Emma Williams

The trial

In the event Emma’s trial took place in the Supreme Court before Justice Hodges and a jury of 12 men on 24 September 1895. Strangely, in light of her confession, Emma entered a plea of not guilty. However the evidence given by others, including those who had shared the house with her, only provided further confirmation of her guilt. May claimed that Emma had tried to persuade him to go to Sydney with her, on the assumption that the police could not arrest her there. He also alleged that she had confessed to him later on the same day. This version of events is a little kinder, in that at least it suggests that Johnnie was happy in his last few moments: ‘the child was looking down into the water and smiling and slipped from my hands into the water.’ But what followed was chilling: ‘I stopped there for about 20 minutes to see if it would come up again.’ (Transcript, p.9).

Cross-examination of Matthews (May) obviously implied that he was living off the earnings of prostitution, which he denied. (Transcript, p.10)  Later police evidence repeated this accusation. Constable Akers in particular claimed to have known Emma for some seven years. Under cross-examination he claimed: ‘The woman has been an unfortunate [euphemism for prostitute] for some time past. Matthews has told me that he lives on the proceeds of prostitution.’ (Transcript, p.15.)

The court also heard evidence from several of the women who had looked after Johnnie at various times. Their evidence generally confirmed the reports already published in the press.

 

The summing up

The official transcript did not record either Justice Hodges summary remarks to the jury, or his comments in passing sentence, but the court reporters took detailed notes and their accounts appeared in the press the following day – with some interesting variations. According to the Age, Justice Hodges, in summing up, said:

He did not know how to put the case to the jury, for all the facts pointed to the one conclusion, that the prisoner intentionally took that child’s life; that she threw it into the water with the fixed determination that it should not rise to the surface.  Everything showed a mind capable of planning this murder, and capable of carrying it out. There was not one single question that could be put to the jury on the other side; there was nothing to suggest accident.

He went on to comment in some detail about women like Emma, who took a ‘wrong’ path.

It was one of those cases – unfortunately too common – of a woman starting on the wrong road, separating from her husband, and living with another man. He could not see that any blame attached to the institutions which it had been suggested refused to take in the mother or the child. Prisoner’s case was not that of a girl who had taken her first false step and was anxious to lead a better life. …These societies had not the means to support and maintain the children of all the immoral women that existed in the community.

Of course it was of no help to Emma, but His Honour was equally disparaging of Frederick Matthews.

The witness Matthews was one of those beings who were a disgrace to humanity, and had given his evidence as if the life of another was not of half as much importance to him as a glass of beer.  He was utterly indifferent to what became of prisoner or her child, or anyone else, so long as his beastly appetites of all kinds were satisfied. (Age, 25 September 1895, p.5)

The Herald’s version of the summing up was similar, but included reference to evidence presented by Emma’s lawyer Mr Forlonge, detailing her attempts to find a place for Johnnie in one of the charitable homes. This helps to explain the judge’s comments. The Herald also printed a rather more populist version of Justice Hodges’ remarks about women like Emma.  There was no reference to Matthews at all.

Mr Justice Hodges, in summing up, alluded to the remark made by counsel for the prisoner in regard to efforts made to obtain admission for the woman’s child in some charitable institution.  His Honor [sic] thought that no blame could be attached to any institution for refusing to receive either the mother or the child.  It was not a case where an innocent or unfortunate girl applied for relief, but where a woman of mature years asked to be relieved of her burden in order that she might go and sin some more.  She desired to be relieved of her responsibility so that she might be able to repeat further acts of immorality.  Possibly she would have come back again seeking for the admission of her next child.  But charitable institutions had not the means to afford relief even if they were so inclined; the public did not supply them with sufficient funds to enable them to keep the children of prostitutes and adulteresses that exist in the community. (Herald, 25 September 1895, p.4)

The message was clear. Only the children of ‘respectable’ women had the right to expect assistance.

 

The verdict

One of the most surprising things about trials of this period is the speed with which they proceeded. In this case the jury retired at 2.55 PM on the afternoon of the first day of the trial and returned at 3.42 – not quite the ’20 minutes’ retirement’ reported by the Age, but still very swift. They found Emma guilty and Justice Hodges pronounced sentence of death. Emma was taken from the court either ‘weeping’, according to the Age, or ‘calm throughout’ according to the Herald. Either way, it was all over in less than a day!

