Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T18:58:29.677Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Gender, intimate partner homicide, and rurality in early-twentieth-century New South Wales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 November 2022

Carolyn Strange*
Affiliation:
Australian National University
Collin Payne
Affiliation:
Australian National University
Fiona Fraser
Affiliation:
Australian National University
*
*Corresponding author: Email: [email protected]

Abstract

Rural criminological literature on lethal domestic violence and feminist historical research on the patriarchal judgment of women accused of killing male intimate partners (IPs) have developed a dystopic image of the past for nonurban women. This paper questions that impression by asking whether women were more likely than men to be convicted of IP murder, and whether rural women were treated more harshly than urban women. Through quantitative analysis of 221 IP murder trials in New South Wales, 1901–1955, plus four representative case studies, it reveals that women tried for IP murders in rural areas were treated more leniently than their urban counterparts and significantly less harshly than male perpetrators of IP homicide. This paper demonstrates how historical criminological analysis of illustrative qualitative evidence, grounded in quantitative data on locational distinctions, can expose significant variations over time and place in the fate of abused women prosecuted for IP homicide.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Social Science History Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Archival sources

Armidale Chronicle (1910) “Outback Tragedy,” April 30.Google Scholar
Armidale Chronical (1927) “Inverell Tragedy,” November 1.Google Scholar
Armidale Express and New England Advertiser (1934) “Hell on Earth, Woman’s Story of Marital Unhappiness,” October 17.Google Scholar
The Bathurst National Advocate (1934) “Guilty of Manslaughter” October 18.Google Scholar
The Bathurst National Advocate (1934) “Mrs. Meagher to be released today,” Oct 26.Google Scholar
Broken Hill Barrier Miner (1910) “Bush Tragedy,” 14 February 14.Google Scholar
Canberra Times (1945) “Wife Acquitted of Murder,” December 11.Google Scholar
Cowra Free Press (1934) “The Kangarooby Tragedy,” October 22.Google Scholar
Forbes Advocate (1934) “Murder Charge Follows Goolagong Shooting Fatality,” August 24.Google Scholar
Forbes Advocate (1945) “Forbes Woman’s Life of Terror,” December 14.Google Scholar
Lismore Northern Star (1928) “Not Guilty,” March 2.Google Scholar
Mudgee Guardian and North-Western Representative (1927) “Their Sister. C.W.A. Helps Defence,” November 21.Google Scholar
New South Wales (1900) Crimes Act (NSW), 40, https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/1900-10-31/act-1900-040 (accessed 4 January, 2021).Google Scholar
New South Wales (1931) Law Almanac, 1930. Sydney: Government Printers.Google Scholar
New South Wales Supreme Court and Circuit Courts (Amendment) Act 1912, no. 9, sec. 6 (1), http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/num_act/scacca1912n9472/ (accessed 4 January, 2021).Google Scholar
Sydney Sun (1945) “Pathos turns a Prosecutor pleader,” December 16.Google Scholar
Sydney Sunday Times (1901) “A Tragic Quarrel. Wife Acquitted of Murder,” April 7.Google Scholar
Sydney Truth (1945) “Picture Story of Gilgandra Murder Inquest.” November 4.Google Scholar
Sydney Truth (1945) “Shot her husband to save Children,” December 16.Google Scholar
Windsor and Richmond Gazette (1901) “Tragedy at Wilberforce,” March 9.Google Scholar

