Bigamy, adultery, poisoning, fraud, and murder were all part of a remarkable series of connected events on the Darling Downs over 160 years ago. I told a version of this story live on radio 4WK.

This intricate tale from the Toowoomba courthouse revolved around Ellen Ashby who claimed to be the daughter of Captain William Ashby. She may have been actually married to the still-alive sea captain and therefore committed bigamy when she married a wealthy landowner in Wee Waa in the New England region of New South Wales.

Captain Ashby was one of the most popular skippers who ever traded between London, England, and Auckland, New Zealand, in fact his arrival in port was always a scene of wild ovations.

In 1859, Irish-born Ellen Ashby nee Daley married English-born Mr. William Griffiths. He was owner of the vast Nee Nee Station near Dirranbandi, Queensland, on the banks of the Bokhara River.

Things initially went swimmingly well with the now Mrs Ellen Griffiths promptly giving birth to the couple’s first child, and then falling pregnant with their second.

But then Ellen asked her aunt Ellen Neal to mix up a dose of poison for her to give to her husband Mr. Griffiths. Aunty Ellen was a middle-aged widow who for the previous three years had been the housekeeper for the local commandant of police. Before that for twenty-five years she’d lived at the home of the Countess of Shaftesbury in Ireland, so she was not one to cross the line easily.

Aunty Ellen refused the murderous request, and so instead it was a stockman by the name of Thomas Woods who arranged the poison. Woods was the head stockman of the station – and the lover of the boss’s wife. You see, Ellen despite being pregnant with her second child, said she hated her husband and had fallen in love with the stockman instead.

And so in 1861, Ellen murdered her husband Mr. Griffiths and the stockman Woods moved straight in. They made no secret of their affair. In fact, the couple spent the night of Mr. Griffiths’ funeral together.

Meanwhile, Ellen needed the last will and testament of her late husband to be changed, and so Ellen and her lover Woods set about updating it. Woods tried to coerce his assistant stockman Walter Powell into witnessing the new will. Powell was even offered ten shillings to testify in its favour if it ever went to court. Powell refused, but a signature purporting to be his appeared on the document regardless.

In 1864 when this new will was indeed being challenged, bad blood came to the surface between the two stockmen Woods and his subordinate Fowler. The hut in which Fowler lived was on the Queensland side of the river, and from the New South Wales side Woods called out to Fowler. Woods said that Fowler had to leave or else he would come over and throw him into the river. Powell responded by saying that if Woods tried, he would shoot him. Woods crossed the river in a canoe and was heading towards the hut when Fowler shot him as promised. Woods died and Fowler said that the gun went off by accident.

All this ended up in court in Toowoomba in 1864. It was amongst the first cases heard in what today is known as the Old Toowoomba Court house on Margaret Street. (Pictured top of the page.)

Despite Aunty Ellen testifying against her niece Ellen Griffiths, the Toowoomba jury found young Ellen not guilty of murder, and her lover Woods was consequently discharged and so he was never tried for being an accessory before the fact.

Powell then faced the Toowoomba court, and despite admitting that he killed the blackguard Woods, he too was found not guilty because it was deemed to be justifiable homicide.

Then in the supreme court in Brisbane, the last will and testament, despite what seemed to be overwhelming evidence to the contrary, was accepted and went to probate.

Meanwhile, Ellen Griffiths, who had given birth to her second child after the murder of her husband William Griffiths, she gave birth to her third child and first with her lover Woods just twelve days after his killing.

And Powell, he continued to work as a stockman and lived for another fifty years.

This story had bigamy, adultery, poisoning, fraud, and murder from 160 years ago. One wonders if it could happen today.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON RADIO 4WK.

Photo credits:
Old Toowoomba Court House, 2000 – by Queensland Heritage Register staff.
Captain William Ashby – White Wings Volume I Fifty Years of Sail in the New Zealand Trade 1850 to 1900.
Anglican bishop visiting Nee Nee Station 1897 – Australian Town and Country Journal, Sydney, 9th January 1897, page 19.