John Gavin (convict)
Child executed in Western Australia in 1844
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Gavin (or John Gaven; 1829 – 6 April 1844) was the first European settler – and child – to be legally executed in colonial Western Australia.[a][1] He was executed for murder at the age of fifteen.[2]
Life
Born in 1829, Gavin[3] was convicted of an offence while still a juvenile, and was transported to Western Australia as a Parkhurst apprentice, arriving on board Shepherd in October 1843.
On 3 April 1844, he was tried for the murder of his employer's son, 18-year-old George Pollard. He confessed[4] to killing the sleeping victim with an adze,[5] but he seemed unaware of a rational motive. Three days later he was publicly hanged outside the Round House in Fremantle "on a gallows erected ten yards [9.1 m] north of the Round House entrance."[6]: 2 After a death mask had been taken and his brain studied for "scientific purposes" he was buried in the sand hills to the south without a ceremony.[4]
Notes
- After the Batavia Mutiny in 1629, Jeronimus Cornelisz and six of his men became the first Europeans to be legally executed in Australia, on Seal Island, Western Australia.
