Who the Sheriff �May Think Fit': Spectators to Private Executions

The following is the clause within the New South Wales Private Execu­tion Act, assented to in 1854, that designates who was able to attend these new executions within the prison walls.

The sheriff, under sheriff, or deputy as aforesaid, shall be present at such execution, together with the gaoler and proper officers of the gaol, including the physician or surgeon, together with all magistrates who shall think fit, and such constables, military guard, and adult spectators as the said sheriff, under sheriff, or deputy as aforesaid, may think fit.^{[425] [426]}

The official witnesses to private executions, noted in the legislation to be present, usually totalled no more than a dozen and provided a number of functions. The officers of the gaol were required to bring the pris­oner from the cell to the scaffold and, along with any police or military present, maintain security as the private execution unfolded. The medical officer confirmed the prisoner was deceased and signed off on the fact. Magistrates, if they chose to attend, were a way for a member of the judi­ciary to witness that the sentence of the court was upheld. The Sheriff ran the event while the executioner and clergy rounded out those needed to perform the task. Journalists, meanwhile, communicated news of the execution to the wider public. These were the official witnesses to private executions, nothing but a distilled version of all who were legally and practically required to perform the task of hanging.

Gaining admittance to a private execution was an arbitrary decision made by the Sheriff, very much subject to his personal discretion. Some­times it was as simple as being present outside the gaol on the day of execution in the hope of being one of the chosen few picked out.

The Sheriff often employed a good deal of discretion and calculation in deciding who should attend, especially since admittance to the scaf­fold scene was usually in high demand. In Queensland, two labourers of Pacific Island background were executed at the Maryborough lockup in 1877. On the day of execution some five hundred fellow Islanders showed up in the town who had been encouraged by police and local plantation owners to be privy to the event. However, of these hundreds, only �six “representative” Polynesians’ were allowed into the yard by the Under-Sheriff.^[432] The sight of the six admitted into the lockup was said to have �unmanned’ one of the condemned men who burst into tears and fell silent upon seeing them.^[433] On another occasion, again in Queensland, the father of a murdered daughter knocked on the gate to the Boggo Road Gaol early in the morning so that he could see her killer, James Gardiner, executed.

For high profile private executions there seems to be a sudden jump in spectator numbers, though it seems to be largely confined to New South Wales. For example, at the execution of Henry James O’Farrell, the Irishman executed for an attempt on the life of the visiting Duke of Edinburgh in 1868, the number of spectators swelled to �upwards of a hundred persons’ inside Darlinghurst Gaol.^[436] This number was surpassed many years later in 1887 when the perpetrators of the Mount Rennie rape were executed at Darlinghurst Gaol. On that occasion 120 people, not including officials and policemen, were reported to be present.^[437] The prison yard �resembled a scene in a theatre’ according to one newspaper: The top gallery was set apart for the general public and visitors. The second gallery, on a level with the scaffold, was reserved for the press, members of Parliament and J’s.P [sic.]. The floor was reserved for medical and scientific men. A strong force of police guarded each side of the scaffold. A subdued hum of voices filled the large open space, until the sheriff in stentorian tones demanded silence on pain of expulsion.^[438]

The dramatic surge in numbers at very prominent private executions was in many ways to do with the upshot in interest from men of officialdom as well as journalists. At the execution of O’Farrell, for example, MPs and Justices of the Peace were strongly represented, equal to that of the �well-known private citizens’ that attended.^[439] Still the large number of attendees at prominent private executions seems to be a practice limited to New South Wales.

Sometimes the press accused the private spectators of being lowly and depraved just as they had the public execution crowd. At the 1861 execu­tion of Thomas Sanders in Melbourne a �favoured few’ members of the public gained admittance but they behaved �just like a crowd of low persons... rushing the entrance to a theatrical pit or gallery’.^[442] These members of the public displayed a �rude eagerness’ when trailing the condemned criminal to the drop in a manner that made the officials �most unhappy'.^[443] The behaviour of the private execution crowd in 1858 at the hanging of Young and Burns in Launceston was particularly scan­dalous. Their excitement drew comparisons to the �refined savages who flock to bull-fights and gloat over the sanguinary scenes of the arena'.^[444] The conduct of the chosen members of the public seemed to worsen in the case of botched executions, a scourge that continued unabated for much of the private execution era. The crowd hissed and jeered the hangman immediately following the execution of an Indigenous man known as �Scabby Harry' at Goulburn Gaol in 18 59.^[445] The executioner, having terribly bungled the task by allowing the body to hit the ground, ran to the gaoler's quarters in fear for his personal safety but was soon recalled to suspend the criminal's corpse in the proper manner.

The controlled environment of private executions made it much easier for scientific experts to be admitted by the Sheriff for research purposes.

