The Criminal at the Gallows

Anderson, Steven

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-53767-8_4

Steven Anderson³

Part of the book series: Palgrave Histories of Policing, Punishment and Justice ((PHPPJ))

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Abstract

In their dying moments a condemned criminal in Australia had the capacity to shape the meaning of their own punishment. A contrite demeanour at the gallows was helpful to the authorities as it reinforced the fundamental tenets of the penalty. However, behaviour deviating from this mould (i.e. bravado or nonchalance) had the potential to undermine its didactic potential. This Chapter explores the behaviour of dying criminals to show how those executed were shepherded into a display of penitence. Clergymen prepared the criminal’s mind and spirit; executioners and sheriffs their bodies; and lawmakers the space in which it was carried out. All these actors worked to enhance the lesson of the gallows and close off any alternative ‘readings’ of the penalty. However, Ned Kelly’s death demonstrates the limits of state control on execution narratives. Even when hangings went exactly to plan, popular culture could rework meanings contrary to the needs of authorities.

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Notes

1.
Adelaide Observer, 17 April 1878.
2.
Steve Harris, Solomon’s Noose: The True Story of Her Majesty’s Hangman of Hobart, Melbourne: Melbourne Books, 2015, pp. 114–115.
3.
Kathy Laster, ‘Famous Last Words: Criminals on the Scaffold, Victoria, Australia, 1842–1967’, International Journal of the Sociology of Law, vol. 22, 1994, p. 10.
4.
J.H. Heaton, Australian Dictionary of Dates and Men of the Time: Containing the History of Australasia from 1542 to May 1879, Sydney: George Robertson, 1879, p. 90.
5.
Brisbane Courier, 3 July 1883.
6.
Francis Grose, 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence [1811], Adelaide: Bibliophile Books, 1981.
7.
John Camden Hotton, A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words, London: Antiquarian Bookseller, Piccadilly, 1859, p. 43.
8.
John Camden Hotton, The Slang Dictionary, Etymological, Historical and Anecdotal: A New Edition, Revised and Corrected, with Many Additions, London: Chatto and Windus Publishers, 1874, p. 172.
9.
For more on ‘dying game’ in the English context, see Andrea McKenzie, Tyburn’s Martyrs: Execution in England, 1675–1775, London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007, pp. 191–224; Andrea McKenzie, ‘Martyrs in Low Life? Dying “Game” in Augustan England’, Journal of British Studies, vol. 42, no. 2, 2003, pp. 167–205; Michael Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain: The Penitentiary in the Industrial Revolution, 1750–1850, New York: Pantheon Books, 1978, pp. 21–24.
10.
‘Plucked un’ was a common phrase for a ‘stout or brave fellow’ who ‘dares face anything’ according to John Camden Hotton’s dictionary. See Hotton, 1874, p. 256.
11.
Bathurst Free Press, 9 July 1853, p. 2.
12.
Empire, 27 September 1852, p. 3.
13.
The Inquirer and Commercial News, 8 April 1874, p. 2.
14.
The Argus, 25 April, 1853.
15.
The Courier, 3 August 1855, p. 2.
16.
Alfred Joseph Taylor, Capital Punishment: Reasons Why the Death Penalty Should Be Abolished; with Suggestions for an Efficient Substitute, Hobart Town: Davies Bros. Printers ‘Mercury’ Steam Press Office, 1877, p. 20.
17.
Taylor, 1877, p. 5.
18.
Taylor, 1877, p. 5.
19.
The most spectacular example of this came in 1894 when Melbourne’s The Argus reported that, in the days leading up to the execution of Frances Knorr, ‘Jones the Hangman’ had committed suicide over a fear that ‘the persecutions of his neighbours … would be still more hostile if he hanged a woman’. See The Argus, 8 January 1894, p. 5 quoted in Kathy Laster and Kerry Alexander, ‘Chivalry or Death: Women on the Gallows in Victoria, 1856–1975’, Criminology Australia, vol. 4, no. 2, 1992, p. 7.
20.
Edmund Finn (pseudonym ‘Garryowen’), The Chronicles of Early Melbourne 1835 to 1852: Historical, Anecdotal and Personal [1888], centennial edition, Melbourne: Heritage Publications, 1976.
21.
Finn, 1976, p. 397.
22.
Laster, 1994, p. 10.
23.
Finn, 1976, p. 398.
24.
Finn, 1976, p. 398.
25.