 

The aftermath

Two days later Constable John Asker, who had arrested Emma and who also gave evidence at her trial, submitted a report on her ‘previous character’, presumably to inform any consideration of mercy. He claimed to have known Emma for ‘6 or 7 years and frequently met her.’ His report continued:

as far as I know this is her first conviction, but I always regarded her as a woman of ill fame, having often seen her in the streets at late hours and generally in company with other women of ill repute. Although I cannot give any specific instance, my impression always was that she partly if not wholly lived on the proceeds of money obtained by illicit means. (Capital Case File, Report of Constable John Asker, 26 September 1895)

Sergeant Sainsbury was more direct.

There is but little doubt that of late years at any rate, Emma Williams lived an immoral life and her associates seem to have been also subsisting on the proceeds of prostitution and thievery.

Sainsbury’s report also repeated the belief that Emma’s husband had died in the Melbourne Hospital ‘about two years ago’ and that her daughter ‘a little girl of some 7 or 8 years of age’, had ‘for some years been kept by her grandmother.’ (Capital Case File, Report of Sergeant A.G. Sainsbury, 28 September 1895)

 

A stay of execution

The death sentence was mandatory in a conviction for murder at this time, but there was always the possibility that the sentence might be commuted to a lengthy term of imprisonment by the Governor in Council. It was probably to inform this process that the ‘reports of previous character’ discussed above were sought from the police. Those reports would not have provided much hope of a reprieve for Emma and it was perhaps for this reason that she tried one last desperate ploy. The law relating to convicted female felons included the provision that an execution could not be carried out if the condemned prisoner was found to be ‘pregnant with a quick child’. This was a provision of the Juries Act 1890 (section 90).  It was an obscure provision that had not been used in Victoria before, but it had a long history in English common law, where it was known popularly as ‘pleading the belly’.

 

‘With child of a quick child’

Section 90 of the Juries Act 1890 (Vic) read:

In case a female upon a capital conviction alleges or there is otherwise reason to suppose that she is pregnant, the court shall direct that one or more medical men be sworn to enquire whether she be with child of a quick child, and if after due enquiry it is reported that she is with child of a quick child, the court shall stay execution of the sentence until such female be delivered of a child or until it is no longer possible in the course of nature that she shall be so delivered.

A ‘quick child’ was a foetus of some 14-18 weeks gestation that could be detected moving in the womb. These days it is very easy for medical science to confirm a pregnancy and we are used to seeing images of tiny foetuses moving in the womb, but at this point making such a determination was much more difficult.  Emma was probably first examined by Dr Shields, the prison physician and Dr Hooper, physician to the Women’s Hospital, on 5 October.  On this first occasion they reported that they were unable to reach a definitive conclusion, advising that it was ‘impossible in the early stages of pregnancy to give an absolutely definitive opinion that would be free from all uncertainty’. They advised re-examination ‘in about a month or six weeks.’ (A Shields, 11 October 1895, Capital case file) The actual chronology is a little confused at this point, but on Friday 18 October Justice Hodges held a special sitting of the Criminal Court to hear Emma’s petition under the Juries Act. He empanelled three doctors – Dr Balls-Headley, Dr Dunbar Hooper and Dr A. Shields – who examined Emma in a separate room adjacent to the court room.  It was also reported that they had examined her ‘on Sunday last’, which may have been the examination described by Dr Shields. They found that ‘she was not enceinte in the state contemplated by the act.’ On receiving that advice Justice Hodges determined that no order should be made and Emma was returned to gaol.

However there was clearly considerable unease about the possibility that she might be in the early stages of pregnancy, even if the child had not yet ‘quickened’. At least two petitions seeking clemency had also been received in the interim and those opposed to the death penalty were campaigning vigorously for a reprieve. The Champion argued that carrying out the death sentence would amount to ‘judicial double murder’, and would ‘exhibit Victoria to the world as the very lowest and most degraded of all civilized communities.’ (Champion, 26 October 1895) Charles Strong and others argued in a long letter published in the Age on the same day that ‘the killing of this woman is unnecessary for the protection of life, and if it be not necessary to this end, it cannot be in any way justifiable.’ (p.14).

Within the gaol Emma continued to be monitored and was re-examined by the same three doctors on 30 October. In an extraordinary document, the doctors wrote again to the Attorney General on 30 October, describing Emma’s menstrual history in some detail, including the fact that pieces of blood-stained blanket had been found in her vagina during examination on 5 October. They also dismissed suggestions raised by one Mr Maloney that Emma might have been suffering from a kind of menstrual mania when she committed the crime:

We beg to state that while serious disturbances of homicidal mania have occurred with women during the menstrual period, the symptoms being of a congestive character; in the case of Emma Williams, we find no evidence of general nervous disturbance, and there is no congestion of the local organs.

