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Duels
Allen Graham writes of a duel fought in December 1829 between Thomas Peel and the master of the Gilmore, the ship which brought him and his colonists to the colony, Capt Geary. The matter was reported in the Hobart Colonial Times (Graham: 97). Peel apparently sustained a gun-shot injury to his right hand (Hasluck 1967).
The next known duel was on 17 August 1832, between William Nairne Clark and George French Johnson (not Johnstone). They were partners in The Inquisitor newspaper. This was the only duel fought in the Swan River Colony to result in a death (Johnson's) and is often (wrongly) said to be the only duel.
Hitchcock:
The libel that was the cause of the colony's only duel was printed on that press. The duel was fought in 1831 [1832] on the south bank of the river to the west of the present traffic bridge, the combatants being a Scotch lawyer named Clark and a merchant named Johnstone [Johnson]. The latter was fatally wounded and Clark was committed for trial, but acquitted, duelling being a venial offence in those days. The pair of duelling pistols used in the encounter are now in the police museum, in Perth (Hitchcock 1929: 22).
In January 1833, one Lewington took a shot at his father-in-law Robert Maydwell, because the latter had persuaded his daughter to leave her husband. He missed by a few inches. (Graham: 99; and yes, that's not a duel.)
The Perth Gazette of 16 January 1833 reported that a duel between two unnamed men was avoided by the intervention of their seconds, who persuaded them that the matter could be settled without a fight and also without loss of honour. (Graham: 99)
There are more events reported by Graham (qv infra).
References and Links
Bray, F. I. 1930, 'New light on the Johnson-Clark duel', Early Days, vol. 1, part 8: 85-86.
de Mouncey, P. E.C. 1929, 'The historic duel at Fremantle between George French Johnson, a merchant, and William Nairne Clark, a solicitor, in the year 1832', Early Days, vol. 1, part 5: 1-15.
Ewers, John K. 1971, The Western Gateway: A History of Fremantle, Fremantle City Council, with UWAP, rev. ed.: 15-16.
Graham, Allen 2005, 'Early duels of Fremantle', Fremantle Studies, 4: 95-106.
Hasluck, Alexandra 1965, Thomas Peel of Swan River, OUP, Melbourne.
Hasluck, Alexandra 1967, 'Peel, Thomas (1793-1865)', ADB.
Hitchcock, J.K. 1929, The History of Fremantle, The Front Gate of Australia, 1829-1929, Fremantle City Council.
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 28 September, 2017 and hosted at freotopia.org/events/duels.html (it was last updated on 5 April, 2024), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.