In scholarly book-length historical studies of German, French, Dutch, and American executions the prominent role of the church on the day of execution been widely examined, see Paul Friedland, Seeing Justice Done: The Age of Spectacular Punishment in France, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 101–107; Richard J. Evans, Rituals of Retribution: Capital Punishment in Germany, 1600–1987, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 77–86; Louis P. Masur, Rites of Execution: Capital Punishment and the Transformation of American Culture, 1776–1865, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 33–39; Pieter Spierenburg, The Spectacle of Suffering: Executions and the Evolution of Repression; From a Preindustrial Metropolis to the European Experience, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 59–66. More specific studies appear in various academic journals, see J.A. Sharpe, ‘“Last Dying Speeches”: Religion, Ideology and the Public Execution in Seventeenth-Century England’, Past and Present, no. 107, 1985, pp. 144–167; Daniel A. Cohen, ‘In Defense of the Gallows: Justifications of Capital Punishment in New England Execution Sermons, 1674–1825’, American Quarterly, vol. 40, no. 2, 1988, pp. 147–164.
26.
In Australia, Sturma forwarded the case for the church was deliberately acting in ways that bolstered the New South Wales colonial administration, see Michael Sturma, ‘Public Executions and the Ritual of Death, 1838’, Push from the Bush, no. 15, 1983, pp. 4–6. For other passing mentions to the role of the church at Australian colonial executions, see Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, Closing Hell’s Gates: The Death of a Convict Station, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2008, p. 215; Laster, 1994, p. 8. Tim Castle also noted that religion was one of three major themes in newspaper reports of hangings during Sydney in the nineteenth century, the others being ‘authority’ and ‘humanity’, see Tim Castle, ‘Constructing Death: Newspaper Reports of Executions in Colonial New South Wales, 1826–1837’, Journal of Australian Colonial History, vol. 9, 2007, pp. 51–68.
27.
T.L. Suttor, ‘Ullathorne, William Bernard (1806–1889)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography 1967, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ullathorne-william-bernard-2750, viewed 6 May 2015.
28.
William Ullathorne, The Autobiography of Archbishop Ullathorne with Selections from His Letters, London: Burns & Oates Ltd., 1891, p. 92.
29.
Ullathorne, 1891, p. 93.
30.
For more information on the ‘mutiny’ of 1834, see Manning Clark, A History of Australia, vol. 2, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1968, p. 215; Frank Clune, The Norfolk Island Story, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1967, p. 145; William Molesworth, Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Transportation: Together with a Letter from the Archbishop of Dublin on the Same Subject and Notes, London: Henry Hooper, 1838, pp. xv–xvi.
31.
Ullathorne, 1891, p. 103.
32.
Ullathorne, 1891, p. 103.
33.
The Hobart Town Courier, 28 April 1832, p. 4. This fact is repeated in John West, The History of Tasmania [1852], A.G.L. Shaw (ed.), Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1971, p. 663, fn. 247.
34.
The Hobart Town Courier, 28 April 1832, p. 4.
35.
For examples of Bedford making speeches at the gallows on behalf of the criminals under his care, see Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser, 25 February 1825, p. 2; Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser, 2 September 1825, p. 4; Hobart Town Gazette, 25 August 1827, p. 6.
36.
Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser, 5 May 1826, p. 3.
37.
The Courier, 26 June 1845, p. 2.
38.
The Hobart Town Courier, 8 June 1832, p. 4.
39.
The Hobart Town Courier, 18 September 1830, p. 3.
40.
The Hobart Town Courier, 18 September 1830, p. 3.
41.
The Hobart Town Courier, 18 September 1830, p. 3.
42.
‘Bedford, William (1781–1852)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography 1966, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bedford-william-1760, viewed on 28 October 2013.
43.
Laster, 1994, p. 8; Maxwell-Stewart, 2008, p. 215; Sturma, 1983, pp. 4–6.
44.
Patricia K. Phillips, ‘John McEncroe’, unpublished M.A. thesis, The University of Sydney, 1965, p. 29; The Sydney Herald, 13 November 1834, p. 2.
45.
For more on Jenkins, see Russel Ward, The Australian Legend, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1958, pp. 138–139.
46.
For a record of Troy and Smith’s trial, see Australian, 10 August 1832, p. 3.
47.
The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 21 August 1832, p. 3.
48.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 July 1848, p. 3.
