alias Swanson. arrested today at Southern Cross. Arrive here next week. Send officer to identify, &1BO original warrant and information.

“(Signed) “G. PHILLIPS, Commissioner.”

This was the first news of the arrest of the Windsor murderer, and it was at once handed to the police authorities, to whom it caused no small satisfaction. There was some delay in handing it to the press, but by midnight it had been wired through to the leading dailies inthe other colonies.

 

THE INQUEST

22/3/1892

Adelaide Register

THE WINDSOR MURDER CASE.

The more the circumstances revealed in connection with the Windsor murder case are studied the greater is the horrible fascination which the tragedy creates.

The display of public feeling has been phenomenal, and what was written of as “The Windsor Mystery “in small paragraphs less than three weeks ago has already filled many scores of columns, whilst the sensational story has been circulated throughout the British dominions.

 Beside so general a manifestation of popular feeling the excited demonstrations begotten by the atrocious Sullivan murders in New Zealand at the Hokitika gold rush and by the villany of the Kelly Gang of bushrangers in Victoria during1879 seem very ordinary and tame.

There can be little doubt that if Williams or Swanston had been in the United States instead of in Australia he would before now have been unceremoniously tried by Judge Lynch and executed as summarily by the mob. Fortunately for the interests of justice and of human life the thirst for blood which so characterizes the American people in their treatment of such cases is not a distinguishing feature of  the Australian.

 Here even the most graceless criminal is sure of a fair trial. The unprecedented character of the proceedings of Williams have caused his case to be quite exceptionally treated, and less than this could not in, the nature of things have been expected.

It may be well, however, to remember that, speaking judicially, the accused man is not legally proved to have com-mitted the crimes charged against him in the legal indictments. This may modify the tendency to connect him under some of his many aliases, and in circumstances of greater or less cruelty or romance, with most of the mysterious crimes or other wrongdoings which have occurred in Australia during many years past.

There must be a limit even to the atrocities of such a scoundrel as he who murdered Emily Williams. The proceedings in Western Australia, detailed with great minuteness by our correspondent, throw important side-lights upon the circumstances of the Windsor murder.

Previously the identity of Swanston with Williams had not been absolutely established. Now the accused is understood to admit that he arrived in Victoria with his wife under the name of Williams. He states, however, that she could not have been murdered on the date which conjecture named for her death, because he saw her about a week later.

He asserts that he quarrelled with her at the Federal Coffee Palace on account of her conduct with some other man, and knew no more of her fate.

The effect of this statement would be to raise a question respecting the identity with Mrs. Williams of the woman found in the Windsor cottage, and, presuming that were sufficiently established, to throw the onus of the murder upon a third party.

When the inquest was opened a fortnight ago in Melbourne, however, the body of the dead woman was positively identified as that of Mrs. Williams by the gentleman who was a fellow passenger with the accused and his wife in the Kaiser Wilhelm, and who picked out Williams yesterday in Perth from amongst a number of other prisoners.

Another witness stated that he met Williams in Sydney late in January, and that Williams told him that his wife was “all right and up here.” A point which suggests further  enquiry is why, if Williams left his wife in Melbourne because of her misconduct, he should within a few days have proposed marriage to Miss Rounsefellon his way to Sydney, where his wife then was, according to his own assertion.

Concerning the theory that the cottage must have been taken and the murder committed by another man, the evidence already adduced sets forth that the house was rented by a person who described himself as a toolmakers engineer, whose general resemblance to the man now under arrest in Western Australia has been presumptively established.

The complete closing of the link rests, of course, with the prosecution. Passing without discussion the improbable idea that the six-feet man who married a South Australian lady in 1875 and then mysteriously disappeared has reappeared as Williams and shrunk six inches in the interval, the attempt to connect Williams with “Jack the Ripper” is worthy of reference.

The incriminating testimony appears to be of the slightest kind. It may be expressed in the logical formula—the Whitechapel assassin was a clever scoundrel; the accused Windsor murderer is a clever scoundrel; therefore  the Windsor murderer is the White-chapel murderer.

There is a distinct difference in the nature and evident motive of the crimes in the case of “Jack the Ripper” and in the  present instance, and the only evidence yet published of association between the two is that the chronological sequence thus far traced would allow of the bare possibility that the man who left Australia for South Africa in 1887 or early in 1888 arrived in London a few weeks later, in time to appear in the fiendish character of “Jack the Ripper ,”and perform his other misdeeds in the intervals of the subsequent White-chapel murders. One thing beyond question is that the atrocities of “Jack the Ripper” seem almost to dwindle down in comparison with the barbarous cruelty of a man who murders his own wife and children to pave the way for another marriage. Minor matters of interest amongst the disclosures of the last few days are the apparent fact that Deeming or Williams, like the poisoner Wainwright, cannot plead hereditary predisposition to crime, as his family seem to be of respectable character. Whether, also like Wainwright, the Windsor and Rainhill murderer is afflicted with that moral insanity which to some extent is distinct from mental insanity, future revelations may disclose.

With all its repellent horrors the whole case is intensely interesting to the student of human nature in its most morbid and revolting aspects.

 

  The Windsor Murder

The public excitement in connection with the Windsor and Rainhill tragedies continues unabated.

A large crowd has assembled daily outside the house at, which the Liverpool murders were committed and, overborne with mad excitement the people broke through the cordon of police and stormed the building which the owner has now resolved to demolish. The search for further discoveries there has now been completed without any developments of a especially exciting nature.

Swanson was despatched from Perth on Friday morning en route for Melbourne via Guilford and Albany. On the way from the inland towns to Albany the Prisoner was subjected to strong demonstrations of an all but unimaginable horror and hatred on the part of the crowds of spectators who everywhere lined the route in a fearfully excited condition.

He was hissed and hooted, while a woman mustered courage to fling a stone through the carriage window, and others shouted ‘ Lynch him,’ ‘Drag hint out and etc.’

The prisoner has borne the trying ordeal with remarkable equanimity though lie expressed at one time the tear that he is afraid ‘ he would peg out to the evident disgust of the interested world, who would bitterly regret his death by natural causes.

On being lodged at Perth, Swanson, with some inexplicable object except it be that of self disguise attempted to shave off his hair with a piece of glass from the neck of a bottle about the size of a shilling.

But this appears to have been but partially successful for at least 75 per cent of the hair found in the cells has been pulled out by the roots, On being taken aboard” the R.M.S. Ballarat for Melbourne, Detective Cawsey, who has been largely identified with the investigations which hire proved so successful, placed the prisoner in manacles; and under the joint care of 3 police officers and 4marines, he has been sent on his way to Adelaide. Detective Ciawsey strongly believes, for reasons he does not see fit to disclose, that Williams is identical with the notorious murderer, Jack the Ripper.

The Iatest intelligence has brought some further disclosures of a most startling character. The Criminal Investigation Department has now in its possession information which identifies the prisoner with the assasinations of a white man and two coloured lads in South Africa, where Swanson is also known to have been the principal actor in certain diamond robberies.

 

THE TRIAL

27/4/1892

The Mercury

THE WINDSOR MURDER.  

The lawyers retained by Albert Deeming on behalf of his brother Frederick hope to be able to collect sufficient evidence of insanity to procure a mitigation of the death penalty in the event of Deeming being found guilty of the murder at Windsor.  

 

19/5/1892

Wagga Wagga Express

THE WINDSOR MURDER.

It has now transpired (says the Melbourne Herald) that Williams, under a strong pledge of secrecy, made a confession of his having committed the crime prior to his conviction and the sentence of death.

Under a pledge that this statement would not be revealed until after the trial, if at all, the prisoner stated that he had committed the murder, but did not recollect a great deal about it.

He was afraid of killing his wife, and warned her to leave him, but she refused. He would not say when the murder was committed, but it may be taken for granted that it was close to Christmas Day, for on more than one night about this time his apartment at the Cathedral Hotel was not visited by him at all.

He states that he killed his wife by using the battle-axe first and cutting her throat immediately after.

She made no cry, and she was lying on the air bed at the time, so he was enabled to prevent any blood getting on the floor. Immediately after the murder, so Williams told the doctors for the defence, he went to sleep, and slept for six hours. All this time the body of his wife lay beside him wettering in the blood which had poured from the terrific wounds inflicted upon her.

He does not know, he declares, why he killed his wife, but this, the doctors remark, is the secret which has yet to be dragged out of him, and it is suggested the task should be undertaken by Dr. Shields, the Government medical officers

.It appears that at no time in his defence did the murderer suggest the plea of insanity — or, rather, not until close to the day of trial. He argued that no one had seen him kill his wife, that she could not be properly identified, and that the Crown could not prove him to be the murderer.

 

 

 

THE HANGING

Execution of Deeming.    

AT three minutes to 10 on Monday, the unhappy man was hurriedly brought from his cell. The fall front of the white cap being raised, exposed the livid pallor of his fierce, repulsive face.

When he was led on to the drop he gazed round at the assembled crowd with a dazed, uncertain look, asthough even yet he failed to appreciate his awful proximity to death.

A stony smile flitted over his features for a moment, and then his face became as rigid as marble, and utterly expressionless.

The strain on his nerves during the last week had made a great change, and his old defiant and wolfish malignity had deserted him.

As he cast one glance at the little window behind the drop and saw the last gleam of light he would ever gaze upon his lip quivered, and he slightly trembled, then bracing himself up and looking straight into the crowd he resumed his look of hopeless inanity.

The hang-man who had led him on to the drop in a quick businesslike manner, made a hasty examination of the rope, running the noose quickly up and down to be sure it was sufficiently greased, and glancing hurriedly at the knot, adjusted it behind the murderer’s ear.

There was a deathlike silence in the echoing gaol as the sheriff asked the doomed man if he had anything to communicate, and the grave faces of the spectators were strained to catch the  merest whisper of the confession they had waited for so long; it was the last chance that would ever occur, and everyone felt their nerves strung to their highest tension.

The prisoner opened his mouth to speak, and the words came so faint and tremulous as to be scarcely audible, as though he was labouring under a tremulous emotion or like one in a dream.

