Alexander Pearce
Nov. 24th, 2011 08:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xenithBy request! But as I've included the newspaper accounts before I'll link to them in the previous entry.
Description
Not a direct link, need to look under P 102
Height: 5/31/4. Hair: Brown. Eyes: Hazel. Pock-pitted.
Aged: 30. Labourer. Native place: Co. Monaghan
Tried: Co. Armagh, Lent 1819 Sentence: 7 years
Transported: Castle Forbes (Departed Ireland 3 October 1819 with 140 males, arrived Hobart Town 4 March 1820 with 136 males (having lost 4 to NSW it seems)).
Indent
Height: 5/4 Hair: Brown Eyes: Blue. Complexion: Dk Ruddy.
Aged: 29. Labourer. Native place: Co. Monaghan. General Remarks: Quiet
(I'm just copying what the records say.)
Conduct Record.
I think that's a direct link (bottom entry) and it's easy to read so I won't transcribe it.
There is often a cycle of behaviour, especially with the young Irish men, of misbehaving and being punished, and the punishment breeds resentment and that leads to more misbehaviour, escalating until they're sent to the Harbour or Port Arthur (unless they escape from there, in which case it ends on the gallows). Not sure that's happening here. Anyway, absconding into the woods and forging an order was what got him sent to Macquarie Harbour.
Next appearance:
"Wm. Davis and Ralph Churton, who made their escape in April last from a military guard, while being conveyed to town on a charge of sheep-stealing, were apprehended on Saturday last, in company with an absentee named Pearce, by a party of soldiers near Jericho, and were on Monday night, brought into town, and lodged in gaol. Davis was severely wounded. (Hobart Town Gazette, 18 January 1823.)
Sent back to the Harbour.
THE SUPREME COURT
Of Van Diemen's Land
MONDAY: Alexander Pearce, a convict, was arraigned for the murder of a fellow-prisoner named Thomas Cox, at or near King's River, in the month of November last, and he pleaded - Not Guilty.
Rest of account of trial.
EXECUTIONS - On Monday, Alexander Pearce for murder! and yesterday, John Butler, for sheep stealing, John Thompson, Patrick Connolly, James Tierney, and George Lacey, for burglary and highway robbery, were executed in this town pursuant to their sentence. Pearce's body was, after it had been suspended for the usual time, delivered at the Hospital for dissection.
We trust these awful and ignominious results of disobedience to law and humanity will act as a powerful caution; for blood must expiate blood! and the welfare of society imperatively requires, that all whose crimes are so confirmed, and systematic, as not to be redeemed by lenity, shall be pursued in vengeance and extirpated with death!
We have reason to expect that by next week, we shall, through the kindness of an esteemed Clergyman, be empowered to communicate some extensive information, of a very interesting kind, respecting the murdered Pearce. (Hobart Town Gazette, July 23, 1824)
(Side note that Patrick Connolly, James Tierney, and George Lacey were involved in a slightly more successful escape from Macquarie Harbour.)
And the Gazette's more extensive information appears two weeks later:
ALEXANDER PEARCE: In our paper the week before last we noticed the execution of this criminal for the murder of Thomas Cox, the leading facts of whose untimely death have already been reported in this Gazette. From a much respected Gentleman, in whose knowledge and veracity the most unbounded confidence maybe placed, we derive the following particulars, which it is to be hoped may excite a proper feeling among that class of society to which it is earnestly addressed:
The Rev. Mr. Connolly, who attended this unfortunate man, administering to him the consolations of Religion, addressed the crowd assembled around the scaffold, a few minutes before the fatal drop was let to fall, in words to the following effect: He commenced by stating, that Pearce, standing on the awful entrance into eternity on which he was placed, was desirous to make the most public acknowledgment of his guilt, in order to humble himself, as much as possible, in the sight of God and Man; that, to prevent any embarrassment which might attend Pearce in personally expressing himself to say, that he committed the murder of Cox, under the following circumstances:
Continued
I'm sure there's more stuff about him online nowadays but I have some writing to do now.
