First Place Non-Fiction
David Vernon is a writer, editor and publisher. In 2007 he won the non-fiction section of the ACT Writing and Publishing Awards with his book “Men at Birth.” This book, along with “Birth Stories” (Finch 2011) is now in its second edition. A keen short story writer his works have appeared in several anthologies and his non-fiction work on the ABC Website Unleashed, Sunday Life Magazine, The Australian Skeptic and The Canberra Times.
In 2010 he established the national short story competition “Stringybark Stories.” Since inception it has awarded over $25,000 in prizes and published over 950 short stories in 33 paperbacks and 33 ebooks. Details can be found on the website: www.stringybarkstories.net He also is the principal of Stringybark Publishing, a bespoke publisher that specializes in memoir, history and anthologies. See: www.stringybarkpublishing.com.au
David has served on the ACT Writers Centre Board since 2012 and was the Chair from 2014-19.
In 2010 he established the national short story competition “Stringybark Stories.” Since inception it has awarded over $25,000 in prizes and published over 950 short stories in 33 paperbacks and 33 ebooks. Details can be found on the website: www.stringybarkstories.net He also is the principal of Stringybark Publishing, a bespoke publisher that specializes in memoir, history and anthologies. See: www.stringybarkpublishing.com.au
David has served on the ACT Writers Centre Board since 2012 and was the Chair from 2014-19.
Much depends on the hangman — the death of Thomas Barrett
With the death of Ronald Ryan on 8am on Friday 3 February 1967, capital punishment ceased in Australia. Dressed in welder’s goggles and thick coat to keep his identity secret, Ryan’s hangman was paid time and half for his work that day.
In one small way, Ronald Ryan was lucky. Ryan’s hangman had the benefit of years of practical research detailed in the Victorian Government’s manual The Particulars of Execution. This book had been utilised in Victoria since 1894. It contained tables of data that told the hangman the length of rope required to effectively kill the condemned without decapitation or strangulation. Knowing the weight and height of his charge was all that was required to save unnecessary suffering or mess. When the time came, Ryan’s hangman did his job well, and there was neither a kick nor a shiver from Ryan after the trap door crashed open. The rope was still.
Thomas Barrett, the first man hanged in Australia was not nearly so lucky. Barrett’s hangman had never hanged anyone before. A mere twenty years old, Barrett’s hangman had no instruction manual and he had no benefit of anonymity. He had no time to mull over his decision to become Australia’s first ‘Jack Ketch’ as only a few minutes before he took on his new job, he was expecting to be dangling from the gallows himself!
• • •
Wednesday 27 Feb 1788
The convicts stood in long straggling lines, feet shuffling in the dust as they waited for Governor Arthur Philip to arrive. Most of the convicts lined up in front of the mighty Eucalypt had seen judicial death before. Death by hanging was so common that for most present it had lost its deterrent value. In 1788, there were over 160 crimes that could lead to the death penalty, ranging from stealing anything of value greater than five shillings, through to murder. Many of the convicts standing in front of the gallows tree had their own death sentences in England commuted to transportation to New South Wales. They were no strangers to the feelings of the condemned men that day.
In the distance, a slow drumbeat could be heard. As it became louder, a murmur passed down the lines. The overseers shouted for silence, snarling at those who were not paying attention. Red-coated, sweating soldiers escorted three shackled men to the base of the tree.
Behind the soldiers, a party of white and blue-coated officials, with the Governor at their head, strode into the clearing. Philip had an imposing presence. Nearly twenty-five years at sea, with ten of them commanding Royal Navy warships, meant he knew how to control men — sailors, marines and convicts.
Philip raised his hand and silence fell. While no verbatim record of his speech remains, he would have spoken of the most pressing issue facing the colony — the lack of food.
“Today, it my solemn duty to bring the ultimate punishment to bear on these men you see before you,” called Phillip, his voice carrying to all parts of the clearing. “Thomas Barrett, Henry Lovel, and Joseph Hall have been found guilty of stealing beef and pease from the Government store.
“We are a small band, tasked by His Majesty King George the Third, with turning this barren land into a great colony. We have but ourselves, our tools, our faith and our strength to do this. Our supplies are ample for all but only if we fairly use them. Men who steal from the Government, steal directly from your stomachs. Their greed imperils everyone, and they must now pay. As you witness their deaths, pray for their souls and pray that no man or woman among you will follow in their footsteps. Mr Collins, you may proceed.”