” The Lord receive my spirit.” That was all. The white cap was then drawn over his face. At this point the wonderful nerve of the man seemed about to fail him; but he braced himself up and stood swaying slightly as he listened to the last words he would ever hear in life. Amid the awful stillness of the gaol arose the quiet low tones of the Rev. Mr. Whitton, who read the last impressive service over the doomed wretch as he stood quavering on the drop: ” Man that is born of a woman hath but  a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. In the midst of life we are in death.”

A sound like a giant’s sigh swelled up from the body of the gaol as the lever was thrust quickly forward by the assistant hangman, and the murderer fell into the yawning space that would see his last death agony.

The tremor and consequent swaying of the body immediately the white cap was drawn over his face flashed across my mind, and the theory that he had fainted before the fatal bolt was drawn seemed incontestable. Inquiry of several medical men who happened to be present strengthened my sup-position (writes the Evening News correspondent),and I believe I am correct in asserting that over-come by the awful reality of the terrible ordeal this man, whose iron nerve has puzzled the whole world, succumbed to the last strain put upon his system, and lost all consciousness before the hang-man’s rope summoned him to appear before his last tribunal.

He fell like a man of stone, and indeed never moved a muscle after the white cap had been placed over his face. To the last he played his part, and followed but the lines he had laid down for himself. He had told a warder when he came to speak he would not confess. “I shall merely call upon the Lord to receive my spirit,” and though the words came faint and hollow he said it. Soon after the terrible event the visitors began to leave the gaol.

Contemplation of the Rainhill criminal’s career compels one (says the Times) once more to repeat that process of enlarging one’s conception of human folly, which is, perhaps, the most frequent of major mental operations. The fellow was a vulgar and palpable fraud. Wherever he went he was distrusted and disliked by persons of any discernment, yet he never wanted for dupes. It may be admitted that he was clever in his own way, but his cleverness lay chiefly in his instinctive under-standing of fools and how to play upon their weaknesses. Bounce, bluster, romances about far off lands, and a lavish display of money were his principal weapons. Nothing is more curious than to note how, if the right persons be executed for operations, everything that ought to excite distrust be-comes a means of securing blind confidence.

This man swindled his way through the world with the most complete ease and security by adding some elementary strategy, to his knowledge of human weakness. He understood the immense value of capital in such a business as his. He never attempted a coup except when he was still well provided with the proceeds of the last one.

Want of this cautious resolution not to trade beyond the limit of the capital available has been the ruin of many a promising criminal as of many an honest merchant. A man short of funds is driven to expedients which his cool judgment would probably condemn, and his capture becomes a mere matter of time and accident.

The rogue now in question could always afford to take the beat and most expeditious mode of leaving dangerous quarters, and that fact alone goes far to explain his long immunity from detection. Complete analysis of this criminal is difficult; the materials, in fact, are hardly yet forthcoming. It is probable however, that he is essentially swindler and incidentally murderer.

No adequate motive has yet been suggested for the brutal butchery at Rainhill, but it is possible that his wife had found out too  much about his past. His instinct of self-preservation was strong, and it the unfortunate woman once presented herself in the sight of a danger he would stick at nothing to get rid of her. The murder of the children probably followed as a corollary in a mind to which ethical conceptions were apparently foreign. His absolute indifference  upon any hypothesis to every kind of moral restraint, and to every emotional prompting that might have interfered with his prompting, marks him out as a singularly perfect example of those negations of all that is human in man, which civilisation seems to turn out from time to time.

The Daily Chronicle says: A most singular affair, writes a correspondent, has occurred at Madame Tussaud’s in connection with the notorious Deeming.

As is well-known, the enterprising proprietors of the famous waxwork exhibition have purchased the materials of Denham Villa, and the whole have been removed from Rainhill to London where many of the kitchen stones and cement have been put in the Chamber of Horrors. In the cement there is the print of a hand which is believed to be that of Deeming. A workman was sent into the Chamber to arrange the materials, and, not returning, he was sent for. He was found dead on the very stones which he had been sent to prepare for exhibition this Easter.

The following are note by Gaol warders closely aligned to the Hangman on the day of the hanging.

 

AFTERMATH

10/3/1927

Canberra Times

Deeming‘s Skull.

The skull of Australia’s most notorious murderer, Deeming, did not corrode in quick lime with the rest of his body when he was executed in Melbourne Gaol in mid-1892.

His cranial abnormality was so marked, and various or-gans of the body so out of the ordinary that several surgeons of that per-iod put in a special request for an independent inspection and examinationof the body after it was cut down sub-sequent to hanging for the prescribed two hours.

When the examination was concluded, it was pointed out to authorities that the retention of Deem-ing’s head would serve a valuable purpose, not only to the medical profession,but to the public and students of criminology in general.    

When the skull was measured phre-nologically, the brain weighed and balanced, astounding differences were dis-covered between it and those of the average person post-mortemed, the resultsbeing carefully checked, written down, tabulated, and placed in their proper or-der in the medical and surgical laboratory, which had asked for the head of the assassin.

Not only was there a physical hiatus wherever the veneration, benevolence and kindliness should have been, but where the ordinary combativeness and assertiveness should have been seen, there was enough to fill the cells of savagery in a tiger, the destructiveness in a gorilla, and the ferocity of a cannibal.

Bravery was absolutely absent; while craven fear was in abundance, and in its place was the crowded brain cells of a leopard and the flattened bone of a cobra. The skull and brain are, or were a few years ago, in the museum of a section of a big surgical exhibition attached to a university, and probably they are still there.

The Execution of Frances Knorr 1894

The Execution of Frances Knorr

Frances (Minnie) Knorr (nee Thwaites) born in England, Frances (known as ‘Minnie’) migrated to Australia, in 1887, she was one of only five women hanged in Victoria.

 On 2 November 1889 at St Philip’s Church of England married Rudolph Knorr, a German-born waiter. They moved to Melbourne, then onto Adelaide. During the financial depression, of the 1890’s and after the birth of their daughter in 1892, Rudi was sentenced to a gaol term in Adelaide for selling off the family’s furniture, even though, they did not own the furniture yet themselves.

Fending for herself and child Frances tried to support herself by dressmaking but when this venture failed she stole money and returned to Melbourne. Whilst in Melbourne she had an affair with a man named Ted (Edward) Thompson, living together, but he soon left her as well.

Desperate for money Frances turned to the business of ‘baby farming’ taking care of other women’s (usually illegitimate, read into that, unwanted) children. Frances Knorr moved around Melbourne frequently living in several rented houses and when her husband was released the couple returned to Sydney.

After a new tenant, discovered of the corpses of three infants in premises at 25 Davies Street Brunswick, Melbourne, that Frances rented, she was arrested and, after giving birth to a second child on 4 September 1893,Frances was  brought back to Melbourne, where she was tried for murder.

THE CRIME

The Argus

5/9/1883

TRAFFIC IN BABIES.

SHOCKING DISCOVERY AT

BRUNSWICK.

A CHILD’S BODY BURIED IN A

FURTHER SEARCH BEING MADE.

Added to the long list of child murders on the records at the City Morgue is one which was discovered yesterday by Mr. Clay, a commercial traveller, who has recently taken up his residence in Moreland-road, Brunswick.

 He was digging in the garden, when he came across the body of a child, which had been buried about a foot beneath the surface. The police were advised of the matter, and Senior-constable Percival went to the place and took charge of the body.

The state of decomposition indicated that the child had been buried for about three months. The coroner for Bourke, Mr. Candler, has been informed of the discovery, and he will hold an inquest when the Brunswick police have had time to make the inquiries necessary in the case.

An examination of the body clearly showed that its death had undoubtedly been caused by violence, and that murder had been com-mitted. The skull was fractured, in fact almost broken to pieces. Other injuries were also visible on the body, which was perfectly nude. The corpse was placed by the police-man in a box and sent to the morgue.

Mr. Clay, the present occupier of the house, has only been in the occupation of the premises for a very short time, they having previously been vacant for a considerable period. From information gained by the police, it appears that a local agent was visited on the 10th of April last by a woman who wished to rent the house.

 She paid a deposit of 4s., and got possession of the keys. On the 15th of the same month, or five days after securing the keys, she sent them back to the agent by a boy, who de-livered a message that the house did not suit. The same woman, it has been discovered, then removed to a house in Davis street, in close proximity to the one in which the body was found. It has also been discovered by the police that the woman, while in the former house, borrowed a spade from a neighbour, which she only kept for about a  hour and then re-turned, the plea given when asking for the spade being that she wished to dig the garden. This woman, while occupying the house in Davis-street, came under the notice of the police in connection with a baby-farming case, and soon afterwards she most mysteriously disappeared from the district. Since her removal she has been most anxiously required by the police, owing to her connection with nearly all the recent cases of trafficking with babies which have been reported in The Argus as occurring in nearly all of the suburbs.

 The Prahran, Carlton, Brunswick, and Coburg courts have each had cases brought under their notice, and the woman’s identity, owing to her innumerable aliases, has almost become an impossibility. It is estimated by the police that this woman has been the means of scattering scores of children throughout Melbourne and suburbs. Owing to the discovery the police at Brunswick are making a thorough search of the yards of the two houses which have been occupied by this woman. These yards are being thoroughly dug over, but up to last night nothing further had been discovered. The work will be continued this morning.

From the information already in the possession of the Brunswick police, it may be seen that there is reasonable ground for sup-position that the present case of child murder will be presently cleared of all the mystery, and the perpetrator of the murder brought to justice. For many months past the crime of infanticide has been prevalent in the city and suburbs, and the records of the city and district coroners have been plentifully marked with cases in which verdicts of murder have been re-turned against some person or persons un-known in connection with the deaths of infants.

The bodies have been found in field and river, on the public street, and in private enclosures, and while most have been wrapped in paper and clothing, some have been absolutely nude. The post-mortem examinations made by the doctors have generally shown that death was caused by suffocation, induced by pressure, and that the abandonment was after death, but in one instance recently, where the body was found in the bay, it was discovered that death had been due to drowning, and that therefore the child must have been cast alive into the water and abandoned to the tide.

In all these cases the police and detectives were employed in the task of tracing the parentage of the children, but in none did they succeed. Indeed it  is remarkable that for years past only one  such case has been satisfactorily cleared up. In that the detective police succeeded in establishing the identity of the child, but only after its mother had committed suicide at the residence of her employer in East Melbourne. In addition to the children thus murdered and abandoned, there have been many others which have come directly under the notice of the police though not of the coroners. Those are the unfortunates which have been left alive in public parks and on doorsteps by baby farmers, such as the one who was residing in April last in Brunswick.

