1841: First Blood on the Gallows: Two Men Hanged at the New Darlinghurst Gaol
Two men became the first to hang at the newly built gaol at Darlinghurst on 29 October 1841, a grim christening for a site that would host executions for decades to come.
Robert Hudson went to the gallows for murdering a fellow convict, Dean Charfry West, at the General Hospital in Sydney.
George Stroud, hanged alongside him, had murdered his wife, a crime he later blamed entirely on drink.
Both men were reported penitent on the scaffold, kneeling in prayer before the drop fell. Stroud asked the attending minister to warn the crowd of the dangers that had led him there, “since, by having been guilty of that sin, he had been induced to commit the terrible crime for which he was then about to suffer”.