The decision to sentence men to death for stealing food was based on the desperately low levels of food available in the colony. Something had to be done.
Earlier, convict Thomas Hill, had been caught stealing food, and was banished to Rock Island in the middle of Sydney Harbour where, in irons, he survived on bread and water. As a place of banishment, the hungry convicts soon knew the island as ‘Pinchgut.’ It was clear to Judge David Collins that the he had previously been too lenient. He therefore decided that Barrett, Lovel and Hall were to be hanged.
Judge Collins nodded to Henry Brewer, the Provost-Marshal, to hang the first of the three criminals. “Dispatch Barrett first, Mr Brewer, if you will. As leader of the thieves, he should show the way.”
Brewer, turned to Marine Captain James Campbell, standing next to him. “Captain.”
Campbell looked at his soldiers and then apologetically whispered into Brewer’s ear, “Sir, we don’t have a hangman.”
Brewer and Campbell argued about who should execute the prisoners. Campbell told Brewer that it was not a duty for the marines and his men would refuse. Brewer ordered Campbell to do it, regardless. Campbell then asked for a volunteer from among the convicts but when nobody moved, he strode over to a convict in the first row and demanded he do the job. The man refused so Campbell ordered his sergeant to shoot the recalcitrant. Meanwhile, Philip who desired a show execution was becoming progressively angry at the delay. He called Brewer over and said that he would pardon James Freeman, another condemned convict, if Freeman agreed to become the colony’s official executioner.
James Freeman was just twenty in 1788. Sentenced to death in England for armed robbery at sixteen his sentence was commuted to seven years transportation. After waiting four years in the prison hulk Justinia for the First Fleet to depart, he eventually found his way to Botany Bay. However, on 27 February 1788, he had been caught stealing flour and the court sentenced him to death. Hearing Philip’s offer of a reprieve he reluctantly agreed. He was unmanacled from the log to which he had been tethered. As the blood flowed into his legs, he shuffled toward the gallows tree, not as a condemned man, but as the official hangman.
The hangman’s rope was thrust into his hands. While Freeman was telling Campbell that he had no idea how to tie a hangman’s noose, the colony’s only clergyman, Reverend Richard Johnson, murmured Psalm 23 to the condemned men.
“The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want…”
They’d heard it all before as it seemed to be a favourite at executions and each had witnessed more than one hanging. Indeed, all three had previously escaped their own hanging through a mixture of luck and judicial leniency. Thomas Barrett, despite being both literate and a skilled engraver had been sentenced to death in 1783 for stealing a watch, two shirts and a shift. For twelve months, he waited to be killed but then heard he would be transported to America instead. The American War of Independence, however, had halted transportation until a British victory was achieved. He was moved to the Censor, a prison-hulk, on the Thames. Barrett’s experience on the Censor was never recorded, but a fellow convict, James Hardy Vaux, provided a firsthand report of being on board a hulk:
There were confined in this floating dungeon nearly 600 men, most of them double–ironed; and the reader may conceive the horrible effects arising from the continual rattling of chains, the filth and vermin… On arriving … we were immediately stripped … then, after putting on each a suit of coarse slop-clothing, we were ironed and sent below… Every morning … convicts… capable of getting into boats are taken ashore… and are employed. Each gang … is… directed by … a guard. [They] are … the lowest class of human beings; wretches devoid of all feeling; ignorant …, brutal … and rendered tyrannical … by the consciousness of the power they possess… They invariably carry a large stick, with which, without the smallest provocation they will fell an unfortunate convict… and frequently repeat their blows long after the poor sufferer is insensible …[i]
While aboard, Barret met Charles and Herbert Kellan who persuaded him to mutiny when they boarded the convict ship, Mercury in March 1784. Two days out of Gravesend, the convicts attacked the crew. Barrett and the Kellans, made it to land but were captured. For a second time, Barrett was sentenced to death and yet again he was reprieved because during the mutiny he stopped another convict cutting off the captain’s ears. On 11 March 1787, Barrett was dispatched on the Charlotte to Australia as part of the First Fleet. While on the trip Barrett was caught counterfeiting silver dollars. The First Fleet’s surgeon, John White, wrote:
…with great ingenuity … [Barrett] passed some quarter dollars which he… had coined out of old buckles, buttons belonging to the marines, and pewter spoons. The … whole was so inimitably executed that had their metal been a little better, the fraud… would have passed undetected.[ii]
The next time Surgeon White wrote about Barrett was on the day of Barrett’s death. As Barrett heard the last few lines of Psalm 23, The Provost-Marshall finally lost all patience, stormed over to Captain Campbell and Freeman, grabbed the rope and with a few deft twists made a hangman’s knot. Dragging the reluctant Freeman after him he marched to Barrett’s side and shoved the rope over his head. “Reverend, time to do your duty,” he ordered.
