Archives: Dark Stories: On This Day In True Crime History - Page 4
1866: The Wild Scotchman Jailed for 25 Years After Queensland Mail Robberies
Bushranger James Macpherson, known as the Wild Scotchman, entered the St Helena Island penal settlement in Moreton Bay, Queensland, on 14 September 1866 to begin serving a 25 year sentence for mail robbery.
He did not serve his time quietly. On 11 April 1870, Macpherson took part in a mass escape attempt, breaking free of the stockade with six other prisoners and hiding in the scrub around the island. He was shot in the wrist during his recapture and returned to custody.
Despite the harsh sentence and the failed breakout, Macpherson was eventually released by executive clemency in 1874.
Prison guards on St. Helena, ca. 1893. State Library of Queensland, negative number 60065.
On 14 September 1862, two bushrangers robbed a mailman near Mudgee in New South Wales. They let him keep his sixpence and his pipe. His horse and the mail went with them.
But one robber gave himself away when his crepe mask slipped. The mailman caught a glimpse of his face and believed he could identify him as the infamous bushranger Fred Lowry.
The mail run offered little chance of real profit. Some suspected the hold-up was a decoy to draw police away from a bigger job. News of an armed horse robbery nearby fed the theory, though the report established no connection.
Less than a year later, Lowry died after being shot by police. He reportedly asked that his brother-in-law be told “Tell ’em I died game”.
1824: Queensland’s First Convict Colony Founded, Then Abandoned for Brisbane Within a Year
On this day, Lieutenant Henry Miller led a party of convicts and soldiers ashore at Redcliffe on Moreton Bay to establish the first European settlement in the region that would later become Queensland. The site had been recommended by explorer John Oxley as a suitable location for a new penal outpost, but the choice quickly proved a poor one.
The choice proved a poor one. Fresh water was scarce, the anchorage was exposed and unsafe for shipping, and within a year the entire settlement was abandoned. The colony was relocated south along the river to a site that would grow into the city of Brisbane, which soon eclipsed Redcliffe as the region’s principal convict station.
Flogging a Convict at Moreton Bay by William Ross: illustration from The Fell Tyrant
1897: “My Poor Boy, My Charlie”: A Mother’s Anguished Cry Before Her Son Was Hanged for Murder
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.
Charles John Hall, prisoner no. 27965, 1897. Public Record Office Victoria, VPRS 515/P0000, Central Register of Male Prisoners, Volume 51, p. 208. Out of copyright.
