AGY-4788 | Royal Commission of Inquiry into the case of George Dean

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The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the case of George Dean was appointed by the Governor under Letters Patent on 7 May 1895.(1) The Commission was to investigate the legal case against George Dean who was found guilty of killing his wife by administering poison.(2) The Commission was:
i) to make certain investigations in the case of George Dean, on whom sentence of death was lately passed, which was subsequently commuted to penal servitude;
ii) to examine all witnesses, and call for any documents which may tend in any way to throw new light upon the case, or which may vary, explain, or bear upon any of the evidence given by the witnesses at the trial of the said George Dean;
iii) and after receiving such additional evidence, to report whether . . . the prisoner should serve his sentence or be released from further imprisonment.(3) The Governor appointed three Commissioners: Francis Edward Rogers, QC, as President; Sydney Jones, a doctor; and Frederic Norton Manning, also a doctor.(4) The Commission was to report within one month of its appointment but this was extended to 8 July 1895.(5) The Commission held thirty-nine sittings until 21 June 1895 and heard evidence from 113 witnesses.(6) Two of the Commissioners concluded that Mrs Dean had administered the poison to herself, stating “We hold that the facts, as shown, are quite as compatible with the hypothesis that Mrs Dean, for reasons which we can only surmise, and by methods of which she alone has cognisance, administered the arsenic to herself – possibly at the prompting of her mother, and without any intention of taking a fatal dose – as that the poison was administered to her by her husband, with intent to kill.”(7) As a result, Sydney Jones and Frederic Norton Manning recommended George Dean be released from further imprisonment. The Commission’s President, F. R. Rogers, disagreed with his fellow Commissioners and stated he could not come to the same conclusion because “it seems to me unreasonable to suppose a girl on the threshold of life . . . would risk her existence by taking a deadly irritant poison, whether in one or more doses, for the purpose of bringing a false charge against her husband, and for this reason I cannot concur in the recommendation of my colleagues.”(8) The Commission’s Report was submitted to the Lieutenant-Governor on 28 June 1895. ENDNOTES
1. Letters Patent, in the Report of the Royal Commission into Regina vs George Dean, p4, Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, 1895, vol.2, p756.
2. loc. cit.
3. ibid., p13.
4. ibid., p5.
5. loc. cit.
6. ibid., p13.
7. ibid., p16.
8. loc. cit.