Reverend Richard Johnson, a man of strong religious conviction, felt that there was little that would save the soul of the man in front of him. “Any last words?”
Barrett looked at him. “I have no argument with God. God knows that I have done wicked things, but all because of my station in life. I expect no mercy.”
“The Lord listens and judges. Seek His mercy.”
Brewer shoved Barrett impatiently towards the ladder. “Get on with it!”
Barrett slowly climbed the ladder and looking at the terrified executioner below him, gave a wry smile. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll not hold it against you.”
“Haven’t you forgotten his blindfold?” asked the Reverend Johnson.
Brewer grunted and pulled a stained cloth out of his pocket and standing on the lower rungs tied the cloth over Barrett’s eyes. With that small gesture Barrett’s shoulders slumped. “Kick it,” Brewer snarled at Freeman. Freeman didn’t move.
“Kick it away!” Freeman made no attempt to kick the ladder from under Barrett. Captain Campbell called loudly to a marine to shoot Freeman. The scrape of ramrod being pulled from the musket convinced Freeman. With a hard kick of his boot against the flimsy ladder, the timber snapped under Barrett’s weight, and Barrett was left gurgling and struggling at the end of the short rope.
With that, the continent of Australia witnessed its first official execution. While aboriginal customary law allowed the death penalty in certain limited circumstances, without written records, it is impossible to know its prevalence. 159 years before Barrett’s death, on 2 October 1629, seven mutineers from the wreck of the Batavia were hanged by the Dutch on Seal Island, Western Australia. These were the first Europeans to be executed in Australia. However, their deaths occurred on a tiny island neither owned nor claimed by anyone in 1629. It was 159 years before the first official judicial death occurred on Australian soil at 6pm on 28 February 1788.
By the time capital punishment was officially removed from Australia’s statute books by the Western Australian Abolition of Capital Punishment Act 1984, hanging was considered by most medical authorities as a relatively painless and quick way of executing prisoners.
But by some accounts, Thomas Barrett’s death was prolonged. His struggles and gasps being witnessed by those next to be hanged. Lovel, the younger of the two, violently vomited. Hall, silently stared to the sky, his lips moving in prayer. The young executioner, Freeman, was in equally a poor state as Lovel. He sank to his knees with his head in his hands, sobbing. While Governor Philip and Judge Collins left shortly after the kick of the ladder, Brewer and Campbell stood impassively waiting for the convulsions to cease. After half an hour and in failing light, Surgeon John White pronounced Barrett dead. Campbell’s marines cut down Barrett and dragged him to the shallow grave behind the gallows tree.
Freeman was in no fit state to do another hanging and so Brewer ordered Lovel and Hall to be reprieved until 6pm the following evening. The two men stumbled back in chains to a sleepless night.
The next evening, perhaps sickened by the previous day’s farce, Governor Philip did not attend their hanging. Just as the two men were about to climb the now-repaired ladder, Brewer arrived with the Governor’s pardon, which banished them from the colony.
Joseph Hall was sent to Pinchgut where he was pardoned on 4 June 1788. He married in 1801. He died in Hobart on 24 June 1818, thirty years after Barrett’s death. Henry Lovel too was sent to Pinchgut but did not receive a pardon and was eventually sent to Norfolk Island in irons. He was imprisoned there until 1793 when he was released and disappeared from the records.
Although Thomas Barrett’s bones lie scattered beneath the foundations of modern Sydney, there remains one tangible piece of his past. In 2008, a silver medallion, beautifully engraved with a picture of the Charlotte at anchor in Botany Bay, was purchased by the Australian National Maritime Museum for $750,000[iii]. Thomas Barrett engraved this medallion, with great precision, for the Surgeon-General John White. This is the same surgeon who pronounced Barrett dead, a mere 31 days after landing in Australia. What were the thoughts that were going through his head as he watched the master engraver and thrice convicted man die under the hot Australian sun?
It is not clear how many executions Freeman was required to perform. At least eighteen executions are recorded[iv]. He died at Windsor on 28 Jan 1830, aged 62 and forty-two years after performing the Colony’s first hanging.
