May God Have Mercy Upon Your Soul

Rain had fallen through the night, and the prison yard was thick with mud. A small group gathered near the scaffold in the grey dawn light: officials, clergy, and a few newly appointed warders and turnkeys. Among them, perhaps standing slightly apart in his scratchy new uniform, was Robert Anthony. Having taken up his post at Toowoomba Gaol only weeks earlier, he now faced one of the most solemn and final acts of colonial justice.

Two men waited under guard. One was Jacky, a young Aboriginal man convicted of rape. The other, known as Gee Lee, was a Chinese labourer sentenced to death for murder. Both had been transported under close watch and kept apart in the lead-up to their execution. As the clock neared eight on the morning of March 7, 1870, the chaplain stepped forward and began to read. The men listened in silence. The executioner worked without delay. At that moment, the trapdoors fell, and those gathered held their breath.

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

For Robert Anthony, my great-great-grandfather, it marked a grim beginning to his career in Queensland’s criminal justice system. What was he thinking as he watched two men die that morning? Did he fully accept that this was necessary justice, or did some part of him recoil at the spectacle? We can only wonder. A young man from Ireland who had escaped poverty and famine was now employed in a system that believed discipline and example would keep the new colony safe.

A Colony Built on the Gallows

When Robert witnessed that double hanging in 1870, he was seeing Queensland’s frontier justice in its rawest form. The young colony, separated from New South Wales just eleven years earlier, had inherited Britain’s harsh criminal laws virtually unchanged. Under what became known as the “Bloody Code,” death was the mandatory sentence for murder, with mercy requiring intervention from the Governor himself.

Queensland in 1870 was still very much a frontier society. The discovery of gold at Gympie in 1867 brought a rush of fortune-seekers, many of whom were rough men far from home and family. The pastoral industry was expanding into previously uncharted territory, often violently displacing Aboriginal peoples. Chinese immigrants, drawn by gold and opportunity, faced hostility and discrimination. In such circumstances, colonial authorities saw harsh punishment as essential to maintaining order.

The two men Robert watched die that morning represented the colony’s complex racial tensions. Jacky’s execution reflected the particularly harsh treatment meted out to Aboriginal men, especially in cases involving European women. The colonial justice system showed little understanding of Indigenous law or circumstance, and Aboriginal defendants faced all-white juries with predictable results. Gee Lee’s death sentence followed a similar pattern. Chinese immigrants, despite their essential role in the colony’s development, were often treated with suspicion and faced severe punishment when they ran afoul of the law.

The Machinery of Death

By 1870, Queensland had moved beyond the era of public executions, though barely. The hanging Robert witnessed would have been conducted within the prison walls, but Toowoomba Gaol’s walls were famously low. Contemporary accounts describe townspeople climbing trees and rooftops to glimpse what they could of the proceedings, while others gathered outside, straining to hear the bell that announced an execution had taken place.

The ritual followed a prescribed pattern. At eight in the morning, always eight, the condemned were led from their cells to the gallows. The Sheriff’s representative read the death warrant in grave tones, concluding with the chilling words: “and may God have mercy upon your soul.” Last words were permitted, prayers offered. Then came the hood, the noose, and the drop. Death was supposed to be instantaneous; the neck snapped cleanly by the fall. It didn’t always work that way.

An English judge donning the black cap to deliver the ultimate sentence: “You shall be taken from this place to a lawful prison, and thence to a place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead; and may God have mercy upon your soul.”

Robert’s initiation into this system came early in Queensland’s history of capital punishment. Between 1859 and 1913, the colony would execute 94 people, all by hanging. The majority were men convicted of murder, though in the early decades, the death penalty could also be imposed for rape, armed robbery, and other serious crimes. Most were young, many were itinerant workers, and a disproportionate number came from the Aboriginal, Chinese, and Pacific Islander communities that colonial society viewed with suspicion or hostility.

The 1870s, when Robert was working at Toowoomba, represented the peak of Queensland’s use of capital punishment. Eighteen people were executed that decade, more than in any other ten-year period in the colony’s history. This reflected not just the violent nature of frontier society, but also the authorities’ determination to assert control through the ultimate punishment.

The Changing Face of Justice

Yet even as Robert was witnessing these grim rituals, attitudes toward capital punishment were beginning to shift. The very fact that executions had moved behind prison walls reflected a growing unease with public displays of state violence. The Victorian era’s increasing emphasis on moral reform rather than mere retribution was slowly making its way to colonial Queensland.

The 1880s brought Queensland’s most notorious execution: the hanging of Ellen Thomson, the only woman ever executed in the colony. Thomson and her lover, John Harrison, were hanged together at Brisbane’s Boggo Road Gaol in 1887 for the murder of Thomson’s husband. The case became a sensation, with newspapers dubbing them “Queensland’s doomed lovers.”

But it was the graphic details of Thomson’s death that shocked the public consciousness. The execution was botched: her neck did not break cleanly, and she died slowly by strangulation. In the violent convulsions that followed, blood was seen on the gallows floor. The precise details were never fully reported, but it was likely caused by internal rupture or injury to the throat. For witnesses, it was a gruesome and unforgettable scene, one that challenged contemporary notions of justice.

