On Warland’s Range near Murrurundi in April 1863, a masked rider named Henry Wilson held up a party of drovers and stripped young Peter Clarke of his watch and chain. When Clarke lunged at him, Wilson shot him three times; Clarke was dead within minutes. So furious was the crowd that gathered at the scene that police had to physically stop them from hanging Wilson on the nearest tree.
He was tried instead at Maitland Circuit Court, where his counsel argued the fatal shot had gone off accidentally in the struggle. The jury took ten minutes to convict him, and he was hanged at East Maitland Gaol on 2 October 1863. Clarke’s bravery was later honoured with a public monument erected on the spot where he fell.
Wilson admitted firing the shots but denied meaning to kill, blaming drink and panic in the scuffle; still, he told his priest he accepted the justice of his sentence and deserved to die.