Historical note: Witnesses and records relating to the death of Barrett and the appointment of Freeman as Colony Executioner are contradictory. Several records indicate the above sequence of events, while Surgeon White’s journal indicates that Freeman was appointed two days after Barrett’s execution. White may have been mistaken in his timing as much of his journal was written days or weeks after the actual event
[i] The Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux written by himself in two volumes, London, 1819, v2, p111-112
[ii] Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales with sixty-five plates of non descript animals, birds, lizards, serpents, curious cones of trees and other natural productions, John White Esquire, (1757/8-1832), Surgeon-General to the Settlement, 1790. l
[iii] “The Charlotte Medal”, Signals 84, Sept 2008, p10
[iv] James Scott - Journal titled `Remarks on a passage Botnay [sic] bay 1787', 13 May 1787 - 20 May 1792, State Library of NSW, Call No: Safe DL MSQ 43
In one small way, Ronald Ryan was lucky. Ryan’s hangman had the benefit of years of practical research detailed in the Victorian Government’s manual The Particulars of Execution. This book had been utilised in Victoria since 1894. It contained tables of data that told the hangman the length of rope required to effectively kill the condemned without decapitation or strangulation. Knowing the weight and height of his charge was all that was required to save unnecessary suffering or mess. When the time came, Ryan’s hangman did his job well, and there was neither a kick nor a shiver from Ryan after the trap door crashed open. The rope was still.
Thomas Barrett, the first man hanged in Australia was not nearly so lucky. Barrett’s hangman had never hanged anyone before. A mere twenty years old, Barrett’s hangman had no instruction manual and he had no benefit of anonymity. He had no time to mull over his decision to become Australia’s first ‘Jack Ketch’ as only a few minutes before he took on his new job, he was expecting to be dangling from the gallows himself!
• • •
Wednesday 27 Feb 1788
The convicts stood in long straggling lines, feet shuffling in the dust as they waited for Governor Arthur Philip to arrive. Most of the convicts lined up in front of the mighty Eucalypt had seen judicial death before. Death by hanging was so common that for most present it had lost its deterrent value. In 1788, there were over 160 crimes that could lead to the death penalty, ranging from stealing anything of value greater than five shillings, through to murder. Many of the convicts standing in front of the gallows tree had their own death sentences in England commuted to transportation to New South Wales. They were no strangers to the feelings of the condemned men that day.
In the distance, a slow drumbeat could be heard. As it became louder, a murmur passed down the lines. The overseers shouted for silence, snarling at those who were not paying attention. Red-coated, sweating soldiers escorted three shackled men to the base of the tree.
Behind the soldiers, a party of white and blue-coated officials, with the Governor at their head, strode into the clearing. Philip had an imposing presence. Nearly twenty-five years at sea, with ten of them commanding Royal Navy warships, meant he knew how to control men — sailors, marines and convicts.
Philip raised his hand and silence fell. While no verbatim record of his speech remains, he would have spoken of the most pressing issue facing the colony — the lack of food.
“Today, it my solemn duty to bring the ultimate punishment to bear on these men you see before you,” called Phillip, his voice carrying to all parts of the clearing. “Thomas Barrett, Henry Lovel, and Joseph Hall have been found guilty of stealing beef and pease from the Government store.
“We are a small band, tasked by His Majesty King George the Third, with turning this barren land into a great colony. We have but ourselves, our tools, our faith and our strength to do this. Our supplies are ample for all but only if we fairly use them. Men who steal from the Government, steal directly from your stomachs. Their greed imperils everyone, and they must now pay. As you witness their deaths, pray for their souls and pray that no man or woman among you will follow in their footsteps. Mr Collins, you may proceed.”
The decision to sentence men to death for stealing food was based on the desperately low levels of food available in the colony. Something had to be done.
Earlier, convict Thomas Hill, had been caught stealing food, and was banished to Rock Island in the middle of Sydney Harbour where, in irons, he survived on bread and water. As a place of banishment, the hungry convicts soon knew the island as ‘Pinchgut.’ It was clear to Judge David Collins that the he had previously been too lenient. He therefore decided that Barrett, Lovel and Hall were to be hanged.
Judge Collins nodded to Henry Brewer, the Provost-Marshal, to hang the first of the three criminals. “Dispatch Barrett first, Mr Brewer, if you will. As leader of the thieves, he should show the way.”
Brewer, turned to Marine Captain James Campbell, standing next to him. “Captain.”
Campbell looked at his soldiers and then apologetically whispered into Brewer’s ear, “Sir, we don’t have a hangman.”