These women, until the passing of the Infant Life Protection Act, had an easy way of ridding themselves of children they had undertaken to nurse. They had merely to feed them with unsuitable food till marasmus rendered death certain. Then a doctor would be called in ,and while under his care the child would die. His certificate of death from wasting was generally accepted as sufficient, unless there were circumstances surrounding the case specially suspicious and known to the police.

Since the passing of that act, however, every death of an infant boarded out has to be inquired into by the coroner, whether the circumstances are suspicious or not. The inquests thus held have exposed the regular baby-farmers to much danger    of verdicts of manslaughter, and it has been noticed that of late such inquests have become less frequent, whilst cases of desertion or murder have be-come more common.

The suburban courts have been inundated with the deserted children, and the state is now supporting many who have been commended to it by “a heart-broken mother who cannot afford  to bring the child up,” and is a “Roman  Catholic” or a “Protestant,” as the case may be. If the discovery at Brunswick be traced to the woman who was suspected of being responsible for many of these desertions it will have considerable importance, the police having hitherto sought her in vain as an inveterate baby-farmer whose capture was much to be desired.

 

THE INQUEST

26/9/1893

The Argus

THE BRUNSWICK INFANTICIDES.

CONCLUSION OF THE INQUESTS.

The inquest on the third child, whose body was found buried in the back yard of a house at Brunswick, was concluded at the Morgue yesterday before the coroner for Bourke, Mr. Candler. The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against Mrs. Knorr, and found that Rudolph Knorr was an accessory before the fact. Both prisoners were committed to take their trial at the Criminal Court on the15th November,

25 Davies Street as it is today, ( it is the house with a trailer locked to a tree).

 http://www.street-directory.com.au/sd3_new/gsv/index.php?ll=-37.756637,144.966586

 

THE TRIAL

29/11/1893

Sydney Morning Herald

[BY TELEGRAPH.]

(FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.)

THE BRUNSWICK BABY-FARMIMG CASE.

THE TRIAL OE FRANCES KNORR.

MELBOURNE, TUESDAY.

A sensational turn was given to-day to the trial of Frances Knorr, for the Brunswick baby-farm murder, by the appearance in the box of a young man named Edward Thompson, to whom she sent a letter while the inquests were going on at the morgue, asking him to ” manufacture ” certain evidence for production at her trial. Thompson, who described himself as  a fishmonger, is a man about 27 years of age, with

the dress and demeanour of a better class artisan. In the letter certain lines had been obliterated by the witness with black chalk. His explanation was that when he got the letter these lines had already been run through in pencil, and as the words referred to” his intimacy” with the prisoner with whom he  had lived, and as he did not want his mother to see them he blotted them out. Counsel for the prosecution asked whether the words scratched out were not these :—” Ted, you know you are guilty of what I am charged with, and if you look after my two children I will never divulge. I will bear the blame.” The witness replied that  

there was not a word of truth in this. He could not remember either the exact words he had scratched out or the substance of them. The trial will be resumed to-morrow.

 

2/12/1893

Sydney Morning Herald

THE BRUNSWICK CHILD

TRIAL OF FRANCES KNORR.

A VERDICT OF GUILTY.

[BY TELEGRAPH.]

(FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.)

MELBOURNE, FRIDAY.

At the Supreme Court criminal sittings to-day, before Mr. Justice Holroyd, the trial was concluded of Frances Knorr, alias Minnie Thwaites, for the wilful murder of a female child unknown  at a house in Moreland-road, Brunswick, on or  about the 11th April last. Mr. Walsh, Q.C., in    addressing the jury on the whole case, said the account given by the prisoner in the box was the most extraordinary piece of audacious evidence he had ever heard in a court of justice.  

Mr. Justice Holroyd, in summing up, said in this case there was no direct proof of killing,  but the jury might, as the prosecutor asked them to do, come to a conclusion. The surrounding circumstances brought before them constituted such a charge that it was impossible to escape coming to the conclusion that the prisoner was guilty. Was there motive to impel the prisoner to commit the crime ?The highest sum she appeared to have got aspremium with any child was £20, and the lowest  about £5. Judging from her impecunious circumstances, she seemed to have spent the money almost as soon as she got it. What she did was to hire out those babies, in some instances to pay for them for a time, and then cease to pay, and in other instances to take the children back, while in some cases it was not known what became of them. Of three children the prisoner herself had given an account. That being her habit, and it being necessary for her to live, she had a strong temptation upon her if she could not pay to get rid of the child by some other means. That was the force of  the whole of the evidence as to the prisoner’s dealings with the babies. Whether that temptation overbore her on any occasion was another matter. The jury would have to consider what would be the conduct of a sensible innocent woman under such circumstances as those described by the prisoner.

She knew the law relating to the boarding-out of  the children and regarded it as troublesome and inconvenient to comply with its provisions. That being so, she must have known the law would be still more particular in requiring an account  from her of the death of a child under her charge.

 Would a sensible woman bury a child in the garden, and would she not give in-formation to the police, and at any rate to the neighbours, who could as soon as possible ascertain whether or not the child died from convulsions ? If it had died from convulsions it was to her own interest to have made the fact known as promptly as possible.

The prosecution put it that if these precautions were taken to avoid the discovery of death what conclusion could be drawn but that the child met with foul play ? It was difficult to understand the object of substituting one child for another. The prosecution put the question, What was the object of passing one child for another except to conceal something from persons likely to make inquiries ?

 As to the prisoner’s accusation against Thompson the jury would have to consider what motive Thompson had to murder the child, seeing he was under no obligation with regard to it. If the prisoner’s    evidence were true, Thompson ought to stand his trial. If false, it was a horrible accusation. There were several coincidences in the mode of burying the three bodies. It was extraordinary, if the prisoner’s story were true, that three persons—Wilson, the prisoner, and Thompson should each bury a body at precisely the same depth, within an inch or two, and that the prisoner should bury a body in exactly the same  spot, or so close as to touch that which she alleged had, unknown to her, been buried by Thompson.

The summing-up occupied three hours. At 25minutes past 3 the jury retired. Mr. Mullen asked his Honor, in the event of a certain verdict, to hear an application by Mr. Smith (the prisoner’s counsel), in Chambers on Monday. Mr. Justice Holroyd assisted.  

After an absence from the Court of a little over half an hour, the jury returned, and at their own request were supplied with the versions of the prisoner, Edward Thompson, and Mrs. Thompson, in the letter from prisoner to himself respectively, of the words scratched out by Thompson in the letter.

At 5 o’clock the jury once more returned into court, this time with a verdict of ” guilty.” On  hearing the verdict the prisoner swayed backwards    and forwards in the dock, and sank down in tears upon the seat. Mr. Justice Holroyd said the prisoner would be removed until after Monday in order to hear an application from her counsel. The prisoner was then removed from the dock. She sobbed and cried, and had to be supported by a female warder and a police officer.

As she descended the steps from the dock, she turned to the gallery where Thompson was sitting, and exclaimed, ” God help yours ins, Ted,” and still sobbing and crying her last words as she disappeared through the doorway were ” God help my poor mother,” and ” God help my poor baby.” The scene was a most    painful one.

The hearing of the further charges of murder against Mrs. Knorr and her husband, Rudolph Knorr, has been postponed till the 15th instant.

19/12/1893

Evening News

Melbourne Baby Farming.

FRANCES AND RUDOLPH KNORR.

Melbourne, Tuesday. — The Crown has entered a nolle prosequi in the two child murder cases in which Mrs. Knorr was committed for trial together with her husband, Rudolph Knorr. The latter was in consequence discharged from custody. A special meeting of the Cabinet has been convened for December 29, when the case of Frances Knorr, who is lying under sentence of death for the murder of an infant at Brunswick, will be considered.

 (Nolle prosequi means a Crown Law Officer may inform any court, by writing under the officer’s hand, that the Crown will not further proceed upon any indictment)

 

THE HANGING

15/1/1894

The Argus

THE CASE OF MRS. KNORR.

CONDITION OF THE CONDEMNED WOMAN.

The execution of Mrs. Knorr will take place at the Melbourne gaol at 10 o’clock  this morning in the presence of the sheriff, Mr. L. Ellis, the governor of the  gaol, Captain Burrowes, and several magistrates. The sheriff has been approached by all sorts and conditions of men for orders for admission to witness the execution, but he has very properly refused them all, and has only issued orders to those who are entitled by virtue of their positions to gain admittance to the gaol. The  suicide of Jones, the late hangman, having deprived the sheriff of the services of the only person in the colony who had had practical experience in the working of the gal-lows, special care has been taken to see that  the new executioner, Howard, should have the benefit of any information or instruction that experience has suggested. As a result it is expected that no difficulty or hitch will occur this morning so far as the hangman is concerned. Much will depend on the behaviour of the condemned woman, however, and her state of mind during yesterday indicated that she was not likely to face her death calmly. In the morning she laboured under the influence of a strong religious excitement and while the other female prisoners were gathered together at a church service, sent messages to them asking them to sing “Abide with Me,”  

and other hymns. Her requests were, of course, complied with, and in the singing of the hymns the condemned woman joined heartily. Later in the day her state be-came calmer, but at night, when her husband visited her and took farewell of her, the interview greatly disturbed her, and she utterly broke down. Her actions then and subsequently showed  her to be thoroughly unnerved, and led Captain Burrowes, the governor of the gaol to enjoin upon the guard set over the woman the strictest watchfulness, lest in her excitement she might do herself injury.

DEPUTATION TO THE GOVERNOR.

The approaching execution of Mrs. Knorr was the occasion yesterday evening of a largely attended public meeting in Russell Street at the instance of a number of persons who object to capital punishment. From9 to 10 the little audience which assembled on the vacant land in Russell-street were addressed by a number of speakers, the most prominent of whom was Mr. Hancock; and  having been reinforced by the Rev. Dr. Strong and the Rev. Mr. Edgar, a deputation of some 150 persons proceeded to Government-house. The news had been previously conveyed by telephone, and under the impression that an attack might possibly be made upon the premises a strong force of police, under command of Sub-inspector Walstab, was  detailed from the neighbouring barracks to command all the avenues of approach. Presently the deputation arrived, and in view of its powerful character a selection of dele-gates, including the Rev. Dr. Strong, the Rev.