In a further letter on 31 October, Dr Shields suggested that the ‘shock from arrest’ and the stresses of the trial would ‘sufficiently account for the irregularity in her menstruation.’ Upon receiving this advice, Mr A.C. Akehurst of the Crown Law Offices, advised Henry Champion and Marshall Lyle (petitioners) that the Government had determined to advise the Governor that the sentence should be carried out and that ‘His Excellency accordingly has declined to interfere.’(Capital Case file, Akehurst to Champion & Lyle, 31 October 1895)

 

Execution: ‘O, Lamb of God, I come.’

Emma’s execution date was set for Monday 4 November in the Melbourne Gaol. All executions in Victoria were carried out by hanging within the gaol. Although no longer public events, executions still attracted great interest, and the newspapers printed detailed accounts of proceedings.

In her last week Emma was said to be reconciled to her fate and preparing herself for death.  She was attended regularly by the gaol chaplain Rev. Scott, who described her as ‘sincerely penitent, and most attentive to his ministrations.’ Just days before her death Emma also received visits from two family members from Launceston, her brother and stepfather, and according to the Herald ‘took an Affectionate farewell of them.’ When the prison governor visited her on the morning of her execution, he ‘found her calm, resigned ad determined to meet her fate bravely.’

Emma Williams was hanged at 10 AM on Monday 4 November 1895. She was attended by the chaplain until her last moments and was said to have murmured just before her death ‘O, Lamb of God, I come.’ Although the Weekly Times reported that the execution was carried out ‘as quietly, as speedily, and as effectively as any that has ever taken place in the colony’, (9 November 1895, p.36) the hangman’s notebook suggested that he slightly miscalculated and ‘the drop was a little too much for the weight’. See the hangman's remarks through the Herald Sun. Death was, however, instantaneous. At the subsequent inquest it was confirmed conclusively that Emma was not pregnant.

 

Emma Williams – early history

A certain mystery has surrounded Emma Williams’ early history ever since her trial. On the eve of her execution the gaol chaplain made remarks suggesting that she was a victim of early abuse and had perhaps been forced into an underage marriage.  ‘But then…what chance had she? A wife at fourteen, a mother before she was fifteen, and all kinds of evil surroundings.’ (Herald, 4 November 1895, p.1) This version of events was repeated in other newspapers, the South Australian Register for example. On 5 November this newspaper summarised the case and included the following:

She was an example of an extremely unfortunate class. Married at fourteen, and a mother at fifteen, she had a short and miserable married life. Her husband left her, and soon after died in the Melbourne Hospital.  The child of the marriage was adopted by a friend of the husband’s, and the widow continued her career of dissipation and depravity. (p. 5)

This story of child marriage may have been invented by Emma to inspire sympathy. It has been repeated in several publications since. Unfortunately all of the evidence suggests that it was not true. Emma’s history in Tasmania was not revealed at the time of her trial, and would not have helped her case had the details been known. This is the story we have been able to piece together from Tasmanian records.

Emma Williams nee Courtney was born in Evandale Tasmania on 24 November 1864, according to a record of her baptism in June 1866. When arrested in 1895 she gave her age as 27, although newspaper reports at the time described her as a woman of about 32. In fact she was 30. Her parents were Johanna and Henry Courtney and Emma was their second child.  Their first child, also a daughter, died either at or shortly after birth. Henry Courtney was a labourer and Johanna was an Irish dairymaid and general servant, a bounty immigrant from County Limerick.  They married on 25 March 1861 when Henry was aged 40 and Johanna 24. (Launceston registrations no. 66 of 1861) Johanna and Henry went on to have four more children together, all of whom survived infancy. One child, a boy named after his father, died at the age of nine. There is some implication that the family was poor, although newspaper reports of the family in 1895 described them as ‘respectable’. But Henry had died at the age of 68 in 1883 at the New Town Paupers’ Establishment, where the cause of death was given as ‘brain disease’. Some eight months later Emma remarried, to Alexander Ross a fifty-year-old splitter, (a kind of timber worker) who was a widower. Emma and her husband witnessed the marriage. Ross was the ‘stepfather’ who visited Emma in prison just before her execution. By the time of her second marriage Johanna was evidently able to sign her name, but she marked the registration of her first marriage with a cross.

Emma did indeed give birth to an illegitimate child, but on 29 May 1882, when she was aged 17, not at the age of 15.  The child, a boy named Henry Bacon Courtney, only lived for ten days.  Both his birth and his death, reputedly of ‘convulsions’, were registered at the same time by Johanna (identified as ‘Grandmother’) on 9 June.  The father was named as one Joseph Bacon, a labourer. Just two months later Emma married, but not the father of her child.  Instead she married Henry William Williams a 28 year-old labourer. They were married at Johanna’s home according to the rites of the Christian Mission Church and both Emma and Henry signed the marriage register.