For a rounded analysis of the death penalty in the Australian colonies it is necessary to explore one last aspect of it—namely, those people who passionately disagreed with the practice entirely.
Prior to the 1840s it was a voice only faintly heard in the public sphere. Capital punishment was questioned for its use in specific cases or crimes but the idea that it should disappear completely was rarely countenanced.
That said, by the mid-point of the nineteenth century, opposition to the penalty as a whole was a concept growing in prominence. General community debate was accompanied by the appearance of dedicated abolitionist publicaÂtions and, sometimes, short-lived organisations. From these records, the arguments and actions of key abolitionist figures can be deciphered. Bills introduced in Parliament with the aim to abolish the punishment were common in New South Wales but not elsewhere. Moreover, only one of these bills, introduced in 1896, reached the committee stage. Thinking about the abolitionists as a group managing penal change is an interesting proposition. They certainly contributed to the public debate, reminded everyone of the death penalty's contradictions, and spruiked the benefits of non-capital punishments. However, in reality, abolitionists were only© The Author(s) 2020 189
S. Anderson, A History of Capital Punishment in the Australian Colonies, 1788 to 1900,
Palgrave Histories of Policing, Punishment and Justice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53767-8_8 a minority voice in the colonial period. Retentionists (i.e. those in favour of retaining capital punishment) held the balance of power—not just on the floor of colonial parliaments where it mattered the most—but also in the wider court of public opinion. Changes to penal policy were sancÂtioned and shaped by those who believed in the efficacy of the death penalty in at least some circumstances. The custodians of the colonial gallows were, ultimately, those who wished for it to continue. Though it seems that nineteenth-century legislators were willing to approve radical reform in the area of labour relations, racial policy and the extension of democratic rights, they were ultimately unwilling to part with the example an execution could provide.