Black Widow: The True Story of Australia's First Female Serial Killer

by Carol Baxter

  Each member of the deputation formally communicated their concerns about Louisa’s case. Lee talked about the New Zealand case. Palser expressed the repugnance felt by many members of the community about hanging in general and especially the hanging of a woman. Canon Rich communicated his concerns about the evidence. They added that they were not asking the governor to set her free, merely to reprieve her to life imprisonment.

  The governor responded, ‘I can assure you, gentlemen, that the petition you have handed in from the women of the colony will receive every possible consideration and my most earnest consideration, but more than that at this present moment it is impossible for me to say.’

  • • •

  Louisa’s case was taking up an increasing amount of Lord Carrington’s time. He had convened another meeting of the Executive Council earlier in the day, although the premier himself wasn’t in attendance. Among the papers Carrington presented to the council was a body of correspondence from Frederick Lee, along with letters and petitions from others in the community. Some were from well-wishers recognising the difficulty of the governor’s decision. A pastor declared that the governor’s sorrow was so deeply affecting his own heart that he wanted to offer some words of condolence. He then listed every ‘wrath of God’ biblical verse he could find to reassure the governor that, if he allowed Louisa to hang, he would be acting in accordance with God’s will.

  Some writers attempted to persuade the governor to accept their point of view—not always politely—or to suggest that he consider information contained in their missives. One mentioned two cases that offered food for thought: a capitally convicted murderer who was saved when last-minute evidence proved his innocence; and a well-connected wife-killer who was reprieved because of the killer’s influential connections. ‘Louisa Collins will be hanged,’ the letter-writer declared, ‘because she was poor and friendless and because a portion of the press in Sydney and Victoria shrieked for her blood.’

  The autopsy doctor, Frederick Milford, was among those who expressed concern about the convicting evidence. Having sat through Louisa’s trials—and many others during his years as an autopsy doctor—he had noticed that the Crown offered no evidence that directly connected her with the poison. He reminded the governor that the box of Rough on Rats had sat on an open shelf and could have been accessed by one of her children or by Collins himself. He said that this was only his opinion and was unlikely to be of any significance; however, he’d had an exceptional opportunity to watch the case and, as an independent observer, he felt it was his duty to inform the governor of his alarm about this crucial missing link in the chain of evidence.

  After discussing the correspondence, the council members decided to adjourn their meeting. They would hold a special meeting within the next few days to continue their deliberations. With sections of the community outraged at the idea of executing a woman, this was too important a decision to be made lightly. And their own political futures might depend upon the outcome.

  Chapter 42

  The question we have to ask ourselves is whether, in the interests of justice, in the interests of society, in the protection of life, it is or is not necessary that for the first time in the history of the colony for forty years, a woman should be seen hanged by the hands of a public executioner.

  Thomas Chrysostom O’Mara MLA

  Free trade versus protectionism. The issue that had troubled New South Wales politics for a quarter-century, that had propropelled Parkes into his fourth premiership, had become a metaphor for the Louisa Collins debate. Parkes and his government advocated laissez-faire politics—not just freedom of trade, but freedom of thought and action—and Parkes, a strong supporter of women’s rights, believed that the same principle should be applied to the ‘woman question’. During the parliamentary debate about Louisa’s case, he had said that the world’s progress consisted to a large extent of teaching women that they must take responsibility for themselves as intelligent and sentient creatures. Looking at Louisa’s situation through the prism of these views, he felt that his attitude shouldn’t be hard to understand. ‘Believing all that, how could I distinguish between the woman and the man in a diabolical murder?’ However, others—including fellow progressives who supported the female suffrage movement—disagreed with him on the grounds that women shouldn’t be executed while they lacked the political power to vote for the laws that governed them.

  The protectionist opposition welcomed women under its political umbrella, murderesses among them. Importantly, though, its support for the calls for Louisa’s reprieve was not founded on a belief that the rights of women should be extended. Far from it, in many cases. Indeed, when the debates about female suffrage began in the 1890s, their leader, George Dibbs, was opposed. The protectionists were largely political conservatives and included some who believed in being tough on crime and who demanded Louisa’s execution for the protection of society. Others desired her reprieve because they believed that the fair sex was not equal to men and shouldn’t be treated the same way. Women needed to be protected from themselves.

  Straddling both sides of the political fence were capital punishment abolitionists, some opposed for philosophical or evidence-based reasons, others for religious reasons—like Quaker Eliza Pottie. Quakers were once persecuted for their beliefs even to the extent of being imprisoned and executed; accordingly, they had long been vocal in their demands for the better treatment of prisoners, with Elizabeth Fry being their most famous advocate (they also supported female ministry). Most importantly, though, they were pacificists. Not only were they against war, they were against capital punishment. So when Eliza advertised for women to attend a meeting at the Temperance Hall to appeal for mercy, she was being driven by these fundamental Quaker beliefs. As it turned out, only a dozen women joined her in what proved to be a prayer meeting. Nonetheless, the women drafted a petition to the governor begging for mercy on the religious grounds that ‘blessed are the merciful’ and for the simple reason that underpinned most of the calls for mercy: squeamishness. There was something profoundly wrong, something abhorrent, about executing a woman, particularly the mother of young children.