Brewer and Campbell argued about who should execute the prisoners. Campbell told Brewer that it was not a duty for the marines and his men would refuse. Brewer ordered Campbell to do it, regardless. Campbell then asked for a volunteer from among the convicts but when nobody moved, he strode over to a convict in the first row and demanded he do the job. The man refused so Campbell ordered his sergeant to shoot the recalcitrant. Meanwhile, Philip who desired a show execution was becoming progressively angry at the delay. He called Brewer over and said that he would pardon James Freeman, another condemned convict, if Freeman agreed to become the colony’s official executioner.
James Freeman was just twenty in 1788. Sentenced to death in England for armed robbery at sixteen his sentence was commuted to seven years transportation. After waiting four years in the prison hulk Justinia for the First Fleet to depart, he eventually found his way to Botany Bay. However, on 27 February 1788, he had been caught stealing flour and the court sentenced him to death. Hearing Philip’s offer of a reprieve he reluctantly agreed. He was unmanacled from the log to which he had been tethered. As the blood flowed into his legs, he shuffled toward the gallows tree, not as a condemned man, but as the official hangman.
The hangman’s rope was thrust into his hands. While Freeman was telling Campbell that he had no idea how to tie a hangman’s noose, the colony’s only clergyman, Reverend Richard Johnson, murmured Psalm 23 to the condemned men.
“The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want…”
They’d heard it all before as it seemed to be a favourite at executions and each had witnessed more than one hanging. Indeed, all three had previously escaped their own hanging through a mixture of luck and judicial leniency. Thomas Barrett, despite being both literate and a skilled engraver had been sentenced to death in 1783 for stealing a watch, two shirts and a shift. For twelve months, he waited to be killed but then heard he would be transported to America instead. The American War of Independence, however, had halted transportation until a British victory was achieved. He was moved to the Censor, a prison-hulk, on the Thames. Barrett’s experience on the Censor was never recorded, but a fellow convict, James Hardy Vaux, provided a firsthand report of being on board a hulk:
There were confined in this floating dungeon nearly 600 men, most of them double–ironed; and the reader may conceive the horrible effects arising from the continual rattling of chains, the filth and vermin… On arriving … we were immediately stripped … then, after putting on each a suit of coarse slop-clothing, we were ironed and sent below… Every morning … convicts… capable of getting into boats are taken ashore… and are employed. Each gang … is… directed by … a guard. [They] are … the lowest class of human beings; wretches devoid of all feeling; ignorant …, brutal … and rendered tyrannical … by the consciousness of the power they possess… They invariably carry a large stick, with which, without the smallest provocation they will fell an unfortunate convict… and frequently repeat their blows long after the poor sufferer is insensible …[i]
While aboard, Barret met Charles and Herbert Kellan who persuaded him to mutiny when they boarded the convict ship, Mercury in March 1784. Two days out of Gravesend, the convicts attacked the crew. Barrett and the Kellans, made it to land but were captured. For a second time, Barrett was sentenced to death and yet again he was reprieved because during the mutiny he stopped another convict cutting off the captain’s ears. On 11 March 1787, Barrett was dispatched on the Charlotte to Australia as part of the First Fleet. While on the trip Barrett was caught counterfeiting silver dollars. The First Fleet’s surgeon, John White, wrote:
…with great ingenuity … [Barrett] passed some quarter dollars which he… had coined out of old buckles, buttons belonging to the marines, and pewter spoons. The … whole was so inimitably executed that had their metal been a little better, the fraud… would have passed undetected.[ii]
The next time Surgeon White wrote about Barrett was on the day of Barrett’s death. As Barrett heard the last few lines of Psalm 23, The Provost-Marshall finally lost all patience, stormed over to Captain Campbell and Freeman, grabbed the rope and with a few deft twists made a hangman’s knot. Dragging the reluctant Freeman after him he marched to Barrett’s side and shoved the rope over his head. “Reverend, time to do your duty,” he ordered.
Reverend Richard Johnson, a man of strong religious conviction, felt that there was little that would save the soul of the man in front of him. “Any last words?”
Barrett looked at him. “I have no argument with God. God knows that I have done wicked things, but all because of my station in life. I expect no mercy.”
“The Lord listens and judges. Seek His mercy.”
Brewer shoved Barrett impatiently towards the ladder. “Get on with it!”
Barrett slowly climbed the ladder and looking at the terrified executioner below him, gave a wry smile. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll not hold it against you.”
