... and other unusual deaths
Joseph Allen, architect and East Fremantle mayor, drowned in the Swan River. The coroner found no suspicious circumstances. >
John Patterson Beresford, publican, shot himself.
Henry Blinco, warder, was found to have died from 'apoplexy', but may have been murdered - perhaps by a former convict (speculation).
Florance [sic] Broadhurst. 'In 1909, a well-known merchant, Florance Broadhurst was found one morning in his fishing-boat with his head in the water. He had been taking morphine for insomnia.' [[../bib.html#brown|Brown]]: 187.
Harbourmaster Captain James Harding died doing his job, attempting to assist a ship in distress in Gage Roads. Four of his crew drowned with him. Harding's son James Richard Harding was killed by Indigenous men in the Kimberley, and is remembered by the controversial Maitland Brown monument on the Esplanade. The original bust of Brown was sculpted by Pietro Porcelli.
George Hubble, Silas Pearse's son-in-law, cut his own throat with a shaving razor. [[../bib.html#brown|Brown]]: 187.
Bridget Larkin Hurford assisted in killing her husband and was the first woman to be hanged in Western Australia. See the Wikipedia page for John Hurford.
J.A. Liebler apparently shot himself. "...on the 14th of last April [1881] the unfortunate gentleman left the Freemasons' Hotel in Guildford, saying he was going out " to pluck the flowers," and never returned ... Upon hastening to the spot they found that the body had been almost entirely devoured, and that only the skull, a few bones, and some tattered remains of clothing were to be seen. Upon searching about however the cane and jewellery which belonged to the deceased were found, and also a small six-chambered revolver, having two of the chambers empty."
James Lilly took poison.
Charles Manning died of 'drink'.
James McCormack died of strychnine poisoning, perhaps self-administered.
Henry Mason shot himself.
Charles Yelverton O'Connor shot himself.
John Reddell was murdered by the crew of his own vessel, the Ethel, in 1899.
Martha Rendell was hanged – the last woman to be hanged in Western Australia.
M. Shearer, 'the Fremantle manager of the P&O office, was found cut to pieces by a train near Mosman Park. Three empty chlorodyne bottles lay beside him.' [[../bib.html#allen|Brown]]John%20Patterson%20(or%20Pattinson)%20Beresford,%20publican:%20shot: 186. (Chlorodyne was a patent medicine containing laudanum [opium], cannabis and chloroform.)
John Snook was shot by William Conroy, who was hanged for wilful murder in 1902.
William Ernest Wray cut his own throat.
References and Links
Brown, Patricia M 1996, The Merchant Princes of Fremantle: The Rise and Decline of a Colonial Elite 1870-1900, UWAP.
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 29 November, 2014 and hosted at freotopia.org/people/suicides.html (it was last updated on 16 March, 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.