  • • •

  Opposition leader George Dibbs and his men also called on the public to join them—at the Town Hall, in this instance—to discuss petitioning the governor for mercy. They reminded everyone that the premier himself had suggested that an appeal from the people might help swing the vote.

  The majestic venue was crowded, although only a few skirts could be seen. Dibbs himself took the chair. Joining him on the platform were Thomas Walker and Ninian Melville, as well as other politicians and local identities. Dibbs was the first to speak. He deliberately said little, mainly asking the attendees to give the other speakers a quiet hearing.

  William Ellard, whose voice was regularly heard in the press begging for tolerance and liberty, told the audience that only a monster would advocate that a woman should be hanged. He moved the first motion: that measures should be taken to obtain a commutation of Louisa Collins’ sentence.

  Parliamentarian Edward O’Sullivan seconded the motion, advising the attendees that he had no sympathy with crime, nor any desire to divert the course of justice. Rather, he wanted to protest against the barbarous punishment of hanging, particularly of women. Society had already ceased flogging them. ‘If it is repugnant to flog a woman, how much worse is it to hang one?’ He said that the statute books contained laws that were from the days of barbarism, and that these laws would remain there until the people rose up and compelled the legislators to change them.

  Cheers accompanied him back to his seat.

  The next speaker, a Mr McDougal, said that his offering was the most tangible ground on which they could prevent the execution of this friendless, penniless woman. ‘The woman might not be morally responsible for the crime of which she has been found guilty. Indeed, the commission of the crime itself is prima facie evidence that the woman is insane.’

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p; ‘Hear, hear!’ cried the audience, agreeing that ‘bad’—where a woman was concerned—usually meant ‘mad’.

  When Dibbs put the motion to the audience, many hands were raised in its favour. Groans greeted the ten dissenters. Others failed to raise their hands at all.

  Parliamentarian Thomas O’Mara reminded the attendees that the letter of the law might not make a distinction between the sexes, however the spirit of the law certainly did. He moved that the chairman sign a memorial asking for Louisa’s reprieve and that a deputation be authorised to take it to the governor.

  Thomas Walker seconded the motion, offering his own remarks about the inequality experienced by women socially and politically. He added, ‘So why should we, at a time when retribution for crime is called for, then and only then place her on an equality with man and utter a cry for blood and a thirst for death?’ As for the ‘deterrence’ argument used by the hangman’s apologists, he asked rhetorically: ‘If Louisa is to be the example, how is it that all the examples of hanging have not prevented murder?’ In his opinion, the circumstances driving the mercy pleas in Louisa Collins’ case were stronger than in all other cases because the critical witnesses were her own children. ‘Without the voice of those children, the mother never could have been brought in guilty.’

  ‘Shame!’ cried the audience.

  ‘Let us think of these children, who knew not what they were doing, who were coached by the police—’ he paused as applause erupted ‘—who were told, perhaps, what to say.’

  The audience applauded loudly.

  ‘Think of the fact that these children will have the stigma resting on their character all their lives that their mother’s death was due to them at a time when responsibility had not formed in their minds, and when they knew not what they did. The law goes up only to the foot of the scaffold. We do not cry out against the law. We only ask that it may be tempered with mercy, especially in a year when we are entering into a new epoch, when we have every hope of peace and goodwill towards men. Let mercy reign and stamp the people of New South Wales as the acme of mercy in the nineteenth century.’ Prolonged cheering and applause accompanied him back to his chair.

  Ninian Melville replaced him, arguing that the evidence might point to Louisa Collins’ guilt, but that information might surface in the future that indicated her innocence. ‘We will not be able to reopen her grave,’ he concluded bluntly.

  The resolution to petition the governor was carried unanimously.

  • • •

  At three pm the following day, George Dibbs and some of his podium companions marched up to Government House carrying their memorial. Accompanying them were representatives of the major newspapers who would report on the results of this critical meeting.

  After the governor had joined them, Dibbs read the memorial then said that the deputation fully recognised the difficult position in which his Excellency and the Executive Council stood. He reminded the governor that during his predecessor’s term, the council had been required to consider the case of the Maitland murderesses. The executive had decided that the colony would be disgraced if a woman suffered death at the hands of the public executioner while there was the sufficiently severe punishment of life imprisonment. ‘We now ask that the same prerogative should be exercised, and that the colony should be saved the degrading spectacle of witnessing a woman hanging from the scaffold.’

  ‘I fully understand and sympathise with the feelings that have brought you here today,’ replied Lord Carrington, pulling out a prepared response. He said that all occasions when a governor was asked to extend the prerogative of mercy were painful enough, but that this occasion was ten thousand times worse because the criminal was a woman. ‘I do not wish to shrink from the responsibility placed on me, but I am bound to confess, however, that I feel it so deeply that had I known before I left England that such a duty would be cast on me, proud as I was and pleased as I was with the great honour Her Majesty the Queen conferred on me, no power on earth would have induced me to come here. But the duty is cast upon me, and I am responsible for it, and bound in honour to carry it out.’