Phrenology was gaining traction in the latter half of the nineteenth century and its practitioners were frequently permitted by various sher­iffs to attend private executions. These men of pseudoscience were one of the main reasons for the growing prevalence of death masks being taken of executed criminals in the late colonial period.^[449] Travelling phrenolo­gists like Professor G. A. De Blumenthal claimed at lectures that, for the purposes of�scientific research', he attended twenty-two executions in the colonies by the year 18 9 5.^[450] Taking physical measurements and casts of the head immediately following the hanging was a means to conduct an analysis of criminal character. De Blumenthal's �phrenological chart', an analysis of the hanged criminal's head, was often published in the colo­nial newspapers.^[451] The phrenologist's task could be a gruesome one, as in the case of Frances Knorr who was executed at Melbourne Gaol in 1894:

The white cap was removed from the face of the dead woman, and the female warders were compelled to hold up the woman's head, with the blood streaming down all over their hands, in order that a phrenolo­gist should take certain measurements with a tape, and the hideously contorted blood besmeared face of a decrepit little woman was exposed to the public gaze.^[452]

Another prominent colonial phrenologist, Professor Archibald S.

On the day of a private execution many members of the public still congregated outside colonial prisons just to partake in the drama of the event. Estimates of the crowd gathered outside the walls of Melbourne Gaol at the execution of Ned Kelly ranged anywhere from four to several thousand.^[457] Most were �larrikin-looking youths' and �nearly all were of the lower orders' according to The Mercury.^[458] The death of Frances Knorr attracted some fifteen hundred spectators outside Melbourne Gaol.^[459] Many of the women gathered were said to have �relieved their overcharged feelings with tears'—according to one report.^[460] The vast majority of estimates of crowd numbers outside the walls vary and range from anywhere from a handful to several hundred. As the sun set on the colonial era this eager group of hopeful attendees became more and more out of place on city streets. By 1901 Brisbane’s Evening Observer wrote that many people �hurrying to their work’ looked at a group of men waiting �nervously for admittance’ outside the gaol with a great deal of curiosity.^[461]

The interaction between prison officials and the crowd gathered outside the walls was mediated by mutually understood symbolism. It was common for a black flag to be raised from within the prison to indi­cate to those waiting outside that the culprit was dead. At Darlinghurst Gaol it was frequently reported that a lengthy bell toll took place at the hour fixed for the execution.^[462] In Western Australia, the Private Execu­tion Act stipulated that official documentation confirming the death had to be displayed for a 24-hour period at the entrance gate of the prison.^[463] There were some occasional interactions between the official spectators to the hanging and those gathered outside the prison. At one of the earliest private executions in Sydney, of two criminals named Samuel Wilcox and William Rogers, almost two-hundred spectators gathered outside the prison. One account states how the official witnesses to the execution were �deeply impressed by the melancholy spectacle’.^[464] The witnesses then emerged as one group from within the gaol and �announced’ to those waiting outside that the execution had successfully taken place.^[465]

Sometimes the signals of a successful execution were not enough to satisfy the curiosity of the crowd outside the gaol. In fact, there were many attempts to peek over the prison walls and view proceedings first hand. Correspondents to William Ryan’s private execution in 1855, the first of its kind in Australia, reported how the roofs of tall buildings near Darlinghurst Gaol were covered with spectators.^[466] One writer took comfort in the fact that these pariahs could only see but not hear the death so that it was only �half so great and so pleasurable’ as it was under the �good old system'.^[467] In South Australia, at the 1861 execution of the Rainbird Murderers, there was a like-minded group of people attempting to see into the Adelaide Gaol. Before the execution took place a �consid­erable concourse of persons' had gathered outside the gaol but all were �wisely and properly' refused admittance by the Sheriff.^[468] Once it was clear that they would not be able to attend the execution The Advertiser wrote that:

A rush was then made to an eminence a little to the westward of the jail, from which we understand that the scaffold was just visible — but a small detachment of the mounted police, who were in attendance under Sergeant-Major Hall, were ordered to clear the ground, and succeeded tolerably in keeping the people back. Among the crowd, which numbered over 50 persons, were a great many youths and children, all anxious to obtain a view of the disgusting scene.^[469]

A similar scene occurred in Brisbane at the execution of Thomas Wood in 1860 where excluded spectators, including women, climbed trees to the rear of the prison to watch the spectacle from over the walls.^[470] Outside the Old Dubbo Gaol in regional New South Wales there was a large tree that was climbed by enterprising young boys in the late nineteenth century to watch both the everyday workings of the prison as well as the occasional execution. The Prisons Department was so concerned about this intrusion that they had the tree levelled.^[471]

The Private Execution Acts made the Sheriff the final arbiter of atten­dance at colonial executions. For the first time it was possible to actively exclude women, children and the lower classes from viewing the spectacle of death. By law �adult spectators' were only allowed to watch private hangings so children were, in effect, barred from the outset. Tasmania was the only colonial parliament to, in the actual wording of the Act, state outright that the �adult spectators’ be male.^[472] Yet, despite the fact that females in the other colonies were technically allowed admittance into the prison, one is hard pressed finding any reference to a female spectator at a private execution. The concern over lower class spectators was easily managed, now the Sheriff could personally discern the status of those asking to attend. Such unwanted spectators were replaced by the press, appropriate officials, select members of the public and even the occasional scientific observer. It was a collection of individuals thought by the Sheriff to conform to the solemnity and tone of the occasion. If enthusiastic members of the public were gathering outside the prison on the day fixed for execution, or even attempting to peek over the walls to see in, it was a comparatively small price to pay for the new-found decorum brought about by private executions.