Thomson’s execution marked a turning point. For the first time, significant numbers of Queenslanders began to question whether the death penalty was either moral or effective.

Inside Boggo Road Gaol: the last place many prisoners saw before their execution.

The Voice of Reform

In 1899, Member of the Legislative Assembly Joseph Lesina stood before Queensland’s Parliament and delivered a passionate two-hour speech against capital punishment. “The criminal is not a wild beast,” he argued. “To take his life is not the way to cure him; you only brutalise society. It has been condemned by history as a failure.”

Lesina’s speech was remarkable not just for its humanitarian sentiment, but for its timing. At the turn of the century, few political leaders anywhere in the world were willing to challenge the death penalty so directly. Yet Lesina sensed that Queensland was ready for such leadership.

The statistics supported his case. Despite decades of executions, Queensland had not seen a decline in serious crime. If anything, the publicity surrounding hangings seemed to brutalise rather than educate the public. Juries were increasingly reluctant to convict when they knew death would follow, and governors were more frequently commuting sentences to life imprisonment.

The Long Goodbye

The new century brought a dramatic decline in executions. Where the 1890s had seen sixteen hangings, the 1900s saw only three. The last execution in Queensland took place on September 22, 1913, when Ernest Austin was hanged at Boggo Road Gaol, Brisbane, for the rape and murder of an eleven-year-old girl. Austin, who admitted his guilt and accepted his punishment, could not have known that he was making history as the last person to die on Queensland’s gallows.

On 22nd September 1913 at 8.00am, Earnest AUSTIN is executed by hanging at Boggo Road Gaol; He is buried in Allotment 36F (port 6B) at the South Brisbane (Dutton Park) Cemetery.

By then, a reformist Labor government had come to power with T.J. Ryan as Premier. In 1916, Ryan’s cabinet made a momentous decision: all death sentences would be commuted to life imprisonment. This unofficial moratorium lasted until 1922, when Premier Edward Theodore introduced legislation to formally abolish the death penalty.

The debate was fierce, with opponents arguing that Queensland would become a haven for murderers and that the fear of hanging was still needed to deter crime. But supporters could point to nearly a decade without executions and no increase in serious crime. The bill passed by the narrowest of margins (33 votes to 30) but it passed. On August 1, 1922, Queensland became the first jurisdiction in the British Empire to abolish capital punishment for all crimes.

Legacy of the Rope

Today, the physical reminders of Queensland’s execution era serve as museums and memorials rather than instruments of state power. Boggo Road Gaol, where 42 people were hanged between 1883 and 1913, now offers guided tours that include visits to the old execution chamber. The gallows beam and trapdoor are gone, but visitors can stand where Robert Anthony’s successors once witnessed the state’s ultimate punishment.

At South Brisbane Cemetery, a bronze plaque marks the approximate grave sites of those executed at Boggo Road. It lists their names—including Ellen Thomson and Ernest Austin—along with a quote from Joseph Lesina’s prophetic 1899 speech. The memorial stands as both a record of Queensland’s harsh past and a testament to its capacity for reform.

Robert Anthony eventually rose to Principal Turnkey at Toowoomba Gaol, a position of considerable responsibility overseeing the day-to-day operations of the prison. When he retired, he received a modest pension of £50 per year—less, interestingly, than the £55 annual salary paid to the colony’s executioner. Robert later became a storekeeper and farmer, building a quiet life far from the violence of his prison years. But his experience in 1870 connected him to one of the most significant transformations in Queensland’s history: the journey from frontier justice to humanitarian reform.

It was a lesson in how societies can learn, adapt, and choose mercy over vengeance, a lesson that began with witnesses like Robert Anthony, who saw the reality of state-sanctioned death and perhaps began to question whether there might be a better way.

What About Your Society?

Queensland’s story is one of harsh beginnings, moral questioning, and eventual reform. What about where you live? Has capital punishment been abolished in your society? If so, what was the turning point? If not, why has it endured?

References:

References

Creevey Horrell Lawyers. (2022, July 12). 100 years since the abolition of death penalty in Queensland. [Blog post]. Creevey Horrell Lawyers. Retrieved from https://www.creeveyhorrell.com.au/post/100-years-since-the-abolition-of-death-penalty-in-queensland

Finnane, M. (2022). ‘Upholding the cause of civilization’: The Australian death penalty in war and colonialism. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 11(3), 23–32. https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.2473

Keim, T. (2022, May 26). Abolition of the death penalty in Queensland – 100 years on. QLS Proctor. Retrieved from https://www.qlsproctor.com.au/2022/05/abolition-of-the-death-penalty-in-queensland-100-years-on/

Kirby, M. (2023). The centenary of the first abolition of capital punishment in Queensland: A study in law and human dignity. Griffith Journal of Law & Human Dignity, 10(2), 101–118. https://doi.org/10.69970/gjlhd.v10i2.1244

Image sources https://www.boggoroadgaol.com.au/2018/07/laws.html and https://mypolice.qld.gov.au/museum/2013/09/20/on-this-day-1913-ernest-austin-was-the-last-man-hanged-in-qld/