49.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 July 1848, p. 3.
50.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 July 1848, p. 3.
51.
Sydney Chronicle, 8 July 1848, pp. 2–3; Bell’s Life and Sporting Reviewer, 8 July 1848, p. 3.
52.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 July 1848, p. 3.
53.
Testament to his convict background, when Green accompanied Ullathorne to Norfolk Island in 1834 he recognised an old friend while in the process of pinioning his arms: ‘[Green] suddenly recognised him, and exclaimed: “Why, Jack, is that you?” “Why Bill”, was the answer, “is that you?” He then shook his old friend by the hand, and said: “Well, my dear fellow, it can’t be helped”’, see Ullathorne, 1891, pp. 104–105.
54.
Ray Beckett and Richard Beckett, Hangman: The Life and Times of Alexander Green, Public Executioner to the Colony of New South Wales, Melbourne: Thomas Nelson Australia, 1980, pp. 6, 31, and 67.
55.
Beckett and Beckett, 1980, pp. 67 and 185.
56.
Beckett and Beckett, 1980, pp. 97 and 144–146.
57.
The criminal described in the letter went unnamed, see John Fogg Taylor, ‘Letter from John Fogg Taylor of Tundemunga, near Adelaide, 1840, to “John” in Wigan, Lancashire, England, dated September 1840’, State Library of South Australia, D 7310, pp. 20–21.
58.
Taylor, 1840, pp. 20–21.
59.
The Brisbane Courier, 21 January 1880, p. 3.
60.
The Brisbane Courier, 21 January 1880, p. 3.
61.
The Inquirer and Commercial News, 8 April 1874, p. 2.
62.
The Inquirer and Commercial News, 8 April 1874, p. 2.
63.
Bill Gammage, ‘Kelly, Edward Ned (1855–80)’, in G.J. Davison, J. Hirst, and S. Macintyre (eds), The Oxford Companion to Australian History, revised edition, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2001.
64.
‘Such is life’ were the words recorded by a ‘Melbourne Correspondent’ who wrote a report of the execution that found circulation in many of Victoria’s regional newspapers such as the Geelong Advertiser and The Ballarat Star. By contrast, The Argus and The Sydney Morning Herald’s correspondents make no mention of this phrase, instead recounting variations of his alleged last words—‘Ah well, I suppose it has come to this’ and ‘Ah, well! It’s come to this at last’. A gaol warden who was present at the execution and in close proximity to Kelly the moment the drop was activated disputes that he ever uttered the words ‘Such is life’. See Geelong Advertiser, 12 November 1880, p. 3; The Argus, 12 November 1880, p. 6; The Ballarat Star, 12 November 1880, p. 2; The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 November 1880, p. 5.
65.
John V. Barry, ‘Kelly, Edward (Ned) (1855–1880)’, The Australian Dictionary of Biography 1974, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kelly-edward-ned-3933, viewed 12 November 2013. For a more substantial discussion of this phrase, see Amanda Laugesen, ‘As Game as Ned Kelly’, Ozwords: A Blog from the Australian National Dictionary Centre 2012, http://ozwords.org/?p=3014, viewed 12 November 2013. Graham Seal even titled his study of Ned Kelly in popular culture with this phrase in mind, Graham Seal, Tell ‘em I Died Game: The Legend of Ned Kelly, second edition, Melbourne: Hyland House, 2002.
66.
Tom Prior and John Brosman, A Knockabout Priest: The Story of Father John Brosnan, Melbourne: Hargreen Publishing Company, 1985, p. 1.
67.
Prior and Brosman, 1985, p. 1.
68.
Bob Reece, ‘Tell ‘Em I died Game: The Legend of Ned Kelly—Book Review’, Journal of Australian Studies, no. 82, 2004, pp. 159–160.
69.
Peter Norden, ‘Ned Kelly: Hero or Hell Raiser?’, Australian Geographic Magazine 2014, http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-culture/2014/06/ned-kelly-hero-or-hell-raiser/, viewed 8 February 2015.
70.
Eric Hobsbawm, Bandits [1969], revised edition, London: Abacus, 2001; Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959.

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The Department of History, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia
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Anderson, S. (2020). The Criminal at the Gallows. In: A History of Capital Punishment in the Australian Colonies, 1788 to 1900. Palgrave Histories of Policing, Punishment and Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53767-8_4

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53767-8_4
Published: 03 September 2020
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-53766-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-53767-8
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