A. R. Edgar, Mr. Hancock, Mrs. Goldstein,  and Mrs. Oldfield, was allowed to enter the building and to interview the Governor.

The Rev. Dr. Strong said that they had come    with the object of getting Her Majesty’s  representative, if he had it in his power, to  extend the prerogative of mercy to Frances  Knorr, now lying under sentence of death.

They had no word to say in extenuation of the crime of which the woman was convicted, but they felt that the ends of justice would be sufficiently met if the  sentence of death were commuted to imprisonment for life. The hanging of a woman would be felt as a blot on Melbourne, and thus even at this late hour they had ventured to intrude upon His Excellency in the hope of saving the criminal’s life.  

The Rev. S. R. Edgar said that the  sentiment of the people was in favour of the extension of mercy towards the condemned woman. Had sufficient time been allowed he was sure that a numerously-signed  petition would have been prepared on the prisoner’s behalf. The hanging of a woman  would be an act which would disgrace the colony. In fact, as a proof of the strong public feeling on the question he might mention that at a meeting held in his church on an entirely different subject a petition in favour of the commutation of Mrs. Knorr’s  sentence was dawn up and largely signed. They had no fresh facts to bring forward, but they asked for a reprieve on the simple ground of mercy.

Mr. J. Hancock said that everybody must sympathise with the position in which His Excellency was placed. They came at this late hour because they realised that a woman’s life was to be saved. If action had    been so long delayed it was only because from the first the public had believed that women would not be executed. In a great number of similar cases in the old country female prisoners had been reprieved. When the public of the colony read the details of the execution in the  papers they would recognise that the real criminals had escaped. The colony was not  in such a terrible condition that a victim was required. Unfortunately, at the trial stress had not been laid upon the epileptic symptoms to which the unfortunate woman was subject. The subject had been brought under the notice of the Premier by telephone, but Mr. Patterson had held out no hope of any remission of the sentence. If His Excellency would only intervene it would add to his popularity, not only in this world but in the next.

 

16/1/1894

Narracourte Herald

Tbe Execution of Mrs. Knorr.

(By Telegraph.)

Melbourne, January 15.,

Mrs. Frances Knorr, the baby farmer was hanged at the  Melbourne Goal at ten o’clock this morning. . A large crowd of morbid minded people collected outside the goal in “Victoria, and Russell Streets, but only a few persons were allowed in to witness the execution.

Shortly before the new hangman (Roberts) entered the condemned cell, Mrs. Knorr sang the hymns “In the Sweet By-and-bye and “Abide with Me.” She’ walked firmly to the scaffold.

The noose haying been laid on her neck, the Sheriff asked if she had anything to say. She replied “Yes 1 The Lord is with me, I do not fear what man can do to me, for I am at peace at perfect peace” The, lever was then polled, and she dropped into eternity without a struggle.

Mrs. Knorr confessed several days before the execution that she murdered two of the babies, but “No. 3” she did not murder. 

 

The following report is from a record kept by the Gaol Warders closely involved with the Execution of Francis Knorr

H>M Gaol Melbourne

Particulars of the Execution of Francis Knorr on 15/1/1894

Height 5 foot 2 inches

Weight 11 stone 2 lbs add 1lb for her skirt.

Remarks

Death was  instanteneous. On examination after being cut down the Doctor found that  there was just the slightest scratch on the neck. The spine had been dislocated.

R.Burrows

Governor at 

Melbourne Gaol

The Execution of Jackie Underwood 1901.

The Execution of Jackie Underwood 1901.

Jackie Underwood was one of the perpetrators of a crime known as the Breelong massacre that occurred on the night of the 20^th July, 1900.

The story of will of the Breelong massacre sound strangely familiar as it has been immortalised in the fictionalised novel and film, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith.

Jimmy Blacksmith’s real surname was Governor, he had a fencing contract with a man named John Mawbey at  farm called Breelong, near Gilgandra in Western New South Wales.

Governor in turn sub contracted the work to some of his family and friends. One of them being a man named Jackie Underwood, sometime known as Charlie Brown.

Jimmy had been insulted by reports from Ethel, that Mrs Mawbey and Helen Josephine Kerz, a schoolteacher who lived with the Mawbeys, had taunted his wife for marrying Aboriginal.

On the night of 20 July 1900, accompanied by Underwood, Governor confronted the women, who were alone in the house with seven children and Mrs Mawbey’s 18-year-old sister Elsie Clarke. Jimmy alleged that the women laughed at him and Helen Kerz said: ‘Pooh, you black rubbish, you want shooting for marrying a white woman’.

Jimmy’s reaction was disproportionate to the insults on the day, but he snapped as he had no doubt that this type of insult about him was rife. The cumulative effect of the racism he had endured is an often put up theory as to what initiated the massacre at Breelong, the same could be said for Jackie Underwood’s and explain Jackie Underwood’s actions/reactions at the house that night.

Jimmy Governor  and Jackie Underwood, with nulla-nullas and tomahawk, killed Mrs Grace Mawbey, Helen Kerz, and Grace (16), Percival (14) and Hilda Mawbey (11); Elsie Clarke was seriously injured. Undeerwood was attributed as the killer of Percival Mawbey.

Underwood was quickly caught and held at Dubbo for his trial and hanging.

Jimmy Governor and his brother Joe Governor, continued to rampage, terrorizing a wide area of north-central New South Wales for the next fourteen weeks. Seeking revenge on persons who had wronged them, they killed Alexander McKay near Ulan on 23 July, Elizabeth O’Brien and her baby son at Poggie, near Merriwa, on 24 July, and Keiran Fitzpatrick near Wollar, on 26 July.

After some robberies in the North of the state, they moved onto the Manning and Hastings rivers, pursued by black trackers brought down from Queeensland, bloodhounds and hundreds of police and civilians.

On 8 October the NSW Government offered a reward of £1000 each for their capture.

Jimmy was shot in the mouth by Herbert Byers, a hunter, on 13 October1900; in a weakened condition he was captured by a party of settlers, near Wingham, on 27 October 1900.

Joe was shot dead, north of Singleton on 31 October. They had been outlawed on 23 October 1900.

Underwood was executed on the 14^th January1901, in the Dubbo gaol four days later, Jimmy Governor was hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol on 18 January 1901 and buried in an unmarked grave in the Anglican section of Rookwood cemetery.

THE CRIME AT BREELONG

Kiama Independent

26 July 1900

The Breelong Murders

The whole of the Great West is up in arms in consequence of the murders perpetrated by Blacks in the Breelong district on Friday night last.  Another murder was committed 20 miles from Mudgee on Monday. a man named Mackay being killed and his wife injured; and a woman and child were butchered to death 13 miles around Merriwee, near the Goulburn River, There seems some ground for the belief that word has passed around among the blacks to massacre  different families in widely separated localities at about the same time.

Jacky Underwood, one of the participants in the outrages on the Mawbey family at Breelong, was captured on Tuesday night. Only the two aboriginals named Governor are now at large.

THE INQUEST

Nepean Times

28 July 1900

THE BREELONG MURDERS.

INQUEST

Albert Mawbey, stated : I am 9 years old, I canread and write a little; I am the son of John Mawbey, and reside at Breelong ; last Friday night went to bed at about half-past 8 in the back bed-room ; Jack Mawbey, whose proper name is George  Mawbey, went to bed with me ; I think I was asleep, when I was awoke by the voice of a black fellow singing out, ‘I will blow your brains out, and stamping his feet; I jumped out of bed and came out of the door, and saw a black fellow standing in the middle of the sitting-room ; he was big and tall; I saw no head ; he had trousers and shirt on ; I don’t know his name, and never saw him before ; he was belting into Percy, hitting him with a rifle or a stick ; I don’t know rightly what it was; it was dark, but there was a little light from the fire; there was no candle burning ; Percy was on the floor lying down ; he hit Percy 10 or 13times; I was frightened, and ran out over the creek and hid in some bushes for about 10 minutes ; I then heard screams coming from the house ; I saw no other black fellow except the one belting Percy;  I then ran on to our old house, to my father and Fred Clarke and Reggie Mawbey, my brother ; I said ‘A black fellow is killing Percy,’ and father  ran up to this house, where Percy was being killed ; Reg and Fred ran after him, Reg took his rifle ; I saw no more ; I know Jim Governor, who lives at the camp, about three miles away ; the black fellowI saw was not like Jimmy Governor ; I did not see my mother when the black fellow was hitting Percy ; I heard her screaming in her bedroom; Miss Clarke was also sleeping in hers ; I did not see her; My sisters, Hilda and Grace Mawbey, were also sleeping in the room with my mother ;Miss Kerz also slept in the room ; Cecil and Garnet aged 7 and 4, slept in the kitchen ; Percy usually slept in my bedroom in the same bed.

