Abolitionist Organisations and Community Debates
Outside of the actions of abolitionist figures some dedicated anti-capital punishment groups emerged during the nineteenth century—in South Australia and New South Wales specifically.
The Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment—hereafter S.A.C.P. (SA)—was a small organisaÂtion started in 1844 that had eight founding members. If not for the existence of the private records of William Anderson Cawthorne, at one point Secretary of the organisation, details would be even more elusive than is already the case. At the very back of one of Cawthorne's personal notebooks that documents local Indigenous manners and customs, and in between his own hand sketches on that same subject, the Minutes of the South Australian Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment between 26 September 1844 and 25 April 1845 can be found.[721] The diliÂgent note-taking of Cawthorne, a schoolmaster and stationer for most of his life, sheds rare light on the internal workings of an abolitionist organisation in the nineteenth century. William Burford was another founding member whose involvement is notable. He became, as the nineteenth century progressed, South Australia’s equivalent to Frederick Lee and Alfred Taylor—a prominent abolitionist figure lecturing against the death penalty, corresponding with the local press, and advocating for mercy in particular cases.[722]Cawthorne’s Minutes reveal that the Society was, during 1844 and 1845, involved in a number of different activities, including: lobbying the government for mercy on behalf of two condemned criminals; preparing anti-capital punishment material for circulation in the colony; and, inquiring into the local newspaper editors’ position on the issue. In its short existence the Society also made an enemy of the local retenÂtionist publication the Southern Australian who had mounted an attack on the infant Society in one of its articles.[723] The Minutes of the early meetings depict an organisation in its embryonic stages—Crawford notes the need for the Society to purchase a transaction book and to design a seal.
Yet, in the last batch of meetings included in Cawthorne’s Minutes (April 1845), resolutions were passed to fix regular monthly meetings, for members’ annual subscriptions to be paid in advance, and elect key offices (Treasurer and Secretary, etc.) for the coming year. It is curious then that, save for some rare mentions in the newspaper in mid-1845, S.A.C.P. (SA) rarely leaves traces in the historical record in later years. The last that is heard of the group in the newspapers was in March 1847 when an advertisement was placed in the South Australian for the Society to meet on â€?urgent business' at a hotel in Port Adelaide.[724]Another anti-capital punishment â€?Committee' emerged briefly in South Australia during the year 1874. Interested citizens met after an anonymous newspaper advertisement ran for several days with the hope of bringing like-minded people together.[725] William Burford came to the meeting and suggested that it would be best to form a Committee and successfully passed the motion, â€?That a Committee be formed for the purpose of bringing this matter of capital punishment prominently before the public'.[726] Out of the nearly fifty people in attendance, a Committee of nine men was elected.[727] At the second meeting a few months later the group resolved to correspond with the Literary Societies and to form sub-committees throughout the colony. The group hosted two public lectures on capital punishment, one by William Burford and another by James Jolly. Burford's lecture was published and widely circuÂlated with financial help from the Committee.[728] In September 1874 the Committee appears to have sought the statistics from the latest criminal returns from a sympathetic MP.[729] Yet, this is the last the newspapers note about the activities of this group. Like its precursor that was established in the mid-1840s, it too appears to have been a short-lived effort.
In New South Wales a group named �The Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment'—hereafter S.A.C.P (NSW)—was active between 1868 and 1872.
Despite the similar name, it had nothing to do with the South Australian abolitionist group. The genesis for a society came out of a meeting hosted in the â€?President's Room' in the Legislative Council chaired by Terence Aubrey Murray in late 1867.[730] They called for memberships and subscriptions in both city and country newspapers. Two months later they had a provisional committee consisting of no less than six parliamentarians, four doctors and ten clergymen—in addition to a number of other members of the public.[731] None other than FredÂerick Lee acted as Secretary for the Society. The Sydney Morning Herald raised its eyebrow when the name of a former lawyer and current MP, John Plunkett, appeared as one of a number who had joined the â€?craze’.[732] Plunkett was, according to the newspaper, Attorney-General for nearly twenty years, â€?in the good old times when the lash and the gallows were the implements of punishment’. From â€?ripe experience’ it chirped, he should know something of the subject.[733] When the formation of the group was reported in newspapers, some questioned if the Parliament of New South Wales could ever be daring enough to move â€?from being a step behind, to take a step in advance of the law of Great Britain, as well as of most European States?’[734]Without doubt the group’s most controversial moment was their intervention in the case of the Irishman, Henry O’Farrell, who attempted to assassinate the touring English royal Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh. They advocated for mercy in his case on two grounds. First, medical evidence suggested he was insane; a recent mental breakdown had caused strange public behaviour and delusional thoughts. Second, O’Farrell’s charge of wounding with intent to murder was only a capital offence in New South Wales but not England.[735] However, speculation was rife as to whether it was a Fenian conspiracy.