References

Allen, Judith A. (1990) Sex and Secrets: Crimes Involving Australian Women Since 1880. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016) Historical Population, https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/historical-population/latest-release (accessed January 4, 2021).Google Scholar
Barclay, Elaine, Donnermeyer, Joseph F., Scott, John, and Hogg, Russell, eds. (2007) Crime in Rural Australia. Alexandria, NSW: The Federation Press.Google Scholar
Bennett, John M. (1990) “Windeyer, Richard (1868–1959),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/windeyer-richard-9152/text16157 (accessed December 10, 2020).Google Scholar
Black, Lynsey (2018) “The Pathologisation of Women Who Kill: Three Cases from Ireland.” Social History of Medicine 33 (2): 417–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burbank, Victoria K. (2018 [1994]) Fighting Women: Anger and Aggression in Aboriginal Australia. Stanford: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Buzawa, Eve. S., and Buzawa, Carl G. (2017) Global Responses to Domestic Violence. New York: Springer International Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campo, Monica, and Tayton, Sarah (2015) Domestic and Family Violence in Regional, Rural and Remote Communities: An Overview of Key Issues. Canberra: Australian Institute of Family Studies.Google Scholar
Carrington, Kerry, Mcintosh, Alison, and Scott, John (2010) “Globalization, frontier masculinities and violence: booze, blokes and brawls.” The British Journal of Criminology 50 (3): 393413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carrington, Kerry, Hogg, Russell, Scott, John, Sozzo, Máximo, and Walters, Reece (2018) Southern Criminology. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carver, Stanley R. (1955) The Official Yearbook of New South Wales, 1955. Sydney: Government Printer, https://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/free.nsf/0/7A60084811E1F198CA257AFC000FDAE7/$File/13001NewSouthWalesYrBook1955.pdf (accessed January 4, 2021).Google Scholar
Choo, Andrew L-T., and Hunter, Jill (2018) “Gender discrimination and juries in the 20th century: Judging women judging men.” The International Journal of Evidence and Proof 22 (3): 192217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cussen, Tracy, and Bryant, Willos (2015) Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Homicide in Australia. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology.Google Scholar
D’Cruze, Shani, Walklate, Sandra L., and Pegg, Samantha, eds. (2006) Murder: Social and Historical Approaches to Understanding Murder and Murderers. Cullompton: Willan.Google Scholar
DeKeseredy, Walter S. (2019) “Intimate Violence against Rural Women: The Current State of Sociological Knowledge.” International Journal of Rural Criminology 4 (2): 313–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeKeseredy, Walter S. (2021) Woman Abuse in Rural Places. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
DeKeseredy, Walter S., Hall-Sanchez, Amanda, Dragiewicz, Molly, and Rennison, Callie M. (2016) “Intimate violence against women in rural communities,” in Donnermeyer, John F. (ed.) The Routledge International Handbook of Rural Criminology. London: Routledge: 171–80.Google Scholar
DeKeseredy, Walter S., and Schwartz, Martin D. (2009) Dangerous Exits: Escaping Abusing Relationships in Rural America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Donnermeyer, John F., ed. (2016) The Routledge International Handbook of Rural Criminology. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, Heather (2012) “Battered women’s experiences of the criminal justice system: Decentring the law.” Feminist Legal Studies 20 (2): 121–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finnane, Mark (2016) “The prosecution project: Investigating the history of the criminal trial in Australia.” Humanities Australia 7: 3545.Google Scholar
Fitz-Gibbon, Kate, and Stubbs, Julie (2012) “Divergent directions in reforming legal responses to lethal violence.” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology 45 (3): 318–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garcia, Venessa, and McManimon, Patrick (2012) Gendered Justice: Intimate Partner Violence and the Criminal Justice System. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.Google Scholar
George, Amanda, and Harris, Bridget (2014) Landscapes of Violence: Women Surviving Family Violence in Regional and Rural Victoria. Geelong: Deakin University.Google Scholar
Grech, Katrina, and Burgess, Melissa (2011) Trends and Patterns in Domestic Violence Assaults 2001-2010. Sydney: New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.Google Scholar
Hall-Sanchez, Amanda (2016) “Intimate violence against rural women: The current and future state of feminist empirical and theoretical contributions.” Sociology Compass 10 (4): 272–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Bridget (2016) “Violent landscapes: A spatial study of family violence,” in Baker, David, Harris, Bridget, and Harkness, Alistair (eds.) Locating Crime in Context and Place: Perspectives on Regional, Rural and Remote Australia. Alexandria, New South Wales: The Federation Press: 7084.Google Scholar
Helfield, Randa (1990) “Female Poisoners of the nineteenth century: A study of gender bias in the application of the law.” Osgoode Hall Law Journal 28 (1): 53101.Google Scholar
Hogg, Russell, and Carrington, Kerry (2003) “Violence, Spatiality and Other Rurals.” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology 36 (3): 293319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hogg, Russell, and Carrington, Kerry (2006) Policing the Rural Crisis. Alexandria, New South Wales: The Federation Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Anne (2009 [1980]) Women Who Kill. New York: The Feminist Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Jennifer (2017) “Fostering equality, maintaining hierarchy: Problems of race and class in the Country Women’s Association of New South Wales, 1956–1970,” in Jones, Jennifer (ed.) Cultural Sustainability in Rural Communities. London: Routledge: 7084.Google Scholar
Jupp, James (2002) From White Australia to Woomera: A Story of Australian Immigration. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kingston, Beverley (2006) A History of New South Wales. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kukulies-Smith, Wendy, and Priest, Sue (2011) “‘No hope of mercy’ for the Borgia of Botany Bay: Louisa May Collins, the last woman executed in New South Wales, 1889.” Canberra Law Review 10 (2): 144–58.Google Scholar