George Mawbey, called also Jack, said : I am 13years ; I am the son of George Mawbey, and live at the house at Breelong with my uncle, John Mawbey ; I remember last Friday night; I went to bed about 7 or 8 with Bert and Percy ; we had undressed, and all got into bed ; we were lying in bed talking; I am sure I did not go to sleep ; Mrs Mawbey always sleeps in the kitchen with uncle, also Garnet and Cecil sleep there; I heard Mrs Mawbey say,’ Oh, there’s a black fellow, he has hit me on the head with a brick ;’ she was screaming this out; Percy ran out of the room ; I lay in bed for a minute and then heard Mrs Mawbey and the girls screaming ; I ran out and saw a black fellow near the back bedroom door ; he was stooping  down, watching Percy; I heard another black-fellows voice outside the house; it was Jimmy Governor’s voice, I am quite sure ; I know it well; I have met Jimmy Governor a dozen times, perhaps more, and have had a good long talk with him ;Jimmy Governor said ‘ Go on, Jacky, don’t take no notice of them ; dash out their — brains ; I have had enough of them ;’ I was frightened and ran past Percy into the front bedroom, but the door was fastened ; afterwards they let us in, and Percy  was standing looking towards the back of the house with something in his hand, and saying to  the black fellow whom I saw first, and whom I think to be Jacky ; ‘What is it you want ?’ Percy  said this several times, and then his voice stopped ;after he screamed I got into the front bedroom, and got under the bed; I heard the sound of blows coming from the sitting-room ; I heard a black-fellow, but which one I don’t know, say ‘ There’s another one about somewhere;’ I then heard a body fall on the floor; I think it was Elsie Clarke ;there was a barefooted black fellow in the bedroom ;I heard a sound as if he was picking up axes or tomahawks; then very shortly I heard Reggie coming in with his rifle; I then heard Jimmy Governor sing out before Reggie came,’ Come on, Jack, come on;’ I came from underneath, the bed, and saw Reggie standing with a lighted match crying and holding his rifle ; Reggie said ‘ Oh, here’s poor little Jack,’ meaning me ; Reggie and I left the house after uncle came in and went from the front of the house towards the creek, and found Miss Kerz this side of the creek, lying dead ; Uncle and Reggie carried her up to the house ;  some time after I saw uncle bring Hilda’s body in ;about two weeks ago I went to the blacks’ camp, about three miles from here ; I saw Jimmy Governor and two other bleak fellows; the black-fellow in custody was not there ; I also saw a white woman, Jimmy’s wife ; I have seen the black fellow Jack Porter outside the court; I don’t think he was one of the two blacks I saw with Jimmy Governor at the camp; I was under the bed when the bedroom door was smashed in ;when I came out from under the bed the window was open ; after I got into the bedroom I heard somebody smashing in the door.”  

John Thomas Mawbey, of Breelong, said : I identify the four bodies as those of Miss Kerz, Hilda, Grace, and Percy Mawbey ; the last three mentioned are my children; Helen J Kens was a teacher at the public school at Breelong : she lived with us as a border ; I last saw the deceased alive at midday on Friday last; she was sleeping at my old building; about 11 p.m. last Friday Jimmy Governor, a three-quarter aboriginal, and another man, I don’t know whether white or black, came to within eight or nine feet of the back door and sang out, ‘ Anyone there ?’ I said, ‘ Hullo there, who’s that ?’ Jimmy Governor said,’ It’s me, will you bring me up a bag of flour in the morning?’I had just gone to bed; I replied, ‘I will bring it  up in the morning or sometime to-morrow;’ I had opened the door and gone out them ; he said, ‘All right;’ I said, ‘You had better come in and have a warm;’ he said, ‘We won’t come in, we will get  home ;’ they went away and I went to bed ; about20 minutes or half an hour afterwards my son Bertie came running, and said ‘ Jimmy Governor has shot Percy and is killing him on the floor; jumped up, put my boots on unlaced, and called Reg. and Fred. Clarke to bring their rifles; I ran on, and they overtook me before I got to the house ;after crossing the creek we heard someone calling out, and we ran up and found my daughter Grace and Miss Kerz close together on this side of the creek; I picked Grace up; she never spoke, but only groaned ; I brought her in through the backdoor, and saw Mrs Mawbey lying across Percy’s face just inside the sitting-room near the back door ;I shifted Mrs Mawbey and put her on pillows ; I thought she was dead ; I sent Fred at once for the doctor and the police; Reggie, I, and little Jack went and got Miss Kerz ; I then stationed Reggie in tbe fireplace, and lighted the lamp on the table and opened the back door ; I told Reggie if he saw any black fellows, to let them come in first and then shoot them ; I then went in search of Hilda; in half an hour I found her in the creek dead ; I could not carry her; I came up to the house and got Reggie; I heard a noise in the bush, and would not let Reggie go out; I then went and carried Hilda into the house, and ran into the bedroom off the kitchen, where my wife and two little fellows and I usually sleep, and found them fast asleep; I  then went to old Johnny Owen, who was camped over the creek, and got him to go for Julias Auber,  who was camped a little higher up ; they came, and I then covered the bodies up; Miss Kerz, Hilda, and Percy ware dead ; Elsie Clarke was lying in her bed in the front bedroom groaning,  and was badly wounded and covered with blood ;  Mrs Mawbey was terribly wounded and unconscious; Grace was wounded in the forehead, and  groaning ; as soon as I saw the wounds I was sure that they were not shot wounds; Grace never recovered consciousness, and died on Sunday morning ; Mrs Mawbey is still living, but frightfully injured ; Elsie Clark is still alive, but unconscious ;my wife knew me on Sunday when I came home, but was too low for me to question her; Jimmy Governor had a contract for splitting, and erecting a fence for me; he had other blacks working for him ; one was his brother, Joe Governor, a three-quarter caste; another was Jack Underwood, a full-blood black fellow, and another named Jacky Porter, who came from Dubbo ; there was a little black boy named Peter; Jimmy Governor’s wife (Ethel Page) is legally married to him ; she has a little baby ; I never saw any other blacks but these mentioned as being in camp; there was no bad feeling existing between me and Jimmy Governor, but I had to condemn about 100of his posts about a fortnight ago; I said ‘I will condemn those posts he said ‘Will you allow me  half-price for them ?’ I said ‘ All right, they will do for a cross fence ;’ that was the only affair in the shape of a grievance that he could have; he  wanted money, but I told him I would give it to  him as soon as he had it coming to him ; I have no  reason for supposing they had any grounds of  enmity against me and my family ; Governor  always got everything be wanted in the way of  rations ; I have never seen Jimmy Governor drunk, ‘nor have I known him to be drunk; I have never  known a drop of grog to come into the camp ; I am quite positive that he was sober that night; he never showed violent temper, nor was he of a quarrelsome disposition ; the boys Percy and  Reggie had heard Jimmy Governor say he would  like to be a bushranger, as no police would ever  catch him ; he was making about 5s a day when  he was working; he spent a lot of time catching  rats and ‘possums to eat ; I believe Mrs Mawbey  told Mrs Governor that Jimmy was not to come  about the place ; I have never refused Jimmy or his wife rations or tobacco ; they had plenty of flour, tea, and sugar; I was not aware of any  money being in the house on Friday last; I have  not missed anything ; all the blacks in the camp  have boots except Jackey Porter ; it was very dark ,when they came to me ; I could not see anything in their hands ; I slept at the old house that night, because we were sacking wheat, and it was very late; my family knew I would not be home; I  often sleep there when I am busy ; Reggy or Percy  always sleep here: Percy always brings his rifle  to this house, but forgot it last Friday and left it  at the old place ; the blacks could not have known  that; Jimmy Governor had an old rifle, and wanted  to sell it to my boy; he also had a tomahawk similar to the one produced ; it is a peculiar make, and rather uncommon in shape ; Jimmy said he bought it; I cannot swear positively that the  tomahawk in the possession of Constable Berry is  the same as that I saw in Jimmy Governor’s hand,  but I believe it to be the same; I never saw a  tomahawk like it before ; I don’t think it has the  same handle that I saw ; we heard no screams as  we ran up to the house on Friday night; I know    of no other aboriginals within 30 miles ; Jacky  Porter came here about a fortnight ago; Jimmy  was the leader and head man of the camp ; I have  not been in camp since Joe Governor and the others  came, but I was there when Jimmy was about; I did not see any aboriginal weapons.  