Description
Not a direct link, need to look under P 102
Height: 5/31/4. Hair: Brown. Eyes: Hazel. Pock-pitted.
Aged: 30. Labourer. Native place: Co. Monaghan
Tried: Co. Armagh, Lent 1819 Sentence: 7 years
Transported: Castle Forbes (Departed Ireland 3 October 1819 with 140 males, arrived Hobart Town 4 March 1820 with 136 males (having lost 4 to NSW it seems)).
Indent
Height: 5/4 Hair: Brown Eyes: Blue. Complexion: Dk Ruddy.
Aged: 29. Labourer. Native place: Co. Monaghan. General Remarks: Quiet
(I'm just copying what the records say.)
Conduct Record.
I think that's a direct link (bottom entry) and it's easy to read so I won't transcribe it.
There is often a cycle of behaviour, especially with the young Irish men, of misbehaving and being punished, and the punishment breeds resentment and that leads to more misbehaviour, escalating until they're sent to the Harbour or Port Arthur (unless they escape from there, in which case it ends on the gallows). Not sure that's happening here. Anyway, absconding into the woods and forging an order was what got him sent to Macquarie Harbour.
Next appearance:
"Wm. Davis and Ralph Churton, who made their escape in April last from a military guard, while being conveyed to town on a charge of sheep-stealing, were apprehended on Saturday last, in company with an absentee named Pearce, by a party of soldiers near Jericho, and were on Monday night, brought into town, and lodged in gaol. Davis was severely wounded. (Hobart Town Gazette, 18 January 1823.)
Sent back to the Harbour.
Of Van Diemen's Land
MONDAY: Alexander Pearce, a convict, was arraigned for the murder of a fellow-prisoner named Thomas Cox, at or near King's River, in the month of November last, and he pleaded - Not Guilty.
Rest of account of trial.
EXECUTIONS - On Monday, Alexander Pearce for murder! and yesterday, John Butler, for sheep stealing, John Thompson, Patrick Connolly, James Tierney, and George Lacey, for burglary and highway robbery, were executed in this town pursuant to their sentence. Pearce's body was, after it had been suspended for the usual time, delivered at the Hospital for dissection.
We trust these awful and ignominious results of disobedience to law and humanity will act as a powerful caution; for blood must expiate blood! and the welfare of society imperatively requires, that all whose crimes are so confirmed, and systematic, as not to be redeemed by lenity, shall be pursued in vengeance and extirpated with death!
We have reason to expect that by next week, we shall, through the kindness of an esteemed Clergyman, be empowered to communicate some extensive information, of a very interesting kind, respecting the murdered Pearce. (Hobart Town Gazette, July 23, 1824)
(Side note that Patrick Connolly, James Tierney, and George Lacey were involved in a slightly more successful escape from Macquarie Harbour.)
And the Gazette's more extensive information appears two weeks later:
ALEXANDER PEARCE: In our paper the week before last we noticed the execution of this criminal for the murder of Thomas Cox, the leading facts of whose untimely death have already been reported in this Gazette. From a much respected Gentleman, in whose knowledge and veracity the most unbounded confidence maybe placed, we derive the following particulars, which it is to be hoped may excite a proper feeling among that class of society to which it is earnestly addressed:
The Rev. Mr. Connolly, who attended this unfortunate man, administering to him the consolations of Religion, addressed the crowd assembled around the scaffold, a few minutes before the fatal drop was let to fall, in words to the following effect: He commenced by stating, that Pearce, standing on the awful entrance into eternity on which he was placed, was desirous to make the most public acknowledgment of his guilt, in order to humble himself, as much as possible, in the sight of God and Man; that, to prevent any embarrassment which might attend Pearce in personally expressing himself to say, that he committed the murder of Cox, under the following circumstances:
Continued
I'm sure there's more stuff about him online nowadays but I have some writing to do now.
