In July 1853, a group of bushrangers came up with an audacious plan to rob the McIvor Private Gold Escort as it left the goldfields to meet up with the Government escort to Melbourne. Although the heist was originally successful, the plan led to the deaths of four of the men, three by execution and…
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Angus Murray was the last man to be executed on the gallows of Old Melbourne Goal in 1924. His life began in Adelaide and would see him incarcerated in 4 states – South Australia, Western Australia NSW and Victoria. He became a master thief, a conman and a bigamist. Murray’s last job after his audacious escape from…
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In this episode we head back to earlier and perhaps simpler times to 1854 and Little Bourke street in Melbourne. Luke and Mary Lucas had immigrated to Australia in 1849 with hopes of a better life. In 1852 the Lucas family moved to the Little Bourke Street area of Melbourne. But by November 1854, both…
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James Ross was a man with a temper and a jealous streak that would ultimately lead to his death at the end of a noose in the Geelong Gaol. What his wife Mary suffered in their two short years of marriage was horrendous. Ross’ jealousy led to the deaths of his neighbours wife and his…
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In this episode, we look at the first and only public execution in Geelong. Before the passing of the Act for the Execution of Criminals which took executions behind the Gaol walls, the judicial death of criminals were a public event seen to be a deterrent to those following a similar path. John Gunn and…
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In 1853, Trooper John Goldman shot his superior Corporal William Harvey in his tent at Buningyong following an altercation with a local shopkeeper, Edward Adams, over the ownership of some boxes. Harvey died 24 hours later and Goldman disappeared for 9 months before being arrested. At his trial before Judge Redmond Barry, Goldman was convicted…
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