Mrs Governor stated : My name is Ethel Governor, am married, and wife of James Governor, a half-blooded aboriginal; I reside three miles from Breelong, up the creek ; I am willing to give all the evidence I know about the crime ; I remember last Friday night, and was in the camp with my husband, also Joe Governor, Jack Underwood, and Jacky Porter, and a little blackboy, Peter Governor, who is Jim Governor’s sister’s son ; at tea time I  and my husband quarrelled because he thought me and his brother Joe were sweet with each other; Jimmy said he would leave me, and the others  could do the fencing if Mawbey liked to give it to  them ; Jimmy bid good-bye to Jack Porter and Joe  and went away at 10 at night, accompanied by Jack Underwood ; Jimmy said ‘ We are going down to Mr Mawbey’s, we will see them ;’ they went in  the direction of Mawbay’s ; Joe, Jacky, Peter and  I stayed in camp ; they came back in about an hour ; Jimmy came back by himself, he had the nulla nulla and the blanket with him which he had taken away with him; Jack Underwood had a 44  calibre Winchester 16-shot repeating rifle and a tomahawk when he went away with Jimmy ;  shortly after Jimmy came back, Jack Underwood  came back with the rifle and the tomahawk ; when  Jimmy came back he said to me and Joe Governor  and Jacky Porter, ‘Now all will have to go from the camp to-night, because Mr Mawbey and the  others are close behind us. We have killed all the  women and one boy. Joe, you will have to come with me or I will take your life ; he turned and told Jack Porter and said ‘You can go to the Wollar and get mother and all the children, take  them to Redbank’ (that is a darkies’ mission near  Coonamble) ; He finished speaking and then immediately Jack Underwood came back ; he said ‘ I  heard Mr Mawbey coming up from the old place ;crying out, “Jimmy Governor, you black wretch,”  then I ran out of the house and sang out for you’  (James Governor) ; Jack said ‘ I have killed three  of them with the tomahawk, Mrs Mawbey and  Percy Mawbey are not quite dead, and I killed the  girl; he did not say which girl: Jimmy Governor  said ‘ When the three women jumped out of the  window and ran I ran after them and hit them ;  it was half way between the house and the creek ; I don’t know why Jimmy and Jacky Governor  went to Mawbey’s, except that Jimmy had a grudge against Mrs Mawbey for a few shillings that she made him pay for rations, when she made  up the bill about two months ago ; Jimmy complained to me that Mrs Mawbey made out that he  (Jimmy) owed more than he really did ; he said ‘Mrs Mawbey is a swindler;’ that’s why I judge  Jimmy had a grudge against her; Jimmy never accused me with being familiar with any of the  Mawbey boys, only with Joe Governor ; I was  married to Jimmy Governor at the Church of England, Gulgong, about 19 months ago ;about two months after Jimmy said to me ‘ I will be a bushranger before long ;’ he had been reading about bushrangers before I married him when he was tracker in the Cassilis police ; I am 18 years old ; Mrs Mawbey was always kind to me and Jimmy ; Jimmy never threatened to injure any of  the Mawbeys ; I forgot to say, after Jack Under-  wood came back to the camp last Friday night  Jimmy said—speaking to all of us—’Jack was too  slow for me, or we would have killed Mr Mawbey and all the others down at the old place ; When Jacky Underwood and Jimmy went away to Mawbey’s Jimmy had empty cartridges capped, but no powder in them ; He had loose bullets in his pockets ; I saw Jimmy taking all that there was; Jack Underwood had no cartridges ; there was no  powder in the camp at all; that’s why the shells were not filled ; no other black fellows have been near the camp the whole time we have been camped there, for about four months; the blacks in our camp never said to me they had met any other when out in the bush ; Jimmy also told us all at the camp, when he and Jack Underwood came back from Mawbey’s, that the police would be at the camp that night and watch it, and if we did not go away they would arrest us, because they knew he did it ; in about  a quarter of an hour from the time Jimmy  and Jacky Underwood came from Mawbey’s we all left the camp together at about half-past 11,  as far as I could guess, some time before the moon  rose ; all went ; towards sunrise Jimmy was ahead of me, and Joe and Jack Underwood and  Jacky Porter behind ; in about a mile and a half Jimmy killed with a nulla a dog of Jacky Porter’s, because it was barking, and made a fire where the dog was killed ; Jimmy said to me ‘ You go away to Dubbo, you know which way to go—go across the gully and this pine hill, follow the flat to the dam ; you will come to the creek, follow the creek and you will get to the road ; you will know where you are then ; you can’t keep up with us and I don’t want you with me, or they will say you were in it too ; we are going to Merrygoon, then to Digilah, then to Wollar;’ Jimmy said ‘ Iam going to Wollar to kill the other blacks—old Jimmy  Coombe, and Eliza, and Kitty and Molly, but not my own’—meaning his own mother and brothers and sisters. Jimmy said he would get ammunition from the kangaroo shooters at Wollar he said ‘ We will watch the hut, see the men away, and then go down and take all the ammunition and food, and then we will go out into the mountains and stay; we will go round and get into the point and watch the police, and all that comes underneath, and we will kill them all;’ I would know the ‘tomahawk ; it has a yarran  handle ; the one shown me by Constable Berry is Jimmy’s ; Joe made the handle of green yarran ;Jimmy has had the tomahawk nine weeks; he got it from Sam Ellis, a Mudgee hawker, at our camp ;I have often used it ; I am sure it is his ; it has marks where he put ridges and nails in the back of it ; it has a mark on the blade where Joe Governor threw it at a bird, missed it, and it struck a stone ; Jimmy ‘took the tomahawk when we all left the camp last Friday night ; the yarran stick produced  was made by Jacky Porter and belonged to him;  Jimmy or Jacky Underwood could have taken the stick from Porter’s gunyah that night ; Jacky Porter has been a fortnight in the camp ; Jacky Underwood had no hat on when he came back from Mawbey’s that night ; I would know it again;  it is a straw hat with a red band ; the hat produced is his hat; Jimmy’s nulla had a long point; the wood was not very dark, and there was a little white wood on the knob ; Jimmy and Jacky told me they ran all the way back from Mawbey’s; I have given all the evidence quite freely because people’s lives are in danger from these two men; Jimmy Governor and Jacky Underwood and I would not like to see Joe Governor and Jacky Porter punished for nothing when they had no hand in it; the police have not offered any reward, nor threatened to have me punished.  

Senior-constable Berry, Gilgandra, gave evidence as to finding the wounded and dead, and also to the arrest of Jacky Porter and the black boy, Peter Governor. Jacky Porter, a very old and feeble aboriginal, said : My name is Jacky Porter ; I am 80 ; my father and mother were full bloods; I have been living at the Redbank Mission, and had been at camp about a week ; the camp was Jimmy Governor’s; I remember last Friday night being in  Jimmy Governor’s camp with Joe Governor; Jack  Underwood (also called Jack Brow), Peter the boy, Jimmy Governor, and his missus, a white woman ;Jimmy sneaked away from camp, saying to me, ‘Well, old man, I’m going away ;’ just woke up,  and saw Jack Underwood go away with a blanket,a rifle, and a tomahawk ; Jimmy carried a nulla-nulla ; it was his own, not mine ; they were away about two hours ; Jimmy came back first ; he said  to all of us, ‘ Well, we better get away from here. We have been rushing Mawbey’s house, and have hit tbe girl and the boy and two more girls;’ Jimmy said, ‘ One jumped out of the window, and I hit them with a nulla-nulla ; when Underwood came back he said, ‘Me and you bushrangers now, Jack.  We must go away out of this to the camp at Digilah. The police will shoot us if we stay in camp ;’ I said to Jimmy, ‘You’ll get banged now; Jimmy said, ‘I knocked down four;’ he also said,  ‘ Joe, I’ll kill you. I want to take you with me. If you don’t come I’ll kill you ;’ Jimmy said to Jack Underwood when he was coming into camp, ‘I thought you got killed ;’ Jack said, ‘ You have my blanket;’ Jimmy said,’ Yes—it’s all right ;’ Jimmy said, ‘ Jacky, how many did you knock down he said, ‘ Only one;’ Jacky said, ‘ I hit the little boy with the nulla, Jacky also had a boondah ; Jack also still,’ I hit the little girl on the head ;’ Jimmy said he killed three; Joe owns the tomahawk Peter, the black boy, aged 10, saw Jimmy and Jacky go away ; Jacky had a rifle and a tomahawk  Jimmy had a nulla-nulla ; Jacky had the rifle and tomahawk in his hand; when he came back Jimmy said, ‘Oh, my, uncle Joe, I killed two of the Mawbey’s girls, and Jack killed one boy;’ he said Jimmy was going to kill all the blacks at Wollar, and then go out bushranging ; he said he was going to kill old Jimmy over at that place.

The tomahawk that was picked up by Davidson and some other civilian when they fired on the two blacks at Digilah on Sunday exactly fitted in the wound in Percy Mawbey’s neck, and also fitted Grace Mawbey’s wound.

A verdict of wilful murder was returned against Jimmy Governor, Joe Governor, Jacky Underwood, Jacky Porter, and Mrs Governor.

Mrs Mawbey positively stated that she heard a woman’s voice outside while the men were striking the victims.

 

THE OTHERS

Joe Governor (Jimmy’s brother, younger by 2 years)

 Born 1877 – Died 1900. Joined his brother and went on a murderous spree between July through to October 1900. Joe was shot and killed near Singleton late October.

Ethel Governor (Jimmy’s wife)

 Was initially arrested on the evidence of the dying Mrs Mawbey who said she had heard a woman’s voice during the massacre. Ethel was pregnant by Jimmy when all this erupted and gave birth to a Daughter a couple of months after Jimmy was executed. She remarried in Wollongong to Frank Brown. She had two children to Jimmy, Sidney in April, 1899 and Violet in April, 1901. Ethel died in 1945 in Sydney and is buried at Rookwood Cemetery, Lidcombe NSW.

Jackie Porter (Jimmy’s xxx)

Also known as the Old man was initially arrested on very little evidence of being involved in the murders at Breelong, it was decided that he was far too old to have had any  involvement in the massacre. His arrest was mostly for his own protection from revenge inspired vigilantes.

 Peter Governor (Jimmy’s xxx)

Born 1890 Died 1921. Was an Uncle of Jimmmy Governor. Also was initially arrested on very little evidence of being involved in the murders at Breelong, this was also for his own protection from revenge inspired vigilantes. Peter was about 10 years of age at the time of the murders.

 

3 October 1900

Evening News Sydney

UNDERWOOD CONVICTED AND SENTENCED TO DEATH.

ETHEL GOVERNOR AND JACETPORTER DISCHARGED.

DUBBO, Wednesday.— The trial or Jacky Underwood for the murder of Percy Mawbey, at :Breelong, on July 20, was concluded in the Circult Court, before Mr. Justice Simpson, last evening.

The evidence was practically the same as that given at the inquest. Mr. Colonna Close, in his speech for the defence, admitted the accused’s presence at the house during the murders; but claimed that he was intimidated into attending, Jimmy Governor and struck the fatal blows. The dying depositions of Mrs. Mawbey, in which she clearly implicated accused, were not put in. After an hour’s deliberation by the Jury, a verdict of guilty was returned. The Judge asked the jury for an opinion as to whether the prisoner actually dealt the fatal blow, but the jury failed to agree on this point The prisoner was then sentenced to death.

During the hearing his Honor commented several times on what he regarded as the inexplicable detention of Mrs. Governor and Jacky Porter in gaol for so long a period, they presumably being innocent; and remarked, in summing up, that from the evidence there was nothing to convict Ethel Governor.

Acting under Instructions from the Attorney-General, the gaoler discharged Ethel Governor and Jacky Porter on Monday. Both stayed at the lockup of their own free will till Tuesday.

 

THE VICTIMS

Mrs Grace Mawbey at Breelong by Jimmy Governor 20 July 1900

Hellen Kerzs (aged 21) at Breelong by Jimmy Governor 20 July 1900

Elsie Clarke (aged 18) at Breelong by Jimmy Governor 20 July 1900

Grace (aged 16) at Breelong by Jimmy Governor 20 July 1900

Percival (aged 14) at Breelong by Jackie Underwood 20 July 1900

Hilda (aged 11) at Breelong by Jimmy Governor 20 July 1900

Alexander Mackay (aged xx) at  Ulan NSW by Jimmy Governor/Joe Governor

Elizabeth O’Brien  (aged xx) near Merriwa by Jimmy Governor/Joe Governor

James O’Brien (aged 1 Year 3 months)  near Merriwa by Jimmy Governor/Joe Governor

Elizabeth O Brien’s unborn child near Merriwa.

Keiran Fitzpatrick near Wollar, by Jimmy Governor/Joe Governor

 

THE CAPTURE OF JACKIE UNDERWOOD

Duram and Glouster Advertiser

27 July 1900

JACKY UNDERWOOD CAPTURED.

The third aboriginal, Jacky Underwood, connected with the Breelong murders, was captured by Mr James Hatton, late postal assistant at Mundooran, and lodged in Leadville lockup yesterday afternoon.

Duram and Glouster Advertiser

31 July 1900

JACKY UNDERWOOD.

