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1884: “A Sort of Duel”: the First Man Hanged at Geraldton

Sing Ong, a Chinese settler at Cape Lesueur on Shark Bay, shot his countryman Ah Foo twice on 11 May 1884 in a quarrel over a servant Sing Ong believed was rightfully his. Witnesses heard the shots and found Ah Foo dying of a wound below the chest, having first picked up a stick and told his killer he was not afraid of his knife, gun, or revolver.

At his trial in Geraldton, his own counsel argued the shooting had been a sort of duel between the two men, pointing out that police never produced the pistol and failed to call other witnesses who might have helped him. The jury convicted him regardless, and the Governor delayed the sentence to weigh a mercy petition, but found nothing in it to change the outcome.

On 29 October 1884, Sing Ong was hanged at Geraldton gaol, the town’s first execution, carried out so cleanly that death came the instant the bolt was drawn.

From his arrest to the gallows, Sing Ong never denied the killing.

The original Geraldton Courthouse, circa 1900. Built in the 1860s, the courthouse was in use when Sing Ong stood trial for murder in 1884. State Library of Western Australia, BA597/26.

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Australia Execution Geraldton Miscarriage of Justice Murder Shark Bay Trial WA

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1907: He Knew Where She Kept Her Money, But Killed Her Instead: Hanged in Sydney for the Murder of a Widow

Nicholas Baxter had been night watchman at the biscuit factory next to Mary Macnamara’s home in Sydney for six and a half years, and the elderly widow trusted him completely. By his own account he knew where she kept her money, had fetched change for her dozens of times, and could have taken it without her ever knowing. He never did, not until he resigned from the job in June 1907 and returned a month later.

On the morning of 8 July 1907 Macnamara was found bludgeoned in her ransacked bedroom. Police found Baxter that same day wandering in circles near Strathfield, drunk, wearing a hat taken from her hall stand and carrying her jewellery. When he tried to bolt after being re-arrested, he gave up with the words, “It’s all up, you’ve got me now.”

At trial his defence was that years of overwork as a night watchman, ninety-hour weeks with no night off, had left him unfit to know right from wrong. The jury was not persuaded, and Baxter was hanged in Sydney on this day in 1907.

He had earlier confessed to police, “I don’t know what possessed me to do it. I must have been mad. I didn’t intend to hurt the poor old body, but she would not keep quiet.”

Nicholas Baxter gaol inmate photo index Darlinghurst Gaol 1907 Colorised: State Archives NSW Collection Record INDEX2056662.

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Australia Execution Murder NSW Sydney Trial

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1790: He Survived One of Australia’s Deadliest Convict Voyages, Then Was Hanged Four Months After Landing

Edward Wildblood sailed to New South Wales on the Second Fleet ship Surprize, a voyage so brutal that dozens of convicts died before it even reached Sydney in June 1790. He was one of the lucky ones, stumbling ashore half starved after months chained below deck, only to find the colony offered little mercy either.

Within three months he and fellow convict William Harris had taken to the bush around Rose Hill, the settlement that would become Parramatta, robbing huts and killing a settler’s goat. Caught and sent back to labour in irons on bread and water, the pair slipped away again during their overseer’s absence, broke into a hut and beat its lone occupant, a sick settler, before making off with beef, flour, a frock and a book. Tried and convicted on 28 October 1790, Wildblood and Harris were hanged that same day at Rose Hill, their bodies left swinging near the very hut they had robbed, one of the earliest executions carried out in the colony.

In a remarkable twist of fate, both men were recorded as having been born on the same day, 1 January 1764, only to die together on the same day, aged just 26, at the end of a hangman’s rope.

Second Fleet aka The Death Fleet in distress

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Assault Australia Convict Era Execution NSW Parramatta Robbery Sydney Trial

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1790: Freed From Prison at Dawn, Burgling Again by Dusk: One of the Earliest Hangings Near Sydney.

William Harris had only just walked free from a Birmingham gaol, a three month sentence for robbing an outhouse behind him, when he broke into another house in the same street that same night. Caught in the act, he was convicted of burglary and condemned to death, later reprieved to transportation for life. He survived the notorious Second Fleet voyage aboard the Neptune, one of the deadliest convict crossings in Australia’s history, in which scores of prisoners perished before the ship ever reached Sydney.

In the young colony, Harris fell in with fellow convict Edward Wildblood, and the pair spent weeks pilfering from other convicts’ huts before fleeing into the bush. Recaptured and chained together on bread and water, they escaped again within weeks and broke into a hut, beating a sick settler and stealing beef, flour, a frock and a book. Tried for the break-in, the two men were hanged together on this day in 1790, among the first executions carried out in the young colony, with settlers gathered to watch them die from a tree.

In an extraordinary coincidence, Harris and Wildblood were both recorded as having been born on 1 January 1764. Their lives would ultimately end together, on the same day and at the same gallows, aged just 26.

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Assault Australia Burglary Convict Era Escape Execution NSW Parramatta Robbery Sydney

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