In the middle of the furore, Terence Aubrey Murray—the MP instrumental in establishing the S.A.C.P. (NSW) at a meeting earlier in the year—declared that he now â€?discarded any connection with such a society’.[736] A report on his speech stated that Murray, â€?hoped that the foul assassin would be hanged fifty cubits high, so that everybody could see him, and that the gallows would remain standing till the last Fenian was exterminated out of the colony'.[737] As the fanfare around the case continued to grow, one member of the opposition asked for Lee's correspondence with the government regarding O'Farrell's sanity to be tabled for all to see. The governÂment declined the invitation, citing the confidentiality of the Executive Council's deliberations. Lee, on the other hand, did not share those concerns and furnished the public with his correspondence via the news- papers.[738] In the end, the group's agitation was unsuccessful—O'Farrell was hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol on 21 April 1868.After the O'Farrell case the New South Wales group continued to agitate for change, despite some jeers from the local press. The satirÂical Sydney Punch, for example, published a mock meeting of the Society that was attended by famous murderers. The fictional meeting ended with a resolution that gave â€?all noble murderers a further opportunity of slaking their thirst for blood'.[739] From 1868 and into 1870 the S.A.C.P (NSW) remained active as an organ for discussion and agitation on specific cases. The group's actions were again punctuated in 1870 when they had a hand in preparing a thwarted capital punishment abolition bill that was presented to the Legislative Assembly on their behalf by William Brookes (see below).[740] Records of dedicated abolitionist organiÂsations, outside of New SouthWales and SouthAustralia, remain elusive. When hearing about the formation of Lee's Society one correspondent recalled that if â€?our memory be not treacherous' a similar group emerged in Sydney during the early 1860s.[741] The historian of the Tasmanian gallows, Richard Davis, also alludes to a group of abolitionists active in Launceston during the 1860s as well but he does not offer much detail about them.[742]
In the last decades of the nineteenth-century diverse opinions about the death penalty could be heard in the press.
Often the same colony had opposite views represented: Tasmania had Hobart's Mercury favouring retention while Launceston's Examiner was firmly opposed to capital punishment.[743] [744] During the 1850s, the Adelaide reading public could follow the duels between the South Australian Register and the Adelaide Times against the enthusiastically pro-gallows Southern Australian?1 Sydney's Empire, People’s Advocate, Chronicle and the short-lived weekly Atlas were all among the publications that identified with abolitionist views at one time or another.[745] The firmly retentionist Sydney Morning Herald (called the â€?gibbet-loving Herald' by some) often teased these smaller competitors for being â€?mock philanthropists' who harboured a â€?diseased sympathy' towards malefactors.[746] Perhaps, though, The Argus of Victoria was a more typical story. Though regarded as a conservative newspaper for most of its 111-year existence, it flirted with both sides of the debate over the years. For instance, it defended an abolitionist stance during a lengthy three-year exchange during the 1850s in its columns with its own â€?Geelong Correspondent' who supported death punishÂments.[747] Yet, two decades later, when a Victorian MP asked whether the government would consider abolition, The Argus editorialized in favour of the death penalty, at least in cases of deliberate murder.[748]Often the stance of a newspaper could be traced down to its propriÂetor or editor. Edward Wilson, joint-proprietor of The Argus from 1849, was a known abolitionist with an interest in penal systems.[749] Henry Parkes, also an abolitionist, was the founding editor-proprietor of Empire on his way to becoming one of the New South Wales most prominent statesmen. The Rev. Dr J. D. Lang ran three news publications in Australia beginning with the Colonist (1835—1840), the Colonial Observer (1841—1844) and then the Press (1851).[750] While serving as a Member of New South Wales Parliament as the Member for Port Philip during the 1840s Lang had declared his total aboliÂtion to capital punishment.[751] The co-founder of Launceston’s Examiner was John West, an early historian of Tasmania and well-known antiÂtransportation campaigner who occasionally expressed his belief in the futility of hangings.[752] Although the sheer volume of periodicals in the nineteenth century inevitably led to diverse opinions, the default posiÂtion was that the gallows had a role to play in the penal system of the Australian colonies.
Whatever their position, however, every publiÂcation had no issue keeping the reading public abreast of developments in England. British parliamentary debates, prominent criminal cases and dissenting opinions on the issue (Dickens’s letters, for example) were all closely monitored in the Australian newspapers.Dissenting newspaper voices and dedicated abolitionist groups served to unsettle accepted opinion—something that filtered down to local levels. Nineteenth-century colonial life was dotted with community groups of all shapes, sizes and interests. Hosting a discussion or organised debate to work through the merits and drawbacks of capital punishment was one of many topics they touched upon. For instance, records show organisations as diverse as the Australian Natives Association and local literary societies hosting debates and talks on the matter.[753] However, mock parliaments (often called Parliamentary Associations or ParliamenÂtary Classes) and ordinary debating societies found a natural home for such discussions.[754] A window into this world can be found in a handÂwritten essay by an eighteen-year-old William Ponder in 1873 at the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Society in Kapunda (a small town north of Adelaide). Ponder wrote in favour of the abolition of capital punishment thinking it fitted neatly with other legislative improvements enacted by â€?philanthropists and legislators' that had improved the â€?tone of society'.[755] At the end of the year, he submitted his piece to an essay competition alongside twenty-eight competing entries but without success. The following year he tried again but this time it was an essay on the merits of trial by jury.
The final area where an opposition to capital punishment manifested was in public petitions to abolish the death penalty. As early as 1842 Nathaniel Kentish, an early abolitionist active in South Australia and Tasmania, organised a petition that encouraged all of her â€?Her Majesty's Dominions' to stop engaging in the â€?barbarous, anti-Christian, sacrileÂgious, murderous, and illegal' practice of capital punishment.[756] Other attempts, less ambitious in scope, came from other parts of society. For example, Adelaide's fledgling Quaker community sent the South Australian Parliament two petitions in the 1890s asking for total aboliÂtion.[757] In 1869, 443 residents of Sydney signed a petition that said capital punishment was â€?a relic of a barbarous age, and quite unsuited to the present advanced state of civilization'.[758] Whether it was dedicated abolitionist organisations, newspaper debates, local community discusÂsion or various petitions, it was clear that capital punishment was a topic that provoked debate in the nineteenth century. The true test of the acceptability of these beliefs, however, would come when they were presented to lawmakers.