Jacky Underground arrived at Mudgee oh -‘Friday at 11.45 a.m. under police escort from, Gulgong, Sergeant Harvey and Constable Dunlop bringing him in. There were about 220 people at the lock up to witness -his arrival. He is a small, wild looking man. ‘

 

THE TRIAL OF JACKIE UNDERWOOD

Muswellbrook Chronicle

6 October 1900

Trial of Jacky Underwood.

T:ik Circuit Court opened on Tuesday at Dubbo before Judge Simpson. Mr. Pike was Crown Prosecutor. Jacky Underwood was arraigned for the murder of Percy Mawbey, at Breelong, on July ’20. Mr, Colonna-Close, assigned by the Crown, appeared for the defence.

 Ethel Governor and Jacky Porter, who were committed for trial on warrants from the Coroner’s Court, were on Monday released, the Attorney-General declining to file a bill against either. At the trial on Tuesday Ethel Governor was called as the first witness against accused Underwood.

Other evidence was given by the two boys who escaped on the night of the massacre, but both deposed that they did not see accused among the assailants. Other witnesses were Senior-constable Berry, Mr. Garlin, Mr. W. H. Shaw (at whose house accused was captured), Mr. Mawbey, and Mr. W. Davidson, who fired on the blacks the day after the murders. Jacky Porter and the boy Peter were put forward by the Crown, but were unable to satisfy the Court that they understood the nature of an oath, and were withdrawn. Mr. Colonna-Close, in a speech for the defence, admitted the accused’s presence at the house during the murders, but claimed that he was intimidated into attending ,and struck no fatal blows. The dying depositions of Mrs. Mawbey, in which she clearly implicated accused, were not put in. After an hour’s deliberation by the jury, a verdict of guilty was returned. The judge asked the jury for an opinion to whether the prisoner actually dealt the fatal blow, but the jury failed to agree on this point. The prisoner was duly sentenced to death.

During the hearing his Honor commented several times on what he regarded as the inexplicable detention of Mrs. Governor and Jacky Porter in gaol for so long a period, they presumably being innocent.

 

 

THE TRIAL OF JIMMY GOVERNOR

JIMMY GOVERNOR’S TRIAL

The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 24 November 1900
THE BREELONG TRAGEDY. TRIAL OF JIMMY GOVERNOR. THE CASE FOR THE ACCUSED. VERDICT OF GUILTY. JIMMY GOVERNOR SENTENCED TO DEATH.

The trial of the aboriginal, Jimmy Governor, on a charge that he did at Breelong on July 20 last feloniously and maliciously murder Helen Josephine Kerr, was continued at the Darlinghurst Old Court yesterday before Mr. Justice Owen and a jury of 12.
Mr. G. G. Wade, Crown Prosecutor (instructed by the Crown Solicitor), conducted the case for the Crown ; Mr. F. S. Boyce (instructed by Messrs. Lane and Roberts), was the counsel assigned by the Crown for the defence.
The prisoner had pleaded not guilty (on the facts).
When the Court rose on the previous (the first) day of the trial, the Crown case had closed.

CROWN WITNESSES RECALLED.
At the request of Mr. Boyce, John Thomas Mawbey was recalled. In answer to Mr. Boyce he said he did not know whether anything was stolen from his house. He had not looked.
Did you look round the house ?- I did.
Was there anything to lead you to believe that other blacks had been about ?-Yes, I saw other tracks about.
To Mr. Wade: Blacks used to hunt opposums about the place. It was on the Sunday that the strange tracks were noticed.
Constable Berry, recalled by Mr. Wade, said that when he was following the tracks as previously described by him, he saw two tracks of persons going from the camp towards Mawbey’s, and the same two tracks going back towards the camp. That was in the grey dawn of the Saturday morning.
A juror : Did you see tracks of two men only ? Yes, of two only.
Mr. Boyce : If there was a woman there you would find some difficulty in tracking her ? No, not if she wore boots. I could not say whether any other tracks were about the house, because I did not look for them.

OPENING THE ACCUSED’S CASE.
Mr. Boyce : Your Honor, the accused desires to hand a statement to the associate to be read. He cannot read well.
The Judge : Very well.
Mr. Wade : If he can write a statement he can read one, and the law is that he may not put his evidence in writing if he can give it orally.
The Judge (with an authority before him) said that the Full Court had laid it down that in their opinion the statement of a prisoner must be given orally if it could. In view of that opinion he could not admit the statement.
Mr. Boyce : I am surprised at the Crown taking such a technical point.
The Judge : It is not a technical point ; it is the law. Such a statement might have a prejudicial effect on the mind of the jury. The Crown has not taken a technical point, but has simply pointed out to me what the law is.
Mr. Boyce : The law in England is such that your Honor has power to admit the statement. This is a case of life and death, and surely in this case where the man cannot read English and desires to make a long statement of fact be ought to be allowed to do so.
The Judge : There is no doubt good reason for the law. I do not even know who wrote this statement. It may not have been written by the prisoner. It may be a document carefully prepared by a solicitor and containing ingenious argument. This man can speak good English -as good as anyone in the Court – and if he can reduce a statement to writing he can surely speak it.
The prisoner rose to speak.
The Judge : I would have liked this statement to be taken by a shorthand writer. However, we must go on.

STATEMENT BY THE ACCUSED.
Accused said : Me and my missus had some words about the Mawbeys at the camp, and I said, “Drop it, don’t tell me no more of it, I don’t want to hear any more of that.” So she said to me, ” They rub it in , they do as they like with you.” I said to her, ” You come down and I will see about it.” So we got ready and made off – me and my wife, Joe, and Jacky Underwood. I was going down for some flour and a bag of sugar. I went down first to Mr. Mawbeys. They were in bed. so I sung out to Mr. Mawbey, ” Is Mr. Mawbey in bed ?” Mr. Mawbey said, “Yes Jimmy, we’re just about turning in.” So he came out. I said, ” Please, Mr. Mawbey, I want a bag of flour up in the morning and a bag of sugar. ” He said, ” All right, Jimmy ; I will send them up in the morning or sometime to-morrow.” He asked me inside. I said, ” No, it is getting late I must got back. ” He said, “Good-night, Jimmy,” I said, ” Good- night, Mr. Mawbey. “
So I came back to where my brother and my wife were I said to my wife, ” I am going to see Mrs. Mawbey about those words she has been saying, I’ll make her mind what she is talking about. I’ll take her to Court if she does not mind herself.”
I went up to the house. I said, ” Are you in, Mrs. Mawbey? Did you tell, my missus that any white woman who married a black fellow ought to be shot ? Did you ask my wife about our private business ? Did you ask her what sort of nature did I have-black or white ? ”
With that Mrs. Mawbey and Miss Kerz turned round and laughed at me with a sneering laugh, and before I got the words out of my mouth that I said in court I struck Mrs. Mawbey on the mouth with this nulla-nulla.
Miss Kerz said, ” Pooh, you black rubbish, you want shooting for marrying a white woman.” With that I hit her with my hand on the jaw, and I knocked her down. Then I got out of temper and got hammering them, and lost control of myself. I do not remember anything after that.
The Judge : Is that all you want to say ?
The accused : After that I went to camp. All this bushranging business that we were talking about we all agreed to. It was not all true that we were going to do it. We wanted to get my missus out of the road. We made it up that Joe was not to be there, nor my missus. I had a great name as a smart man and all that, so when we did this they would know I was the man. But it was not true I was the main man. Away we went that night and we camped in the bush. We parted in the morning.
Accused resumed his seat.
Mr. Boyce intimated that he had no witnesses to call. He asked accused if he had anything more to say, and Governor added : “I am speaking straight from my heart, and I am afraid of nobody.”

COUNSELS’ ADDRESSES.
Mr. Boyce addressed the jury for the defence. He said the jury could not have helped reading the sensational accounts served up of the tragedy, but he hoped they would succeed in putting aside all thoughts of the public clamour for vengeance on this particular black. Had the jury ever thought that perhaps after all this man was not so bad ? Had they ever reflected how it was that this calm and quiet mannered man suddenly became a raving demon. The man, they must remember, was not being charged for the murders in the bush, of which they had all heard, but of the murder of Miss Kerz. Now the theory of the defence was that the man had acted in a frenzy of temper in the case of Miss Kerz, and the law mercifully said that in certain cases where provocation was given to the accused by the deceased, and such provocation was intentional and of a nature reasonably calculated to rob a person of self control, and really did have that effect, the killing would be manslaughter.
Here was a man of no high feeling or high sentiment, a rover under the roof of Heaven, a man who by his environment and nature had not learned to control himself as other men had. Could we, who had neglected, despised, and taunted the aboriginals, expect them to exercise the ordinary human control.

This particular man had taken a white wife. He was a man of sensitive nature – a better man than most blacks, because he worked when he could get work – and the taunts hurled at his wife were doubly felt by him.
The jury could picture the white wife of a black fellow knowing [kneeling] in the camp and praying ” O Lord take me away from here, I cannot stand what these women are saying.” The husband had seen that and there was then sown the seed of which the harvest was that terrible night.
Jimmy Governor denied that the object of the men was bushranging, and could not that statement be credited when it was remembered that the men went armed not with guns but with sticks, and they stole nothing.
No motive was suggested by the Crown for the murders, because it was clear there was no motive – it was the outcome of sudden passion. Jimmy used to play cricket with the children of the Mawbey family, and so it was apparent that the two families were in friendly relations. If the idea of wholesale slaughter was in Jimmy Governor’s mind, why did he not start by sacrificing Mawbey when he found him alone and unarmed ?
The answer was that the sudden passion was not there ; that having no intention to commit murder, the idea never entered his head in preconceived form. His intention was to ” take Mrs. Mawbey to the court if she did not watch herself.” He went to the house for that purpose, and it could not be supposed that he suddenly became a raging lunatic for nothing. Mrs. Mawbey and Miss Kerz wheeled round on him and laughed and sneered, and Miss Kerz said, ” Pooh, you black rubbish, you ought to be shot for marrying a white woman.” That was the turning point, when those words were spoken to him the sudden passion rose and that was the last of self-control.
The savage heart, tainted with the thirst of blood, burst through reason and one of the foulest of crimes was committed. The man’s mate seemed also to have lost his reason. Was it not corroborative of the accused’s statement about the sneering remarks that Mrs. Mawbey on her death bed referred to the ” black rubbish.”
The statement of Miss Kerz touched Jimmy Governor on two spots which were susceptible-that of his colour and that of his wife. There could be no question of robbery , there was no suspicion of money being in the house, so the motive of robbery and bushranging was out of the question.
There could be no such motive as revenge, else why did he kill the little children ? Could he have wanted revenge on them? And on the other hand, if revenge were the motive why did he not wreak it upon Mr. Mawbey.
Then, again, let them think of the weapons used. Jimmy Governor had been a tracker in the police force, and was a cunning man in many respects. Would such a man, starting out with the diabolical intention of killing eight or nine people, arm himself with a stick ? There was a tomahawk there, but other blacks were also there. Percy Mawbey was killed by a tomakawk, and Jacky Underwood had killed Percy Mawbey. Miss Kerz was killed by a stick, and she was killed by Jimmy Governor.
There would be in the minds of the jury cases where men had been convicted of manslaughter though half-an-hour elapsed between the time of the provocation and the killing. Here in this case the whole of the event was completed at once-in one burst of temper.
That the Crown had selected the death of Miss Kerz upon which to try Jimmy Governor for his life was perhaps fortunate for the accused. If the death of Mrs O’Brien or of the children had been the subject of the trial, perhaps nothing could have been said against the charge, but in the death of Miss Kerz there was abundant evidence of high provocation, and of unreasoning passion.

