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The Man They Couldn’t Hang

Found guilty on a charge of housebreaking in London in 1795, Joseph Samuels was sent to the colonies for seven years. He joined the 6000-strong population at Sydney Cove, and it wasn’t long after his release that he again came to the attention of authorities.

One night in August 1803, Sydney prostitute Mary Breeze returned to her lodgings to find that they had been ransacked and her most prized possession – a portable desk worth 24 guineas – had been stolen. Mary alerted the local constable, Joseph Luker. He set out immediately in search of the culprits, perhaps on a promise from the voluptuous Mary.

The following morning Constable Luker’s body was found lying in a pool of his own blood on a running track at the back of Mary’s lodgings. He had 16 stab wounds to the head, and the iron guard of his cutlass was buried deeply in his head.

Aided by a number of clues left at the scene, the investigating team swooped on the home of one of their own – a Constable Isaac ‘Hickey Bull’ Simmons – who was a friend of Constable Luker. There they arrested Simmons, Joseph Samuels, William Bladders and Richard Jackson, and charged them all with suspicion of robbery and murder.

Samuels and Simmons spent the night in the same cell, and the following morning in court Samuels made a full confession about his involvement in the robbery of Mary Breeze’s home, but denied that he had any knowledge of or had participated in the murder of Constable Luker.

In the adjoining court Simmons and Bladders were charged with the murder of Constable Luker. The court heard evidence that the defendants were caught with blood all over their clothing. They claimed that it got there after they had slaughtered a lamb for dinner and it had nothing whatever to do with Constable Luker. Incredibly, they were found not guilty of murder and set free.

Joseph Samuels was not so lucky. He was found guilty on the charge of housebreaking and sentenced to death by hanging.

At 9 o’clock on the morning of 26 September 1803, Joseph Samuels was led from his cell to a horse-drawn buggy that would carry him (and his coffin) to the nearby gallows. The usual crowd had gathered to see Samuels and several other poor wretches go to their deaths. It was called ‘the morning’s entertainment’. This day they were not to be disappointed.

Asked by the colony’s chaplain, the Reverend Samuel Marsden, to admit his crime, Samuels, who to this point had said nothing, raised a finger, pointed it at Simmons, who was in the crowd, and denounced Simmons as Constable Luker’s murderer. He said that he had sworn a secret Hebrew oath on the night of the killing to never reveal what had taken place.

But it was too late for accusations. The crowd fell silent as the noose was placed over Samuels’ neck and the horse-drawn cart in which Samuels was standing slowly moved away. As the rope tightened, the prisoner gave the first of the customary kicks when there was nothing beneath him. Then the rope snapped and Samuels fell to the ground.

Not to be deterred, the hangman called the cart back. Samuels was made to stand up in it again. A makeshift new noose was placed around his neck and the horse was led slowly away from the gallows again. This time the rope had not been secured tightly around the gallows, and as it came tight under the prisoner’s weight it unravelled. Samuels again fell to the ground and lay there motionless, but nevertheless very much alive.

The embarrassed executioner was not to be denied. This time he painstakingly examined everything and had his two assistants hold Samuels up and then drop him after the noose had been tightly secured around his neck. But the weight of the body and the sudden jarring caused the rope to break yet again, and for the third time, Samuels fell to the ground uninjured.

By now the crowd had turned into an angry mob. To avoid a riot, the attending provost marshal ordered that the hanging stop forthwith until he consulted the governor on what to do. Convinced that there had been divine Intervention, Governor King granted Samuels an immediate reprieve – the hangman lost his chance to carry out this particular grisly task.

But Joseph Samuels’s luck wasn’t to hold. Several years later he was drowned while attempting to escape, with other convicts, from a penal settlement at Newcastle – they stole a boat, but were then caught in a wild storm.