John Taylor and George Waters had absconded from the notorious penal settlement at Macquarie Harbour, Van Diemen’s Land’s infamous secondary punishment station for repeat offenders, before turning to highway robbery. Their crime involved robbing soldiers of their arms, a particularly bold offence that ultimately led to their conviction.
Both men were sentenced to death on 2 September 1826 and hanged together at Hobart just eleven days later, on 13 September 1826.
Thomas Colley, a stock-keeper at Oyster Bay in Van Diemen’s Land, was speared to death in 1826. Contemporary reports said the elder of the two Aboriginal men accused had concealed himself behind a fence, waited for his opportunity, then speared Colley. Both men were also charged in connection with the wounding of Colley’s employer.
Before trial, the elder man was reported to be suffering from leprosy and was kept apart from the other prisoners. During the hearing, he reportedly attempted to show that he did not understand English, although evidence was given that he spoke the language with reasonable ease.
Both men were convicted. At sentencing, one denied killing Colley and said the other man had thrown the spear, while his co-accused made no statement. Sentence of death was passed on 2 September 1826, and both men were hanged at Hobart on 13 September.
A contemporary newspaper questioned whether Aboriginal Tasmanians, with little or no knowledge of British law or Britain’s claim to their land, should be subjected to a legal system imposed by colonists. It also argued that the executions would have little deterrent effect, since other Aboriginal people were unlikely to witness them or even hear of them, and appealed for the condemned men’s lives to be spared.
Bushranger James Macpherson, known as the Wild Scotchman, was found guilty at Maryborough of robbing the local mails and sentenced to two concurrent 25-year terms. The presiding judge made clear the sentence was deliberately severe, intended as a warning to deter other would-be bushrangers from following his example.
The punishment stood out for its length even by the standards of colonial Queensland justice, reflecting how seriously authorities viewed the ongoing threat of mail robbery to the colony’s roads and communications.
Charles John Hall murdered his wife Minnie at Eaglehawk, near Bendigo, on 11 February 1897. The crime shocked a district where Hall had been well known for very different reasons. A talented and athletic footballer nicknamed “John Bull,” he had been, according to one contemporary newspaper, “the idol of the hour” only a year earlier. He was convicted of Minnie’s murder and sentenced to death at Bendigo Gaol on 13 September 1897.
The night before, his parents were allowed a final visit, a scene warders later described as worse to witness than the hanging itself. His mother collapsed, shrieking through the gaol, “My poor boy, my Charlie,” before being carried to a cab and put to bed at home. Hall himself broke down during the visit. On the morning of his execution, he walked firmly to the scaffold and looked steadily at the hangman as the noose was fixed. Asked for his final words, Hall replied quietly, “I commit my soul to God.”
Outside the gaol a large crowd gathered, mostly women and children, with harsh feeling directed at Hall but deep sympathy for his grieving parents.
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