Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In January 1889, Louisa Collins of Botany walked calmly to the gallows at Darlinghurst Gaol. After an incredible four trials and a conviction for murdering her two husbands, Louisa became the last woman to be hanged in New South Wales, a catalyst for Australian society to question capital punishment and a champion for women's rights. Louisa Collins was convicted of murdering her husbands by poisoning with arsenic, despite the fact the evidence against her was circumstantial. The chemist who analysed the remains of the husbands found a 'minute trace of arsenic', an amount that could easily have been explained by both her husband's having worked for Geddes and Sons woolsheds in Botany where arsenic was regularly used to clean wool. Compounding the tragic nature of the case, Louisa was convicted on the evidence of her 10-year-old daughter, May, who said she had seen a box of rat poison, which contained arsenic, at some stage in the family home, as was the case in most Sydney homes at the time.

After Louisa's second trial, the Crown prosecutor Henry Cohen wrote to the Attorney-General Sir George Bowen Simpson stating:

There is evidence which certainly may in my judgment raise doubt as to the guilt of the prisoner. She should not be put upon her trial again to answer this charge.

The jury in Louisa's second trial voted 10 to one in favour of acquittal. Despite this, Louisa was tried a third time and then a fourth time, with all-male juries, until a conviction was finally delivered and she was sentenced to be hanged.

As each trial proceeded, Louisa's plight gained more notoriety and publicity. It also spawned a protest and suffragette movement. As Louisa was poor, she was defended by an assigned barrister who was about to be struck off the roll and was no match for the best barristers in Sydney assigned by the Crown. A firm of lawyers actually reassessed the evidence in the case pro bono and discovered a very reasonable explanation for the traces of arsenic. Louisa's husbands, in their illness, had been prescribed and administered bismuth, which behaved like arsenic and, according to medical journals of the time, had been known to cause death. The lawyers Slattery and Heydon wrote to the Governor conveying this information which inspired the Governor to write to the Minister for Justice requesting that he reassess this evidence. The minister was unswayed. Several groups petitioned the Governor for a pardon and sought personal meetings with him. The last was a plea by Louisa's seven children who begged for their mother's life with Lord Carrington's private secretary. The Governor could not bring himself to face the children.

Despite all those factors, the exclusively male judiciary and body politic at the time decided Louisa must be held to account for her crime and she must hang. And hang she did in gruesome circumstances. At about 9 am on 8 January 1889, Louisa Collins was hanged in Darlinghurst Gaol. After the trapdoor to the platform on which Louisa was standing became stuck, the executioner was forced to bang the trapdoor open with a mallet and Louisa's fell so hard that her head was almost severed. Her windpipe was exposed and blood gushed onto her prison garb. The men of the colony had their way.

We do not know if Louisa killed her two husbands, but we do know that her trial was unfair. At the time of Louisa's death, women were not allowed to vote, very few worked and, if they did, it was as a domestic at a fraction of men's wages. Women could not sit on juries or in the parliament. If they separated from their husbands, they had no rights to their children. Women were second-class citizens and Louisa's plight highlighted this.

Louisa Collins' descendants are alive and living in Newcastle and some of them have been trying to locate Louisa's grave. They know she is buried somewhere at Rookwood Cemetery, but the cemetery staff cannot locate the grave. They are unable to assist the family, so the family have written to Premier Mike Baird requesting the New South Wales government assist in the location of the grave. I join with the family in calling on the New South Wales Premier to assist the descendants of Louisa Collins so that she may receive some justice from the New South Wales government through the location of her grave. I too have written to the Premier to support their request.

I pay tribute to Caroline Overington who researched the Louisa Collins story and published a book, Last Woman Hanged, which is an enthralling read outlining not only the plight of Louisa Collins but also the lives of women in the colonies and the injustices they suffered on a daily basis. Without Caroline's work, the story and legacy of Louisa Collins would have been unknown and forgotten. I seek leave to table a letter from Janice Thompson to Premier Mike Baird on 22 October, and a letter from myself to Premier Mike Baird.

Leave granted.

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