RETTA DIXON, A REMARKABLE WOMAN

I have just published a remarkable speech about Jimmy Governor called "Chief of Sinners" by a remarkable 19th century Christian missionary to Aborigines, Miss Retta Dixon, later Mrs Retta Long.
It's the very moving story of Jimmy's conversion and reconciliation with God just weeks before he was executed, brought about through Retta's intercession with the Lord on his behalf.
For the five weeks before he was hanged, during December 1900 and January 1901, she visited him twice a day, every day except Sunday, in his condemned cell at Darlinghurst Gaol.
I have retyped the entire speech, originally prepared on an old typewriter, on six separate pages for ease of access.
Links to these pages are in the left-hand margin of this blog.
This is the first time, as far as I am aware, that this speech has been published.
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Retta, a Baptist born in Sydney in 1878 of Irish baptist parents, decided to devote her life to spreading the Gospel to Aboriginal aboriginal people while in her teens.
She became involved with a Christian group evangelising on Sundays at the La Perouse Aborigines' Reserve and in 1897, at the age of 19, became the first resident missionary there.
Retta, was just three years older than Jimmy Governor and was 23 when she made her visitations to him at Darlinghurst Gaol.
She would have visited him 60 times, travelling from her parents' home in Sydney, and returning to La Perouse every Sunday.
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In my view, her true Christian devotion and dedication to the Aboriginal people whom she loved deserves proper recognition today.
She is a perfect candidate for an Order of Australia, or its precursor, an Order of the British Empire.
The Australian government, however, does not award these posthumously.

For more information about Retta Dixon / Long see AUSTRALIAN DICTIONARY OF BIOGRAPHY

'GOLDING' AND GOLDEN GULLY MINE

A descendant of one of Ethel Governor's brothers believes that her son was given the name 'Golding' because one of her uncles worked at the Golden Gully goldmine.
This was the richest mine in the Gulgong / Hill End area.
The miner was William Page, Ethel's father's older brother, who had a farm near this mine.
One of his neighbours was Peter Lawson, the father of one of Australia's greatest poets, Henry Lawson.
A map of the area  is on the website of  Mudgee historian, the late Norman McVicker, Budgee Budgee.

ROMANTICISING JIMMY GOVERNOR

It's easy to fall into the trap of 'romanticising' Jimmy Governor.
The fact is he was a cold-blooded killer.
Like many psychopaths, he had a surface charm that disarmed many people.
Even his captors were thrown by it.
They had difficulty reconciling it with what he had done.
Murdered two mothers (one pregnant), four children (one a toddler), two old men and a young woman, raped a teenager plus terrorised and robbed many others and destroyed houses and other property.
Jimmy Governor also revelled in the celebrity his foul deeds brought him after his capture, even giving his autograph.

ANOTHER GRUESOME NEWSPAPER REPORT

The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 25 July 1900
THE TRAGEDY NEAR GULGONG. INQUEST ON ALEXANDER McKAY. VERDICT OF WILFUL MURDER. AGAINST JOE AND JIMMY GOVERNOR A MAN'S HEAD SPLIT OPEN.
MUDGEE, Tuesday.
The Coroner (Mr Wilkinson) held an inquest on the body of Mr. Alexander McKay, and a verdict of wilful murder was returned against Joe and Jimmy Governor.
The evidence showed that at 1 o'clock on Monday Mrs. McKay was in the house, when the girl came running in and said "Two blacks are coming here; one has a rifle."
She went to the door as they stepped on the verandah.
One of them said, "We are murderers; come outside and we will kill the lot of you."
Mrs McKay stepped forward.
One of them struck her with a tomahawk, but she turned round to get into the house, and only received a gash on the side of her head.
She then banged the door and bolted it.
They tried to smash to door with a tomahawk.
They smashed all the windows in with stones.
One hit the girl on the back.
One stone also hit Mrs McKay on the back of the head.
The blacks said, 'If you don't open the door we will kill the lot of you: if you do we won't."
Mrs. McKay said to the girl, "We might as well be killed outside as inside," and opened the door and walked outside with the child in her arms.
The blacks ordered them to stand on the verandah, searched the place all over, took a lot of eatables, and went away.
The girl went to the door and said "O God, listen to uncle groaning."
They went over to the fence and found Mr McKay lying on his back with his head split open with a tomahawk.
They carried him inside and laid him on the bed.
The girl looked out of the door and saw the blacks coming back.
The blacks told the women to come outside, and demanded what money Mrs McKay had.
Mrs McKay gave them a pound.
They asked her if she had any more.
When she told them she had not, they said, "You are a liar, we found 8 pounds in the old man's pocket."
They then told Mrs McKay to give them her husband's saddle, saying he would not want it any more.
They took the horse and left, going in the direction of Ulan.
Mr McKay's skull was smashed in and his brains protruded.
He died two hours afterwards.
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GULGONG, Tuesday.
Information has just been received from Ulan stating that the Gilgandra murderers met an Indian hawker yesterday afternoon after the McKay murder and wanted ammunition and boots.
The hawkers had none.
The men were armed with a rifle and a tomahawk, and said they were going to murder Harry Neville at Wollar.
They boasted that they had killed the Mawbeys at Breelong.

