Bennett Murder of Nellie Duffy

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4835-5565-2
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 219 Seiten

It is 1908 in far north Queensland on remote Carpentaria Downs. A popular and fun loving housekeeper-companion is found dead, her throat slit. The station-owners wife, Fanny Wilson, and an Aboriginal station hand, Billy, are arrested and are brought to trial. The trial fails amongst accusations of police incompetence and high-level cover-ups, and the murder is never solved. Stephanie Bennett has spent years researching the available archives, and interviewing relatives as well as travelling to Far North Queensland herself. In this vivid account of life on a remote cattle station at the turn of last century, the life on Carpentaria Downs is laid bare and the murder and subsequent trial are examined. But questions remain. Why do rumours and accusations persist to this day? Why was Nellie Duffy killed? Indeed, who killed Nellie Duffy?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bennett, Stephanie

Leseproben

CHAPTER 2 Living on an Etheridge Cattle Run in 1908 Henry Wilson had been in the Etheridge area of North Queensland since 1882, at one time conducting a butchering business and later managing first Gunnawarra, and then Forest Home stations. Born near Tamworth NSW in 1851, he had a bad record in the north for alleged cruelty to the blacks. Widowed in 1883, he had married his second wife Fanny Perrott at Armidale in 1885. At the time of the marriage he was the father of four children, three girls and a boy, between the ages of nine and two years. Fanny was the oldest of the eleven children1 of a Police Magistrate who had taken up a selection on the rich New England Tableland in Northern New South Wales. In the twenty-five years they had been at “Haroldston”, as they called their home, the family had prospered. Fanny was well educated and devoutly brought up. As the oldest child she must have had more than her share of the responsibility for the care and upbringing of her ten brothers and sisters, but she was said by those who knew her to be of “gentle disposition.” The Perrotts were a close-knit and loving family and as a dutiful daughter preoccupied with domestic obligations Fanny allowed herself to remain a spinster until she was thirty, and the youngest of the children thirteen years old. Perhaps the widowed Henry Wilson saw in her an ideal mother for the young children he had been left to bring up. Henry, who at that time was known to friends as “Gwarra”2 Wilson (for Gunnawarra) managed the station for a Mr Ewan, but was sacked in 1895 with a lawsuit3 pending against him, brought by his employer on a matter relating to the stealing of cattle. The accusation had first been made by a young black stockman4, who later disappeared in mysterious circumstances. No action was taken by the police at the time, although eventually, due to the efforts of Mr Ewan, the Police Commissioner insisted that charges against Wilson be laid. In 1891 he had been involved in a previous incident5 concerning the killing of an Aborigine and had subsequently been committed for trial, though not proceeded against, for the shooting with intent to murder of the Aborigine, a man named Douglas. The Tommy Ewan incident (or the Gunnawarra Outrage as it became known in police circles) was described in this way by one police source: “It is said that Wilson kept a gin6; the black boy Tommy Ewan had relations with her. Wilson tied the boy to a log and castrated him. The Herberton police arrived. Wilson filled them with liquor, and at night Wilson took the boy out, killed him and burnt the corpse. It is stated here (Mareeba) that Wilson has frequently boasted of this exploit.” There was a lot more to the Gunnawarra Outrage than would appear from this brief explanation. The matter was fully reported to the police, and ultimately directly to the Police Commissioner by Mr Ewan and his solicitor. The report alleged7 that during Mr Ewan’s absence on the morning of 29th July 1895, his Aboriginal servant Tommy, aged about twenty, had been seized by Henry Wilson and a companion while he was sleeping, dragged to the blacksmith’s hut and tied to a buggy wheel. There Wilson had gagged the screaming boy with a piece of wood and a handkerchief, and had proceeded to castrate him, removing one testicle. The episode had been witnessed by two other black boys, Karra and Kangaroo Hills Tommy, both reliable and trusted boys, as well as by a Mr J. M. Hollway of Herberton. Wilson seared the wound with a red-hot searing iron and poured kerosene on the wound. Hollway told a friend, James Darcy, of the incident he had witnessed, Darcy subsequently reporting it to Mr Ewan. On the same day, Wilson’s companion had taken Tommy to drive cattle to Cardwell, about twelve miles distant, although several people noticed that the young man was in such pain he could barely sit on his horse. On the road they met Henry Wilson and another friend, accompanied by two black boys, Paddy and Joe. Wilson