1863: An Escaped Convict Asked for Directions After a Fatal Attack, Then Was Hanged at Perth Gaol
John Thomas, a convict known as prisoner number 7279, escaped from a work party at Sutherland’s Bay in June 1863, taking a blanket, a carpenter’s axe and other items. He made his way to Peninsula Farm near Perth, where he entered the cottage of 70-year-old servant Duncan Urquhart and began helping himself to clothing.
When Urquhart returned and discovered the intruder, Thomas fled through a window armed with Urquhart’s own axe. He pursued the elderly man outside and struck him repeatedly, fracturing his skull. Despite his terrible injuries, Urquhart managed to make his way more than half a mile towards the farmhouse on his hands and knees, covered in blood.
Around noon, farmhouse owner Joseph Hardey stepped outside and saw a stranger walking up the cart road, coatless and carrying a bundle over his shoulder. The man calmly asked Hardey for directions to a property several miles further inland, apparently unconcerned that the man he had just attacked lay gravely injured nearby. Hardey later identified the stranger as Thomas.
Urquhart survived for more than two months, but died in the Colonial Hospital on 24 August 1863 from his injuries. Thomas was tried before Chief Justice Burt at the Supreme Court on 2 September and convicted of wilful murder. He was hanged in front of Perth Prison on 8 September 1863.