Laster, Kathy (1994) “Arbitrary chivalry: Women and capital punishment in Victoria, Australia 1842–1967.” Women and Criminal Justice 6 (1): 6795.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrissey, Belinda (2003) When Women Kill: Questions of Agency and Subjectivity. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nagy, Victoria (2021) “Homicide in Victoria: Female perpetrators of murder and manslaughter, 1860 to 1920.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 51 (3): 405–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagy, Victoria, and Piper, Alana J. (2019) “Imprisonment of female urban and rural offenders in Victoria, 1860–1920.” International Journal for Crime Justice and Social Democracy 8 (1): 100–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, Elizabeth (2007) “Victims of war: The First World War, returned soldiers, and understandings of domestic violence in Australia.” Journal of Women’s History 19 (4): 83106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
New South Wales Bureau of Crime Research (2020) “Domestic violence statistics for New South Wales,” https://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Pages/bocsar_pages/Domestic-Violence.aspx (accessed January 4, 2021).Google Scholar
New South Wales Domestic Death Review Team (2020) A Report of the Domestic Violence Death Review Team, 2017-2019. Lidcombe, New South Wales: Domestic Violence Review Team.Google Scholar
Noh, Marianne S., Lee, Matthew T., and Feltey, Kathryn M. (2010) “Mad, bad, or reasonable? Newspaper portrayals of the battered woman who kills.” Gender Issues 27 (3): 110–30.Google Scholar
Oats, Cathie, and Bushnell, Ian (2017) National Library of Australia: Delivering a digital treasure trove to the classroom. Access 31 (3): 1115.Google Scholar
Piper, Alana J., and Finnane, Mark (2017a) “Access to Legal Representation by Criminal Defendants in Victoria, 1861–1961.” University of New South Wales Law Journal 40 (2): 638–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piper, Alana J., and Finnane, Mark (2017b) “Defending the accused: The impact of legal representation on criminal trial outcomes in Victoria, Australia 1861–1961.” The Journal of Legal History 38 (1): 2753.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piper, Alana J., and Stevenson, Ana, eds. (2019) Gender Violence in Australia: Historical Perspectives. Clayton, Victoria: Monash University Press.Google Scholar
Plater, David, Duncan, Joanna K., and Milne, Sue (2013) “‘Innocent victim of circumstance’ or ‘a very devil incarnate’? The trial and execution of Elizabeth Woolcock in South Australia in 1873.” Flinders Law Review 15 (2): 315–80.Google Scholar
Ragusa, Angela T. (2017) “Rurality’s influence on women’s intimate partner violence experiences and support needed for escape and healing in Australia.” Journal of Social Service Research 43 (2): 270–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Jennifer M. (2015) “The front comes home: Returned soldiers and psychological trauma in Australia during and after the First World War.” Health and History 17 (2): 1736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Brenda L. (2010) Battered Woman Syndrome as a Legal Defense: History, Effectiveness and Implications. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.Google Scholar
Scrine, Clair (2002) “‘More deadly than the male’: The sexual politics of female poisoning: Trials of the Thallium Women.” Limina: A Journal of History and Cultural Studies 8: 127–43.Google Scholar
Seal, Lizzie (2010) Women, Murder and Femininity: Gender Representations of Women Who Kill. Basingstoke: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seal, Lizzie and Neale, Alexa (2020) “‘In his passionate way’: Emotion, race and gender in cases of partner murder in England and Wales, 1900-39.” British Journal of Criminology 60 (4): 811–29.Google Scholar
Sheehy, Elizabeth, Stubbs, Julie, and Tolmie, Julia (2012) “Battered women charged with homicide in Australia, Canada and New Zealand: How do they fare?Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology 45 (2): 138–61.Google Scholar
Spearritt, Peter (2000) Sydney’s Century: A History. Kensington, New South Wales: UNew South Wales Press.Google Scholar
Strange, Carolyn (2003) “Masculinities, intimate femicide and the death penalty in Australia, 1890-1920.” The British Journal of Criminology 43 (2): 310–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strange, Carolyn, and Heatherington, Les (2020) “Murderess or miscarriage of justice? A Case of husband poisoning in early Federation New South Wales.” Australian Historical Studies 51 (3): 299323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stubbs, Julie, and Tolmie, Julia (2008) “Battered Women charged with homicide: Advancing the Interests of indigenous women.” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology 41 (1): 138–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stubbs, Julie, and Wangman, Jane (2017) “Australian perspectives on domestic violence,” in Buzawa, E. and Buzawa, C. (eds.) Global Responses to Domestic Violence. Basingstoke: Palgrave: 167–88.Google Scholar
Sutton, Danielle, and Dawson, Myrna (2021) “Differentiating characteristics of intimate partner violence: Do relationship status, state, and duration matter?Journal of Interpersonal Violence 3 (9-10): 168–91.Google Scholar
Tarrant, Stella, Tolmie, Julia, and Giudice, George (2019) Transforming Legal Understandings of Intimate Partner Violence. Sydney: ANROWS.Google Scholar
Teather, Elizabeth K. (1994) “The Country Women’s Association of New South Wales in the 1920s and 1930s as a counter-revolutionary organisation.” Journal of Australian Studies 18 (41): 6778.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tedeschi, Mark (2006) “History of the New South Wales Crown Prosecutors 1901-1986.” The Forbes Flyer. Newsletter of the Frances Forbes Society for Legal History (11): 2-21.Google Scholar
Weisheit, Ralph A. (2016) “Rural crime from a global perspective.” International Journal of Rural Criminology 3 (1): 528.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, Sarah (2009) Domestic Violence in Rural Australia. Alexandria, New South Wales: Federation Press.Google Scholar
Woods, Gregory D. (2018) A History of Criminal Law in New South Wales. The New State, 1901–1955. Alexandria, New South Wales: The Federation Press.Google Scholar
Woollacott, Angela (2009) “Frontier violence and settler manhood.” History Australia 6 (1): 115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar