MURDER BY MILL STREET BRIDGE

      Eliza Dore 1829-1875        Abel Ovans   1830-1852

Brought up afore the beak, we were much afeared,

me 'n' Abel Ovans, my intended, my troth, my bud.

Very moment they condemned him, I vent an almighty scream.

Such a worrit was he, always bullyragging me, Abel.

Even when I was with child, he’d treat me ill.

How I regret we put a sham upon my ma and pa;

leastways, I hoped to make a goodly mother.

Abel was like tinder, a tongue pad, ‘cause he would

not care a splinter for any bub. Even told

a neighbour he wished the child were dead.

‘Twas better when I was house servant to a victualler

and my beloved Abel was hired a farm labourer.

For my confinement I went to live in Newport,

leaving my caring parents for old grumble-guts,

who begrudged drudgery, would not touch the baby.

We were in bad bread.  O mama, please forgive me.

I missed my sisters something dreadful, begged them visit.

Abel vouched he’d meet them at the Newport packet.

When I was belly up, I had a bellyful of pain.

Seedy, we couldn’t cough the rent, so were turfed out

of our lodgings on a winter’s day, carrying our

bundle of belongings, what with my baby wailing

and Abel kicking up, muttering oaths, scowling.

We quit the Carpenter’s Arms, a Monmouth inn,

where folks said my baby looked bobbish, a treat,

a picture of blooming health – if left to fate!

But next day, God help us, Abel struck me chill.

‘Get rid o’ that dam bub!  It ain’t mine!  All to hell!’

Acting the mule, I refused to hand her tender body over.

We walked in broody silence till Mill Street bridge.

‘Give me that child if you want us to live together!’

I was sore afraid he’d give me fits with his blathery.

‘Let me have the young bugger!’  Snatching the swaddle

clouts, he wrested the child wrapped in a shawl

and strode over the bridge and along by the canal.

‘I don’t care a tuppenny dam no more, you trapes!’

‘Give me back my baby!  O give me back my babe!’

Ten minutes lapsed afore his brassy, sullen return,

roughly bunching shawl and clothes.  Of my babe no sign!

‘What have you done with my little girl?’ I urged too late.

‘I’ve done away with it,’ he barked.  ‘I’ll not keep it!’         

‘It?’ I cried.  ‘My poor precious daughter!  Never no It!’

‘Don’t make that racket here!’  For I couldn’t stop sobbing.

Yes, damn my soul, I’d still have lied to save his skin.

Strangers asked after the baby, suspicions grew, rumours.

About Stowe there was such an unholy stir.

On the morrow the naked baby’s body was found

drowned, floating amid the reeds of the mill pond.

My poor little mite was given burial by Stowe’s chaplain.

Fond and foolish was I to lie for Abel’s skin.

I changed my tune and confessed to police.

Abel swore I’d wished to poison the child.  What dreadful lies!

My late lost love was charged and nubbed.  I was saved

the noose with two days’ grace for mercy’s sake.

Michael Small

June 9-21, 2014

Eliza Dore was spared the death sentence but not transportation.  One of 219 female convicts on the Duchess of Northumberland, the last transport to carry female convicts to Van Diemen’s Land. She arrived in Hobart in April, 1853 after a five month voyage. The following year she re-married and gave birth to thirteen more children.  Abel Ovans was publicly hanged.in 1852.

  

LABOURING IN IRONS

          

             Patrick Quigley 1805-1872

One of the many soldier convicts, much bolder than most,

but a blatherskite of blarney, known for a toast;

a dark-haired, black-whiskered Boglander from Limerick,

didn’t know his letters but seized time by the forelock.

Patrick took the King's shilling, enlisting for nine years as

private in the 17th Regiment of Foot, the Leicestershires.

A regular absconder in quick sticks, the lash he oft suffered.

Once bolted from Chatham, flaunting regimental trousers and a

red fatigue coat, so copped three hundred lashes, court-martial

and transportation to lags' land, fourteen years in all.  Aboard the

John, for a plug of baccy, a pot of grog he’d do the guard favours.

But charged with insolence gainst master assigned, John Hall,

the lag was led to revolving steps, the dreaded treadmill.

On Market Street, Sydney in 1832 this stout-made tinman

turns shopkeeper, still right desperate to flee.  On the run,

'Your money or your life!' he cries, mock knight on the road,

clad in ragged slops and smock marked with broad arrow.

The bushranger stumbles wounded in a red-blooded clinch

with Joseph Ashford, armed, whose pocket-book he'd pinched.

Labouring in irons, not to be repressed when charges pressed:

repeat absconding, bashing with thick sticks, feigning sickness,

smoking in the stockade, disrespectful language, pilfering,

exchanging clothes, lingering and malingering . . .

Yet - marry! - twice spliced at the altar of hymen..

                                                                       

                                                                                    Michael Small

June 1-5, 2014

In 1838 Patrick Quigley was sentenced to life imprisonment on Norfolk Island, but the tinsmith returned in 1845 to Van Diemen's Land, where he twice married late.  He was pardoned in 1851 and died of pneumonia.

A DEUCE OF FIREBRANDS

Eliza Morrison, 1829? –1855        John Hobbs, b.1824?

In eighteenth century Ireland

many ireful cailins turned wilful firebrands,

not crimps but boots agitating to emigrate.

Braids of flaming red, a freckly-faced Catholic cailin,

Eliza Morrison, bold as brass, illiterate, outspoken,

with startling pale blue eyes and double chin,

her Donegal pall, Mary Nowlan, being likewise roused,

contrived to scorch Margaret Cavanagh’s house,

an innocent widow with child, utter strangers.

The judge decreed this dangerous crime most heinous.

In the green beryl isle, arson was commonplace;

whereas in flinty England, ‘twas not a hanging offence,

but chance to fly, to leg the Earl Grey, a lag ship!

‘A long life to your Honour!’  Eliza quipped,

pleased as Punch to find her fate to emigrate.

The foal set unsteady foot on foreign soil,

slighted by eight dark, dank, dreary months in that colonial

transport, yet assigned as ticket-of-leave holder

she tinkered as housemaid, publican, then orderly

in Hobart Hospital, lodging at the House of Correction.

Perchance she bumped John Hobbs in the pub?  Mentioned

to clergy she was spliced, her husband enticed to America.

So risked with John the morning drop for errant behaviour.

But disease of the lungs caused her premature decease –

                                                                               For Eliza,

                                                            What blessed release!

To crack the shackles of his muck-worm, luckless life,

John Hobbs’ miserable game was a crime premeditated

with Tom Webster and Robert Lewer, mates in strife.

They met up on a farm at dusk in Richmond parish,

stony broke, begging for bridge tolls, muchly famished,

desperate to cross the Thames and wreak havoc.

Hobbs confessed in court, ‘Aye, we looked to fire a stack.’

They struck.  Neath a high, sightly stack they stowed faggots

to set ablaze the grazing property of  Frederick Piggott.

Although Hobbs bore no grudge to the offended farmer,

‘Twas he who lent his baccy pipe to light three lucifers.

Sentenced to fifteen years, Hobbs served time in Gibraltar,

then sailed in the St Vincent to Van Diemen’s Land with the

prospect of declaring himself anew - a French polisher.

 Michael Small

May 13-27, 2014

In September, 1854 John Hobbs and Eliza Morrison’s application for marriage was approved, but the clergyman’s enquiries revealed that Eliza was already married.  John was pardoned in 1856.

May 13-26, 2014