compelled the suffering Tommy to watch the cattle at night, keeping him away from the camp. Paddy and Joe reported that Wilson asked them to shoot Tommy as he was no good. Paddy and Joe refused. Next day Wilson’s two friends got Tommy away from the main road into the bush. The cattle were left in charge of four black boys, Paddy and Joe and two others, Andy and Billy. Shortly afterwards they heard a shot, and soon saw the smoke of a fire from the same direction as the shot. Paddy said, “They have shot Tommy and are now burning the body.” In an hour or so Wilson’s friends rejoined the black boys but said nothing about Tommy. Tommy was never seen again. All enquiries made by Mr Ewan and people acting for him elicited the answer8 that the two men had killed Tommy under Wilson’s instructions. Mr Ewan’s solicitor Mr Ringrose was said to have evidence in his possession that the motive9 for Tommy’s murder was that the young black man had accused Wilson and others of stealing cattle. Tommy had seen the cattle stolen and said that he intended to inform the owners. The Herberton police had been aware of the accusations over Tommy Ewan’s disappearance for a considerable time, but no action was taken. It was an open secret,10 the statement alleged, that some of the police were very friendly with Wilson, and considered the death of an Aborigine of little importance. In response to the report from Mr Ringrose, the Police Commissioner11 was said to be disgusted at the inactivity of the Herberton police and of Sub-Inspector Fitzgerald at Cairns, who considered the case “trumped up” by Mr Ewan “for malicious purposes.” As it turned out, after a comprehensive police search failed to find Tommy or his remains, charges which had been laid against Wilson had to be dropped due to insufficient evidence and no body. Wilson was sacked by Mr Ewan and the two men parted on very bad terms. Wilson and the two men denied Mr Ewan’s allegations against them, one of them threatening to take court action. As well as his terrible reputation of violence and cruelty, the police were well aware of Henry Wilson’s seemingly insatiable appetite for women,12 and in a confidential letter to the Police Commissioner, one high ranking officer wrote:– “It is commonly known that Wilson is a very lustful man. It has also been said that there has never been a governess on his station that he has not endeavoured to be familiar or intimate with… “It has also been reported13 that the daughter of an outstation manager on the station, a Miss C…, left there about twelve months ago supposedly in company with Miss Wilson, a daughter of the manager of Carpentaria Downs. It is said Miss C…was then enceinte to Mr Wilson and that she was going south for the purpose of accouchement… “I am told by a friend of Wilson that he will do anything to gratify his sexual passion. He is described as a cold, callous, calculating scoundrel where girls or women are concerned, and that there is not the least chance of him ever saying or doing anything to give himself away if guilty. He would also resort to any means, even death, to destroy any evidence that he may think would be likely to come forward against him.” After Wilson’s dismissal from Gunnawarra, the family moved to Kirrama Station between Herberton and Cardwell, where they had become owners of the grazing lease14. Edgar Dowse Collins managed the station for them and later took over the lease. He became their son-in-law, marrying Henry Wilson’s eldest daughter. In 1899 the Wilsons moved to Forest Home station15 on the Gilbert River between Croydon and Georgetown, where Henry had been appointed station manager by the giant cattle and meat organization, Queensland Meat Exporters and Agency Co Ltd. Three years later at the end of 1901, Fanny Wilson who by then had three children of her own, left her husband16 after finding him coming out of the governess’s room. The governess it seems was Nell Duffy. With her children, Fanny went south to her family home at Haroldston, where she remained for twelve months or more with her mother, who had been widowed some years previously. The children having been removed from Forest Home, Nell Duffy no longer had a job there. She was then employed at Kirrama as governess and “lady-help” for the Collins family until September 1906 when she left to work for James Darcy and his family at St Ronans for six months. Fanny returned to her husband in 1903. Soon afterwards Q.M.E.&A. appointed him Pastoral Manager17 of the entire company, and the family went to live at Carpentaria Downs. Carpentaria Downs was the jewel in the company’s crown. The lease covered about 730 square miles, straddling the Einasleigh River, which joined the Etheridge and the Gilbert to flow into the Gulf of Carpentaria. As well as the rivers, it embraced the ravines and thick scrub of the ranges, the gold-bearing quartz ridges to the south-west and beautiful open forest country, especially to the north. To the east were large areas of black basalt known as the lava fields, which were the visible part of an immense and...