In 1864 Alexander Ritchie finished off the station manager who Champoo the Chinaman had tried to kill. He then met the hangman’s reverend in a story that leads straight to the premier’s office. I told a version of this story live on West Bremer Radio.

The manager was returning home to Yandilla outside of Toowoomba, Queensland, when Ritchie killed him execution style. For that, Ritchie was sentenced to death.

Gallows were erected within the western end of the new Toowoomba gaol. Only the stone foundations of the gaol survive today. Three sides of the gallows were enclosed with glazed calico to hide the coming event from all but official onlookers.

On Monday the 1st of August 1864, around thirty witnesses gathered in the yard, and about one hundred and fifty people crowded outside of the gaol waiting to hear the drop.

The executioner appeared with his head covered by black fabric. He did his job and Ritchie went down in history as the first person hanged in Toowoomba.

Less than six years later and the Toowoomba hangman was called upon again. This time it was two executions on the same day.

It was on the 7th of March 1870, another Monday, that again around thirty people assembled in front of the scaffold and along the veranda of the cells. A black cloth ran round the sides of the gallows that were facing the town.

The newspaper at nearby Ipswich waxed lyrical about the sombre scene. “The morning was stormy and wild, the sky being overcast with threatening clouds, while blinding showers of rain descended at frequent intervals, giving as it were a kind of dread solemnity to the scene which was being enacted within the prison walls.”

Outside of the gaol, this time there was hardly anyone present because the heavy rain had kept them away.

The two condemned men were marched to the gallows. Gee Lee was to hang for murder and Jackey Whitton for the rape of a girl.

For one of them death was mercifully instantaneous, but for the other, revolting convulsions continued for about twenty minutes.

Those are the first three hangings in Toowoomba. But forgotten by history is the church minister who attended them with varying degrees of success. His name is The Reverend Doctor William Nelson.

Ritchie – the first to be hanged – remained unrepentant despite the reverend doctor’s prayers.

However, for Whitton and Lee – the second and third – the minister’s efforts were well received. Whitton listened intently, and Lee was so moved by the final evening service that he asked the reverend doctor to stay with him the following morning. Just prior to their executions, Whitton knelt down and Lee listened intently while Rev. Dr. Nelson recited a final prayer.

Rev. Dr. Nelson himself passed away on another Monday seventeen years later in 1887. He was eighty-four years old having been born in Scotland. There he had been tutor to the family of Lord Ivory, the solicitor-general for Scotland. Three of Ivory’s sons migrated to Ipswich. One son became a member of the Queensland parliament. Another took up land at Bundamba and bought the Bremer Mills, and another had the Eskdale run and died at Ipswich. 

In the meantime, the reason that Rev. Dr. Nelson had migrated was for the health of his oldest son. But as soon as the family arrived in Ipswich, the boy died anyway and is buried in Ipswich cemetery.

Rev. Dr. Nelson was instrumental in founding St. Stephen’s Presbyterian Church in Ipswich, St. Stephen’s and St. John’s in Toowoomba, and Presbyterian churches in Southport, Dalby, Warwick, Murphy’s Creek, Laidley, and Tenthill.

What’s more, in 1860 he was elected to represent West Moreton in the first Queensland parliament. However, in the first sitting, a petition was presented that led to him being disqualified because he was an ordained minister. Later in life he displayed great fortitude when he married for the second time at eighty-three years old.

And so the resilient Dr. Nelson was the hangman’s first reverend, the first minister to be elected to parliament, and also the first person to be disqualified.

But the hangman’s reverend had more to offer through his offspring. His son was Sir Hugh Nelson, lieutenant-governor, president of the legislative council, and the eleventh premier of Queensland.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD LIVE ON RADIO.

Photo credits:
Man hanging from gallows – Osvaldo Tofani, New York Public Library.
Surviving stone foundations of Old Toowoomba Gaol – Harold Peacock 2023.
William Lambie Nelson – added to Find a Grave by Shelo in 2016.
Hugh Muir Nelson – State Library of Queensland.