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A huge crowd for a hanging: the end of John Knatchbull
Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (923.41/K67/2) One of my very favourite letters in the collections of the State Library of NSW was written by a wool merchant by the name of Joseph Whitehead. In an 1838 letter to his uncle…
![342. Bradley, S & E [Samuel and Easter. Mary Martin] (B13)](/sites/default/files/styles/max_325x325/public/featured_images/SLNSW_ON146_342.jpg?itok=BqDfF_qe)
Brutality at Birch Grove
Headstone of Samuel and Esther Bradley, Devonshire Street Cemetery c1901, Ethel Foster, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON146/342) Research on the epitaph on a tombstone in Sydney's old Devonshire Street Cemetery led to the shocking story of the deaths of…
No honour among thieves…
Detail of Convicts embarking for Botany Bay, ca. 1790 by Thomas Rowlandson, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (SV/312) In Governor Arthur Phillip’s great outdoor gaol in Sydney Cove, most eyes were on the convicts. It was logical to assume that…
Hanging out with the hangman
Nosey Bob, the common hangman, The Bulletin, 31 January 1880, p4 Today is the anniversary of the death of Robert Rice Howard, the hangman for New South Wales from the 1870s until 1904, who died on 3 February 1906. Listen to…
The first woman hanged in Sydney
David Collins records the death of Ann Davis in An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, 1798, p86 On 23 November 1789, Ann Davis became the first woman hanged in New South Wales. Listen to Rachel and Alex…
Order in the Court! The Trial of Two Murderers
John Jenkins 1834, by John Gardiner Austin, National Library of Australia (nla.pic-an5600121) In the mid-eighteenth century, the famous London magazine Punch published a short piece on the ever-increasing popularity of true crime stories: We are a trading community—a commercial people. Murder is,…
They had no Shelf Control: book thieves in colonial Sydney
Photo by Su Westerman, via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) For as long as we have had books, books have had value. Intellectual value, sentimental value and, of course, cash value. Sydneysiders have had access to books since the arrival of the…
The last public hanging at Darlinghurst Gaol
The People's Advocate and New South Wales Vindicator, 25 September 1852, p2 via Trove On 21 September 1852, illicit grog dealer, snappy dresser and murderer Francis Green was the last man to be publicly hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol. Listen to the…
Sydney’s Oldest Unsolved Murders
An account of the English colony in New South Wales : with remarks on the dispositions, customs, manners, &c. of the native inhabitants of that country, compiled, by permission, from the MSS. of Lieutenant-Governor King by David Collins, London: 1798-1802,…
Leigh Straw, Angel of Death Dulcie Markham, Australia’s most beautiful bad woman
Leigh Straw, Angel of Death Dulcie Markham, Australia’s most beautiful bad woman HarperCollins, 2019, ISBN 978073333966 (p/bk), pp1-312, RRP $32.99 Angel of Death is the third book by writer and historian Leigh Straw that focus on Australian women and crime. It follows…