There is one last aspect of spectatorship that ought to be covered in any discussion on the transition to private executions in Australia. Namely, how the vast majority of colonists became almost fully depen­dent on newspapers for their information on executions after the passage of the Private Execution Acts. Overnight, reading emerged as the domi­nant medium through which the death of a criminal could be understood by the public. Newspaper reportage on hangings, it must be noted, was as constant and dependable as before the transition to private execu- tions—there was still comment on the criminal and his crime, the crowd who watched, whether it was conducted in the proper manner, and any other detail that may be relevant to the reader. However, it was now a scene fully processed and communicated via a privileged intermediary, viz. the journalist. The reporters’ own beliefs, reasoning and language were always going to colour their description of an important judicial event whether they meant it or not. Moreover, the detail they omitted from their columns, or whatever information the correspondent did not think fit to report due to personal preference, remained forever unknown to their readers. The means to personally attend the hanging and eval­uate it on his or her own terms was something reserved for only the very few in the era of private executions.

This was hardly a problem for most readers who felt that the journalist had placed them right there with the criminal at the final scene. As one reader of The Argus wrote in a Letter to the Editor in 1859:

Personally I have never witnessed an execution, and yet I can under­stand the feelings which are produced by the sight of one. The disgusting details have been heralded forth in the daily papers, and such has been the accuracy with which the proceedings have been described that I am as perfectly acquainted with all the interesting details as if I had stood at the foot of each scaffold.^[473]

Despite never witnessing an execution, this reader (�J.WK.’) was convinced that hangings were an affront to the �refinement of our manners' and the �increasing delicacy of our sentiments'.^[474] It is not to say that such comments were unjustified or illegitimate observations for the reader to make; what should be noted is that J.W.K. could only ever construct their evaluation of executions through the lens of a straight-laced journalist.

As time went by journalists were less likely to write of the gory reali­ties of death by hanging. In part this was a matter of taste. For example, in 1879 the Premier of Queensland stated in Parliament that �we must condemn any portion of the Press that would seek to put too promi­nently forward the sickening details connected with an execution'.^[475] But, in another way, this was simply because journalists were less able to write about gory realities as time went by—think of the tarp draped below the drop at Melbourne Gaol used to hide the writhing body of the criminal (see Chapter 3). Not being able to personally attend an execu­tion added layers of distance between the general public and the death of a criminal in ways that were not immediately perceptible. Trapping the image of colonial hangings within the journalist’s own viewpoint without any means of recourse was yet another way in which executions were sanitised and refocused. If executions are to be considered a communica­tive exercise that attempted to convey the consequences of crime to the onlooker then a newspaper report transmitted that intended message far more safely.

* * *

The only spectators to the private hanging of Malachi Martin in December 1862 at the Adelaide Gaol were the press and various govern­ment officials—members of the public had been completely excluded from the scene. It was cause for the South Australian Register to congrat­ulate the Sheriff on his �strict adherence’ to the �will of the Legislature’:

There was no crowd of people crushing with heartless curiosity to gain eligible standing ground... no wilderness of upturned faces, expressing pity, disgust, or horror, to distract the thoughts of the doomed man. There was a preternatural stillness in the large and gloomy building.. This certainly must be regarded as a great improvement upon the old system, where the disorder and indecorum of a mob too often perverted the sad and serious lesson which the law intended a public execution to inculcate.^[476]

The introduction of private executions allowed for much greater control over who could digest such scenes of violence in the Australian colonies. The Sheriff was granted the power to exclude the troublesome groups that people like Joseph Long Innes (and many others) thought attended public executions—women, chil­dren and the lower classes. Once the execution was hidden inside the prison, the vast majority of the public were reduced to gath­ering outside its walls to wait for an appropriate signal indicating that the criminal had died. Upper class writers like Cunningham, Lang and Kentish could finally rest a little easier knowing that the Sheriff was able to prevent large swathes of the colonial population from viewing an execution. The concern of these writers was predicated on the cultural belief that scenes of violence demoralised the onlooker and fundamentally transformed their character for the worse. The intro­duction of private executions sought to remedy these concerns and refocus colonial hangings on the central lesson of capital punishment. As the correspondent to the hanging of Martin pointed out, private execu­tions allowed for the �sad and serious lesson' of the punishment to come to the fore while thoughts of the �disorder and indecorum' of the crowd could, at long last, be put to one side.