Louisa Collins was tried four times in Sydney between August and December 1888. The charges concerned the deaths of her two husbands, Charles Andrews, who died at Botany in February 1887, and Michael Peter Collins, who died there in July 1888. The first three trials ended with juries that could not agree. The fourth jury found her guilty of the wilful murder of Michael Collins, and on January 8, 1889, she was executed at Darlinghurst Gaol. She was the last woman executed in New South Wales.
Her case was argued in the courtroom, in the Legislative Assembly, in public meetings and in the colonial press. It raised questions that outlasted the sentence: whether a third trial after two disagreements was fair, whether a woman could expect mercy that a man would not, and whether a conviction built on circumstance could safely carry a death sentence.
Louisa May Collins was born in rural New South Wales, at or near Scone, and the records disagree on the year. The Darlinghurst Gaol photograph description book gives 1849, as does the Dictionary of Sydney. The particulars of her conviction, dated January 7, 1889, give 1857. A 2016 study places her birth at Belltrees in 1849. She was about 39 when she was committed for trial in 1888.
She married, moved to Sydney and was widowed twice. The 2016 study says she had ten children, of whom seven survived infancy. An official bundle of papers on her case, cited in a 2011 law review article, records her as the mother of seven, and five of them were living with her when the inquest into her second husband's death was held. Her first husband was Charles Andrews. Her second was Michael Peter Collins, whom the ABC describes as one of the family's boarders before the marriage. The ABC reported in 2014 that in the 1880s the family lived in Botany, which was then a swampy district of wool sheds, scouring works and workers' cottages, and that the household took in four to six boarders depending on the season.
Louisa Collins was described in the press of the time through the lens of her sex and her habits. The writer Caroline Overington, whose 2014 book is the fullest modern account, portrays a woman who liked to dance and drink and who married young because there were few other ways for a woman to support herself. Contemporary reporters called her a healthy, tolerably good-looking woman. Rumors about her relations with boarders circulated, and the Crown at trial suggested that her attachment to the younger man who became her second husband gave her a reason to be rid of the first. No clear motive was established.
Charles Andrews died at Botany on February 2, 1887. He was her first husband. Louisa Collins married Michael Collins in 1887. A rumor that she remarried within a month of Andrews's death appears in the 2011 article, which treats it as a rumor and not an established fact. The ABC account says the wedding followed within three months of the funeral.
A second inquest, covering Andrews and an infant son, John Collins, opened on July 14, 1888, after her second husband's death. The jury found that the infant had died of natural causes. On Andrews, the jury's finding led to her committal for trial for his murder; the proceedings concluded on August 6, 1888, according to the 2011 article.
Michael Peter Collins died on July 8, 1888, at the family's home in Botany. A coroner's inquest began on July 10 in Sydney before the city coroner, Henry Shiell. Louisa Collins was taken into custody on the evening of July 12, 1888, without a warrant, on suspicion of murder. She was committed for trial on July 26, 1888.
The indictment charged her with murdering her husband, Michael Peter Collins, in July 1888. Reports describe the charge as wilful murder. That was the offense for which she was tried three times and convicted once.
The first trial began on August 6, 1888, before Mr. Justice Foster at the Central Criminal Court in Sydney. Her daughter May Andrews, then 11, gave evidence for the Crown. The ABC later described that evidence as among the most important in the case.
The jury could not agree. It was discharged on August 9, 1888.
The second trial on the charge of murdering Michael Collins began on November 5, 1888, before Mr. Justice Windeyer. It concluded on November 8, and the jury reported that it could not agree. It was discharged the following morning.
Between the second and fourth trials the Crown brought the charge of murdering Charles Andrews. That trial began on November 19, 1888, before Mr. Justice Innes. Her counsel, Mr. Lusk, argued that the Crown could not prove how Andrews had died. The jury could not agree and was discharged. The Crown then abandoned the prosecution for Andrews's death. The 2011 authors note that the Crown had not abandoned the Collins charge after two disagreements, although the convention at the time was that a prosecution did not go to a third jury after two had failed to agree. The Portland Guardian of December 7, 1888, as cited by the 2019 study, said that the decision to proceed again disregarded that convention.
Louisa Collins was not convicted of anything in connection with Andrews's death. The Andrews prosecution ended without a verdict.
The third trial on the Collins charge, which is the fourth overall, began on December 6, 1888, before Chief Justice Frederick Darley. Mr. Lusk appeared for the prisoner. Lusk had defended her at all four trials without a fee; she had no money for counsel.
The jury deliberated for about two hours and returned a verdict of guilty.
On December 8, 1888, the Chief Justice sentenced her to death. He called the offense one "of peculiar atrocity" and told her: "I hold out no hope of mercy to you on earth." The Chief Justice's ruling against mercy was entered in the Darlinghurst Gaol photograph description book.
The Legislative Assembly took up the case before the Full Court heard the appeal. On December 19, 1888, during the debate on the Justice Department's estimates, a member named Melville described her treatment as an unfortunate exhibition of what was called justice. Premier Sir Henry Parkes, who said he was opposed to capital punishment in principle, answered that the law made no distinction between the sexes and that a woman who had broken her marriage vows could not claim exemption. On December 20, a member named Haynes asked whether the Crown would provide counsel for an appeal, and the government replied that it would give every conceivable assistance.