Mr. Wade said the law was that if a man were provoked and angry, and in anger or passion took a fellow creature’s life, that was murder, unless the man proved that when the blow was struck it was not struck with the intention of taking life.
If Governor had stopped short at the first blow the case might have been different, but it was shown that after he first struck Miss Kerz she ran 100 yards, and Governor, with a murderous implement in his hand, pursued her and beat ber head in.
The case of a black fellow could not be regarded in any different light from that of a white man no matter that his habits of life differed.
The Crown admitted all through that there was ill feeling between the families, and contended that the murder was done as an act of revenge. The reason why the children also were murdered was to clear out the house of all witnesses. The evidence showed that the accused had been taunted by his mates, and told that he had no courage as a bushranger and those taunts no doubt helped him to arrive at the determination to obtain revenge on the Mawbeys.
The accused’s statements had differed in material points on the several occasions on which he had made them.
He (Mr. Wade) proceeded to review the evidence and deduced from it that the two blacks had premeditated an expedition to first ascertain whether, Mr. Mawbey was away from home and if so then to murder Mrs. Mawbey and Miss Kerz and also, in order to remove evidence, everyone in the new house.
Supposing it could be believed that Jimmy Governor merely went down to remonstrate with the Mawbeys, then why did he go with Jacky Underwood, why was Jacky armed with an axe, why did he go into the house, and why did they chase the people out of the house, and kill them outside ? They had to remember the evidence of one of the boys, which was that Jimmy Governor had said to Jacky Underwood, “Go it, Jacky dash their brains out.”
Surely no one would say that was anything but intentional murder then again there was the remark of one of the men, “There’s another somewhere” That again showed the premeditated plan of killing everyone in the house.

THE SUMMING UP
Mr. Justice Owen summed up. He said the counsel for the defence need have no fear that he had not done his duty by his client. The address which he gave to the jury and the way in which he had conducted the case throughout had been admirable. He had said everything that could be said and taken all points on behalf of his client. Now it was the duty of the jury to deal with the case which was placed before them.
No doubt learned counsel laboured under considerable difficulty from, probably, twofold causes – their peculiar circumstances of this case and the defence set up by the prisoner himself.
When the murder first took place a thrill of horror passed through the whole community, and the excitement was not limited to the time of the murders, but for weeks or months afterwards the excitement of the public was kept up in the tracing of the footsteps of those who were supposed to have committed the crime. In consequence the minds of the public were necessarily imbued to a very large extent with preconceived ideas of the persons who were ultimately arrested. Therefore it was a task which taxed the ingenuity of counsel to set the jury to view the case apart altogether from their prejudices.
The jury came there to try the case on the sworn evidence presented to them, and had no right to consider anything outside of that. It lay on the Crown to prove to the satisfaction of the jury that the prisoner was guilty of the crime with which he was charged.
Everyone was considered innocent until he was proved guilty, and even if the jury had preconceived opinions before they came to that court as to the guilt of the prisoner, if the Crown had left the case in doubt, the jury would be bound to give a verdict for the prisoner. But of course if the Crown had made out a case to the satisfaction of the jury they must return a verdict of guilty. The defence which had been set up had relieved him (the Judge) of a good deal of trouble in bringing before the jury all the points of the evidence to show tbat the accused struck the fatal blow.
It was admitted by the defence that the accused was the one who killed Miss Kerz. The defence was that he killed her by an unpremeditated act caused by taunts which she threw out against him and his wife and that, therefore, the act was manslaughter.
The section of the Act under which they could bring in a verdict of manslaughter contained three provisions which were necessary to be proved. He particularly wished to draw their attention to one of those provisions, which was “that the act causing death was done suddenly in the heat of passion caused by such provocation without intent to take life.” The law presumed that when life was taken by a blow it was murder unless the prisoner could prove it was manslaughter. That meant that when a person had received grave provocation and struck a blow there and then – being roused by a taunt or blow or insult – and the blow caused death, but the person striking the blow had no intention to kill, but merely to strike by way of punishment, it would be manslaughter.
Now the jury had to decide whether the blow which the accused inflicted on Miss Kerz was intended to take life.
The Judge then briefly reviewed the evidence, and dwelt upon that part referring to the finding of the body at a distance from the house. Of the points taken by the counsel for the Crown, he said the one which struck him was why Jacky Underwood was at the house at all.
If it was merely a question between the Mawbeys and accused and his wife, why was Underwood there, and why was he engaged in the midst of the carnage?
However, the jury’s duty was clear to them – they must be thoroughly satisfied that the blow was a premeditated one for the purpose of killing.

THE SENTENCE OF DEATH.
The jury retired at 12.15 p. m., and returned into court at 12.25 p.m. with a verdict of guilty on
a charge of murder.

Mr. Boyce handed in writing the low points he had raised on behalf of the accused. They were as follows :-
1. That his Honor should have directed the jury that on the evidence and law the plea of autrefois convict was made out.
2. That his Honor should have directed the jury to return a verdict in favour of the accused on the plea of autrefois convict.
3. That his Honor should have directed the jury that on the evidence and law the plea of autrefois attaint was made out.
4. That his Honor should have directed the jury to return a verdict in favour of the accused on the plea of autrefois attaint.

The Associate asked the prisoner whether he had anything to say why the Court should not pass sentence of death upon him.
Jimmy Governor, who now appeared to be considerably agitated by the circumstances of his posi- tion, grasped the iron railings of the dock as he stood and shook his head. Being asked if he had made reply, he drank water from a pannikin handed to him by one of the attendant constables, and then said in a weak voice, ” No, nothing.”

The usual warning was given by the usher,-
” All manner of persons are commanded to keep silence in court while his Honor the Judge passes sentence of death.”
The Judge then sentenced the prisoner to be hanged, and Governor was removed from the dock.

THE HANGING OF JACKIE UNDERWOOD

Western Herald

19 January 1901

EXECUTION OF JACKY

UNDERWOOD.

Jacky Underwood, alias Charles Brown, who was convicted at the Dubbo Circuit Court, in October last, of the murder of Percy Mawbey at Breelong on July 20, was executed in the Dubbo Gaol on Monday morning.

The scaffold was erected in the exercise yard, and was surrounded by screen. The rev. Father Brophy was with the condemned man from an early hour. The condemned mini listened attentively to his exhortations, which seemed to buoy him up and give him hope.

A few seconds after tho gaol clock struck nine, a procession headed by the priest, came along the corridor, Jacky walked calmly, and required no support from either Howard or his assistant, we were by his side, At the foot of the scaffold, Father Brophy shook hands with the condemned man, and said ” Good-bye, Jacky.” He replied “Good-bye, sir,” and then walked up the steps and stood firmly on the scaffold while the rope was being adjusted. When the bolt was drawn he fell, death being instantaneous, the body was allowed to hang for the usual time, after which it was cut down, and the customary inquest held.

The Gaol authorities said Jacky was a well behaved prisoner, and realised the calamity of taken the life of his fellow man. His future evidently occupied his thoughts for he said Will I be in Heaven in time for dinner?

 

THE HANGING OF JIMMY GOVERNOR

Singleton Argus

19 /1/1901

JIMMY GOVERNOR.

Hanged at Darlinghurst

[By Teleqraph Sydney, Friday.

Jimmy Governor was executed at 9o’clock this morning.- He slept well last night, and had a good breakfast. He had nothing to say, and walked firmly to the drop, smoking a cigarette, he was accompanied by the Rev. Canon Rich. Just before the cap and rope were adjusted Jimmy throw the cigarette from his lips.

The bolt was then drawn and death was instantaneous, Since his imprisonment  Jimmy has been fairly cheerful. He exhibited a strong religious feeling towards and, reading with avidity books upon religious subjects, which were given him. On several occasions the prisoner was visited by his wife and child.

Nothing can be ascertained as to what ; transpired, still it is paid that at no time did he lose his tranquility. Once his wife was been leaving the gaol with the child in her arms,. But she appeared cool as a woman who had been discharging some ordinary business duties.

The last hours of the condemned man were passed peacefully enough, and he 1 gave- no trouble- whatever .The prisoner retired at an early hour in the evening, and his guards state that he slept soundly throughout the night.

Shortly after daybreak he awoke and spent considerable time in listening to the ministrations of the chaplain. He is also said to have eaten, a good breakfast. Before leaving the gaol the whole of the spectators, who, including the loading gaol officials and the Sheriff and Under-Sheriff numbered about 18, signed a certificate to the effect that they had witnessed the execution which had been carried out according to law. Among the …names ‘thus appended to of parchment was one George Mawbey, which attracted attention. – Mawbey is a brother to John Mawbey, the of the murdered family.

Speaking afterwards to a press representative, Ho said, ” I would not have been content if I had not seen him hanged. I am only sorry I could not hang him myself.” Mawbey is the father of the boy George Mawbey, who escaped the murderers by biding under a bed.