  He said that he had read the newspaper reports of their Town Hall meeting. He also knew that Mr Dibbs, having previously served as premier, was aware of how thoroughly the council considered each case and how hard it tried to find any loophole that might allow mercy to be extended, and he assured them that this particular council had done the same. In fact, the members had just held a special meeting to consider Louisa’s case. They had looked over the petitions and memorials and police reports and other correspondence received during the previous few days, including a heartbreaking letter from the condemned woman’s mother. ‘I am bound to say that the advice has been given me that the sentence of the court should not be interfered with.’

  Carrington went on to explain that, as the law stood, the governor did indeed have the right to extend mercy, irrespective of any opinion from the court or advice from the council. On the other hand, the ministers in such a case had the right to resign, and their resignations would be accepted. While the prisoner’s life would be spared, the political consequences would be profound. ‘It is, therefore, my duty to accept the advice tendered to me by the ministers of the Crown. With deep sorrow, I have to refuse to interfere with the sentence of the court.’

  As Dibbs thanked Lord Carrington, he couldn’t refrain from reminding him that the prerogative of mercy rested in his hands alone. ‘I feel that Your Excellency’s bright administration would be tarnished to some extent if mercy was not extended as we have prayed,’ he warned. ‘I hope that at the eleventh hour, some circumstance might present itself that will cause Your Excellency to change your opinion.’

  • • •

  The editor of the Australian Star was aghast. Political bullying was commonplace in the bearpit of the New South Wales parliament, but this latest example seemed extraordinary. Had Parkes truly intimated to the Queen’s representative that his ministry would resign if the governor exercised his rightful prerogative of mercy? This was the premier who had given such an emotive speech to parliament against capital punishment just a short time ago, the same premier who had stated that it was beyond the Executive Council’s power to interfere but that the governor was free to reprieve Louisa or to let her sentence stand and his ministers would be content with his decision. ‘Insincerity and cowardice, it is well known, are two of Sir Henry Parkes’ most prominent vices,’ lashed the editor, ‘and he has exhibited them very strongly in connection with the unhappy woman now lying under sentence of death in Darlinghurst Gaol.’

  The editor compared Parkes’ actions with his parliamentary response to the ‘Chinese question’. Six months previously, a popular uprising demanding an end to the floods of Chinese landing on colonial shores had led Parkes to disregard the law concerning Chinese immigration, to circumvent the Supreme Court’s power, to ram through draconian new laws prohibiting such immigration, and to indemnify the government against its own breaches of the law—the most blatant defiance of the rule of law since the Rum Rebellion of 1808. ‘One would be bound to conclude that Parkes deemed the exclusion of a score of Chinese from the province as being of far more importance than the preservation of a human life, or the reproach on our civilisation involved in the hanging of a woman.’ Clearly, the editor continued, Parkes’ actions in the Louisa Collins case added another atom to the mountain of proof that he was the greatest humbug Australia had ever known. And he recommended that the Legislative Assembly determine whether Parkes’ cabinet had truly threatened to resign and, if so, to instantly submit a motion of censure.

  While it might previously have seemed as if Parkes was washing his hands of the distasteful dilemma by letting the governor assume responsibility for the onerous decision, it was now clear that Parkes hadn’t relinquished his power—not at all. Somehow, he had communicated to his good friend Lord Carrington that the governor could choose to use his prerogative but, if he did so, he would push the colony to
the brink of a constitutional crisis. That, of course, was a political albatross that no young governor would want around his neck until the end of his days.

  Many were shocked by the governor’s capitulation. Was the Queen’s representative just a puppet who allowed his strings to be pulled by the premier? One disgusted letter-writer asked what value lay in a royal prerogative if the Executive Council’s decision was to be final. If Lord Carrington had been constrained by the ministers’ threat of resignation, then the supposed power was only a myth. If that was indeed the case, the sooner the fictitious authority was withdrawn the better because it was misleading to those who might try to petition him on some future occasion.

  • • •

  Meanwhile, where was the premier? He had been in Sydney at the time of Louisa’s appeal on 28 January then had disappeared. Reports surfaced that he and his daughters had caught a boat to Melbourne—not to see the Melbourne Exhibition, as many initially thought, but because it was the shortest journey he could make for an entire change of scenery.

  No one was surprised that he wanted a change of scenery. The political atmosphere in New South Wales had long resembled a rumbling thunderstorm. Indeed, the House hadn’t even managed to complete its business before Christmas, forcing parliament to return for the summer session during the holiday period. Consequently, many members would be absent and their constituents lacking representation. To make matters worse, the political tension had increased during parliament’s brief adjournment. ‘An explosion which would scatter business to the winds is not an improbable event,’ reported the Herald’s correspondent. ‘If there is to be an explosion, the sooner it comes the best, so that the air may be cleared. Then, perhaps, the affairs of the country would have some chance of receiving the attention they demand.’