“Haven’t you forgotten his blindfold?” asked the Reverend Johnson.
Brewer grunted and pulled a stained cloth out of his pocket and standing on the lower rungs tied the cloth over Barrett’s eyes. With that small gesture Barrett’s shoulders slumped. “Kick it,” Brewer snarled at Freeman. Freeman didn’t move.
“Kick it away!” Freeman made no attempt to kick the ladder from under Barrett. Captain Campbell called loudly to a marine to shoot Freeman. The scrape of ramrod being pulled from the musket convinced Freeman. With a hard kick of his boot against the flimsy ladder, the timber snapped under Barrett’s weight, and Barrett was left gurgling and struggling at the end of the short rope.
With that, the continent of Australia witnessed its first official execution. While aboriginal customary law allowed the death penalty in certain limited circumstances, without written records, it is impossible to know its prevalence. 159 years before Barrett’s death, on 2 October 1629, seven mutineers from the wreck of the Batavia were hanged by the Dutch on Seal Island, Western Australia. These were the first Europeans to be executed in Australia. However, their deaths occurred on a tiny island neither owned nor claimed by anyone in 1629. It was 159 years before the first official judicial death occurred on Australian soil at 6pm on 28 February 1788.
By the time capital punishment was officially removed from Australia’s statute books by the Western Australian Abolition of Capital Punishment Act 1984, hanging was considered by most medical authorities as a relatively painless and quick way of executing prisoners.
But by some accounts, Thomas Barrett’s death was prolonged. His struggles and gasps being witnessed by those next to be hanged. Lovel, the younger of the two, violently vomited. Hall, silently stared to the sky, his lips moving in prayer. The young executioner, Freeman, was in equally a poor state as Lovel. He sank to his knees with his head in his hands, sobbing. While Governor Philip and Judge Collins left shortly after the kick of the ladder, Brewer and Campbell stood impassively waiting for the convulsions to cease. After half an hour and in failing light, Surgeon John White pronounced Barrett dead. Campbell’s marines cut down Barrett and dragged him to the shallow grave behind the gallows tree.
Freeman was in no fit state to do another hanging and so Brewer ordered Lovel and Hall to be reprieved until 6pm the following evening. The two men stumbled back in chains to a sleepless night.
The next evening, perhaps sickened by the previous day’s farce, Governor Philip did not attend their hanging. Just as the two men were about to climb the now-repaired ladder, Brewer arrived with the Governor’s pardon, which banished them from the colony.
Joseph Hall was sent to Pinchgut where he was pardoned on 4 June 1788. He married in 1801. He died in Hobart on 24 June 1818, thirty years after Barrett’s death. Henry Lovel too was sent to Pinchgut but did not receive a pardon and was eventually sent to Norfolk Island in irons. He was imprisoned there until 1793 when he was released and disappeared from the records.
Although Thomas Barrett’s bones lie scattered beneath the foundations of modern Sydney, there remains one tangible piece of his past. In 2008, a silver medallion, beautifully engraved with a picture of the Charlotte at anchor in Botany Bay, was purchased by the Australian National Maritime Museum for $750,000[iii]. Thomas Barrett engraved this medallion, with great precision, for the Surgeon-General John White. This is the same surgeon who pronounced Barrett dead, a mere 31 days after landing in Australia. What were the thoughts that were going through his head as he watched the master engraver and thrice convicted man die under the hot Australian sun?
It is not clear how many executions Freeman was required to perform. At least eighteen executions are recorded[iv]. He died at Windsor on 28 Jan 1830, aged 62 and forty-two years after performing the Colony’s first hanging.
Historical note: Witnesses and records relating to the death of Barrett and the appointment of Freeman as Colony Executioner are contradictory. Several records indicate the above sequence of events, while Surgeon White’s journal indicates that Freeman was appointed two days after Barrett’s execution. White may have been mistaken in his timing as much of his journal was written days or weeks after the actual event
[i] The Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux written by himself in two volumes, London, 1819, v2, p111-112
[ii] Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales with sixty-five plates of non descript animals, birds, lizards, serpents, curious cones of trees and other natural productions, John White Esquire, (1757/8-1832), Surgeon-General to the Settlement, 1790. l
[iii] “The Charlotte Medal”, Signals 84, Sept 2008, p10
[iv] James Scott - Journal titled `Remarks on a passage Botnay [sic] bay 1787', 13 May 1787 - 20 May 1792, State Library of NSW, Call No: Safe DL MSQ 43