The Full Court heard the appeal on December 28, 1888. The bench was Mr. Justice Foster, Mr. Justice Windeyer and Chief Justice Darley, the three judges who had presided over her earlier trials; the 2011 article observes that no one objected to that at the time. Two grounds were argued. The first was that evidence about the death of Charles Andrews should not have been admitted at the trial for the death of Michael Collins. The second was that a telegram had been delivered to a juror during the fourth trial. The court held that the telegram had not been opened and could not have prejudiced the verdict. The appeal was dismissed, and the Court said that no case against a prisoner could have been clearer.
The Executive Council, advised by a written report from the trial judge, decided whether the sentence would stand. Under the royal instructions the Governor, Lord Carrington, held the power of reprieve and exercised it on the advice of his ministers. The record shows the pressure on him. Public meetings, letters, deputations and petitions arrived in the first days of 1889. One petition came from citizens of Sydney and colonists of New South Wales who argued there was no positive proof of guilt. Others raised the Centennial year and the festive season, her mental state, and the doubt that three failed juries left. A public meeting was held at the Town Hall on January 4, 1889. Her children also tried to see the Governor, and his secretary told them that nothing could be done on behalf of their mother.
Parkes did not move. He held that she had received a fair trial and that everything possible had been done for her defense. The ABC reported that he said the women of the country would support the sentence, and the 2019 study records the argument, made in the press as well as in Parliament, that those seeking a reprieve should not plead her sex. The Executive Council resolved that a reprieve was not appropriate, as reported on January 5, 1889, and the Governor followed his ministers. The Bulletin of January 12, 1889, published a cartoon mocking the Governor's handling of the petitions.
Less than two days before the execution she wrote to the Governor on prison paper: "Oh my Lord. Pray have mercy and pity on me and spare my life." She also pleaded that she had seven children.
Louisa Collins was executed just after nine o'clock on the morning of Tuesday, January 8, 1889, at Darlinghurst Gaol in Sydney. Darlinghurst Gaol had been Sydney's main gaol since 1841. The Darlinghurst and Long Bay Gaol death register and the Dictionary of Sydney both record the date. She protested her innocence to the end, according to the ABC. The Horsham Times was among the newspapers that reported the execution, on January 11, and the controversy continued in the press. Two female wardens escorted her, according to the 2016 study.
Much of the writing about her turns on gender. The 2019 Canterbury Law Review study notes that women who were convicted of killing their husbands had sometimes been reprieved, and cites Mary Ann Burton and Sarah Keep in 1885 and Ann O'Brien in 1892. Defenders argued that her sex warranted mercy, and opponents answered that it did not. One columnist asked why those seeking her reprieve should plead sex at all. The same study reports a claim, which it does not attribute to any count, that over two-thirds of the population and nearly all women favored her execution, and it describes the public as divided.
The historian Nancy Cushing wrote that Collins became a symbolic woman more than an individual one. Overington argues that the trials were in effect trials of Australian women at a time when they were pressing for equal rights. The 2016 study by Rachel Franks adds that petitions signed by women supported Collins but did not stop the execution, and that the case later furnished material for popular crime magazines, including a 1947 issue that presented her as a glamorous figure unlike her plain prison photograph.
Several points in the record are contested or incomplete.
The evidence was circumstantial, and the first three juries did not convict. The 2011 article argues that the Collins charge should have been abandoned after two disagreements, as the Andrews prosecution was after one.
Her own demeanor was held against her. Witnesses said she had spoken of being tired of her life. She declined to question witnesses or to show emotion in court, which the 2011 authors say was widely reported and later described as unwomanly.
The Executive Council's discussion survives only in outline. The date on which the Crown abandoned the Andrews prosecution is not on record beyond the end of the November trial. Her daughter's age at the first trial is given as 10 by the ABC and 11 by the 2011 article. The birth year, the number of her children and the dates of the first three trials differ from one record to another by a year or a day.
Caroline Overington's 2014 book on the case (HarperCollins) drew on archived court documents, judges' notebooks, witness statements and police records, according to the ABC. Nancy Cushing wrote on the defense of Louisa Collins in 1996, Kukulies-Smith and Priest examined the case in the Canberra Law Review in 2011, Rachel Franks wrote about it in 2016 and 2017, and Plater and Milne placed it among nineteenth century Australian cases of women tried for killing their husbands in 2019.
1849 or 1857: Louisa May Collins is born at or near Scone, New South Wales (sources differ on the year).
February 2, 1887: Charles Andrews, her first husband, dies at Botany.
1887: she marries Michael Peter Collins.
July 8, 1888: Michael Peter Collins dies at Botany.
July 10, 1888: inquest into his death begins in Sydney.
July 12, 1888: she is taken into custody.
July 26, 1888: committed for trial.
August 6, 1888: first trial on the Collins charge begins (Foster J); jury discharged August 9 without a verdict.
November 5, 1888: second trial on the Collins charge begins (Windeyer J); jury discharged November 9 without a verdict.
November 19, 1888: trial on the Andrews charge begins (Innes J); jury unable to agree; the Crown abandons the prosecution.
December 6, 1888: third trial on the Collins charge (fourth overall) begins before Chief Justice Darley; the jury finds her guilty of wilful murder.
December 8, 1888: sentenced to death.
December 19 and 20, 1888: the case is debated in the Legislative Assembly.
December 28, 1888: Full Court dismisses her appeal.
January 4, 1889: public meeting at the Town Hall.
January 5, 1889: the Executive Council resolves that a reprieve is not appropriate.
January 8, 1889: executed at Darlinghurst Gaol.
2014: Caroline Overington's book on the case is published.