NRS-2166 | Diary of officer doing duty over Jimmy Governor [Darlinghurst Gaol]

Full description

Jimmy Governor, with his brother Joe and another Aboriginal person named Jacky Underwood murdered seven white people. The first four crimes occurred at Breelong, near Gilgandra, New South Wales. Jimmy Governor was the ringleader. Married to a white woman, he had taken offence at slurs cast upon his wife (and possibly for other reasons) and on 23 July 1900 he and his companions murdered his employer's wife Mrs Grace Mawbey, three of her children Grace (16), Percival (14) and Hilda Mawbey (11) and a school teacher named Helen Josephine Kerz.

The three men then took to the bush and were at large for several months. Underwood was the first to be arrested. In September the Governor brothers murdered a man named Alexander McKay at Ulan, near Gulgong, and also killed Elizabeth O'Brien and her young son at a spot near Merriwa. Eventually Joe Governor was shot dead in a fight with the police, and Jimmy Governor was arrested and put on trial for murder.

During their period at large the Crown had invoked the provisions of the Atavistic Felons Apprehension Act - first enacted in 1865 and definitely made law in 1899 - and, by proclamation in the Government Gazette, it had declared the Governors to be outlaws. The effect of this was to empower any of Her Majesty's subjects, "without being accountable for the using of any deadly weapon ... to take such outlaw alive or dead". Counsel for Jimmy Governor contended at the trial that this procedure already amounted to a conviction and that his client could not be put on trial again for the same offence. The Court, with admitted misgivings, overruled this contention, but for reasons that were not juristically convincing. The trial for murder accordingly proceeded and both Jimmy Governor and Underwood were convicted and hanged.

The diary records for each watch of the officer staying with Jimmy Governor the following details: date, name of officer, period of watch, conduct of prisoner (eg. "Good. He gets very downhearted at times when he will take a turn to singing and laughing. Speaks very harshly of his wife, says she ought to be hung as well as him as she is guilty. Calls on the Lord at times to help him") and answers the following questions: Is he communicative? Anything important to be recorded. Is he sullen or cheerful? Does his demeanour indicate a disposition to suicide? For how long has he slept during your watch? Does he eat well?

This volume is the only one of its kind in the State archives collection. It may have been unique due to the special interest in the case, and seems to indicate a particular if primitive interest in the prisoner's psychology. Governor was received into Darlinghurst Gaol on 23 November 1900 and executed on 18 January 1901, hence this volume is not complete. Further details of his daily visitors etc. are in NRS 2163 (5/1739 pp.42-430.

(6/1029). 1 vol.

Note:
This description is extracted from Concise Guide to the State Archives of New South Wales, 3rd Edition 2000.