1854: Being Drunk Was No Excuse: A Husband Hanged at Maitland for Beating His Wife to Death
Neighbours near Lydney Park on the Hunter River heard Mary Walsh begging “to spare her life” as the blows fell, then heard her husband Christopher Walsh order her to leave the house. She said she could not. By morning she lay dead on the floor, covered in bruises, a gun and blood-stained trousers found nearby.
At his trial, his own counsel argued that jealousy and drink should reduce the killing to manslaughter. The jury was not persuaded, convicting him of wilful murder after less than two hours. He was hanged at Maitland gaol before a crowd of some four hundred, including women and children.
On the scaffold he had a message read out: he claimed he had come home sober, only for suspicion of his wife’s infidelity to work him into a rage that drink then inflamed. He said he now believed her faithful, regretted his violence, and held no animosity.