TALBRAGAR RIVER - JIMMY'S BIRTHPLACE

The Talbragar River where Jimmy Governor was born is on the northern outskirts of Dubbo, around 70km (one hour's drive on the Newell Highway) south of Gilgandra near where the Breelong murders took place.
It is Wiradjuri country.
British explorer, John Oxley, arrived in the Dubbo district in 1818 and a village was gazetted there on 23 November 1849.
During the reign of Queen Victoria (1838-1901) land was granted for an Aboriginal reserve at the junction of the Talbragar and Macquarie Rivers.
This appears to have occurred in 1898.
Jimmy Governor was born in 1875.

The location of Talbragar River in relation to Gilgandra and Dubbo: TALBRAGAR-GILGANDRA MAP

ELSIE CLARKE, BREELONG SURVIVOR

The Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday 7 January 1937
JIMMY AND JOE GOVERNOR.
Outrages Recalled by Woman's Death.
The murders committed by the Breelong blacks, Jimmy and Joe Governor, 33 years ago, are recalled by the death of Mrs. Percy J. Lee, of Irvine-street, Kingsford, whose funeral took place to the Waverley Cemetery yesterday.
On the night of July 19 [20], 1900, the Governors, accompanied by two other aborigines and a black boy, entered the Breelong homestead armed with tomahawks and waddies.
They killed Miss Kerz, Hilda and Percy Mawbey, and so seriously wounded Mrs. Mawbey and Grace Mawbey that they died.
Mrs. Lee, who was then Miss Elsie Clarke, was a niece of Mr. John Thomas Mawbey.
She was struck on the head with a nulla nulla by Jimmy Governor [or one of the other murderers with him], and was thrown under a bed [hidden under a bed before coming out and being struck].
She eventually recovered, but was deaf.
Between July and November, 1900, the Governors were responsible for the murder or wounding of nearly a score of people.
They also committed innumerable robberies.
The Supreme Court of New South Wales issued a writ declaring them outlaws, and calling upon citizens to shoot them on sight.
On October 29, Jimmy Governor was shot and captured.
He was hanged on June [January]18, 1901.
His brother Joe was shot dead by a grazier, about 20 miles north of Singleton, on October 31, 1900.
[Source: NLA17308067]

BLAME THE WOMEN

The role John Mawbey played in what happened at Breelong is becoming clearer to me.
At the time of the murders, he presented as a 'good guy', an innocent victim of Jimmy Governor.
It was the women involved, the ones who had denigrated Jimmy and his wife Ethel, who copped all the blame.
Mrs Mawbey, her eldest daughter, Grace and the schoolteacher, Ellen Kerz.
It had nothing to do with him.
But it was John Mawbey who placed Jimmy in a 'no win' situation in the first place by giving him a job beyond his ability to do on his own.
In doing so, he shamed him, made him feel inferior, just as much as his wife Sarah Mawbey did Ethel.
This is one 'take' on the story.
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But on the other side of the coin, Jimmy would have known he could not make any real money out of the fencing job unless it was done quickly.
For this to happen, he needed help.
He claimed that his brother Joe and Jacky Underwood just turned up at Breelong, and it was only then that he asked them for assistance.
But they knew where he was, indicating he had told them where he was going to be after accepting the job.
So it may already have been planned beforehand, with Jimmy being more cunning than he later let on.
The plan failed because trying to do the job too quickly resulted in shoddy workmanship.
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Jimmy prided himself on being cunning.
The Singleton Argus, 8 November 1900, reports that after he was captured, he 'gloried in ... his powers of cunning in outwitting the police and and the others who were engaged in the pursuit'.
He may have thought he was one jump ahead of John Mawbey, even offering the housework services of his wife Ethel to cinch the deal, but this time his scheming failed.
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I think Jimmy intended to kill John Mawbey when he went to the inn before going to the house.
Unlike some of his future victims, Mawbey did not come outside in response to Jimmy's call.
He did not take the bait.
He may have been aware that Jimmy was on the warpath and was trying to placate him by asking him inside to warm himself by the fire.
Jimmy lulled him into a false sense of security by asking to have rations delivered to his camp the next day.
He then went to the house and murdered Mawbey's wife, two daughters and a son.
John Mawbey would have felt like a fool for allowing himself to be tricked by Jimmy in this way.
And like an abject failure as a husband and father for not protecting his wife and children when he knew trouble was brewing.
He may have been fooled by Jimmy's surface charm, which fooled other people.