Alexander Pearce
Encyclopedia
Convict
A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison", sometimes referred to in slang as simply a "con". Convicts are often called prisoners or inmates. Persons convicted and sentenced to non-custodial sentences often are not termed...
who was transported to Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...
for theft. He escaped from prison several times, but eventually was captured and was hanged and dissected in Hobart
Hobart
Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
for murder.
Pearce was born in County Fermanagh
County Fermanagh
Fermanagh District Council is the only one of the 26 district councils in Northern Ireland that contains all of the county it is named after. The district council also contains a small section of County Tyrone in the Dromore and Kilskeery road areas....
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. A Roman Catholic farm labourer, he was sentenced at Armagh
Armagh
Armagh is a large settlement in Northern Ireland, and the county town of County Armagh. It is a site of historical importance for both Celtic paganism and Christianity and is the seat, for both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland, of the Archbishop of Armagh...
in 1819 to penal transportation
Penal transportation
Transportation or penal transportation is the deporting of convicted criminals to a penal colony. Examples include transportation by France to Devil's Island and by the UK to its colonies in the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and then to Australia between...
to Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...
for "the theft of six pairs of shoes". He committed various offences in Van Diemens Land, and on 18 May 1822 was advertised in the Hobart Town Gazette
Hobart Town Gazette
The Hobart Town Gazette was established in 1816 in Hobart, Van Diemen's Land as the Hobart Town Gazette, and Southern Reporter. In 1821 the name was changed to the Hobart Town Gazette, and Van Diemen's Land Advertiser...
as an absconder, with a £10 reward for his capture. When caught, he received a second sentence of transportation, this time to the new secondary penal establishment at Sarah Island
Macquarie Harbour Penal Station
The Macquarie Harbour Penal Station was a notorious British penal settlement established on Sarah Island in the southern portion of Macquarie Harbour in what was Van Diemen's Land in , Australia....
in Macquarie Harbour
Macquarie Harbour
Macquarie Harbour is a large, shallow, but navigable by shallow draft vessels inlet on the West Coast of Tasmania, Australia.-History:James Kelly wrote in his narrative "First Discovery of Port Davey and Macquarie Harbour" how he sailed from Hobart in a small open five-oared whaleboat to discover...
.
Cannibal
Pearce led an escape from Macquarie Harbour Penal Settlement and became notorious for cannibalisingCannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
his fellow escapees as they traversed the West Coast of Tasmania
West Coast, Tasmania
The West Coast of Tasmania is the part of the state that is strongly associated with wilderness, mining and tourism, rough country and isolation...
.
Pearce escaped with seven other convicts: Alexander Dalton, Thomas Bodenham, William Kennerly, Matthew Travers, Edward Brown, Robert Greenhill and John Mather. Kennerly and Brown voluntarily gave themselves up and were taken back to the settlement, where they died in the prison hospital from disease and malnutrition. Pearce and the others continued without them.
Pearce was eventually captured near Hobart, and confessed that he and the other escapees had successively killed and cannibalised members of their group over a period of weeks, he being the last survivor. Pearce and Greenhill had been the final two, each struggling to stay awake for days out of fear the other would kill him. Greenhill finally nodded off and Pearce killed him with an axe, then ate him. Pearce made it to the settled districts, being sheltered by a convict shepherd until he was captured several months later. The Hobart magistrate did not believe Pearce's cannibalism story and was convinced the others were still living as bushrangers. Pearce was returned to Sarah Island.
Within a year he escaped for the second time, joined by a young convict named Thomas Cox. Pearce was captured within ten days and taken to the Supreme Court of Van Diemens Land in Hobart, where he was tried and convicted of murdering and cannibalising Thomas Cox. Observers noted that he did not look like a cannibal. Measuring only 1.6 m in height which was a little under average for that time but with a strong wiry frame. Not like someone who was "laden with the weight of human blood, and believed to have banqueted on human flesh" as the Hobart Town Gazette wrote on 25 June 1824. His captors had found parts of Cox's body in Pearce's pockets, even though he still had food left, so his guilt was beyond doubt this time. Pearce confessed that he had killed Cox because he was a hindrance to him. He was the first confessed cannibal to pass through the Tasmanian court system.
He was hanged at the Hobart Town Gaol at 9am on 19 July 1824, after receiving the last rites from a priest. It is reported that just before Pearce was hanged, he said, "Man’s flesh is delicious. It tastes far better than fish or pork."
Songs and films
Alexander Pearce is the subject of the Australian band Weddings Parties AnythingWeddings Parties Anything
Weddings Parties Anything were an Australian folk rock band formed in 1984 in Melbourne and continuing until 1998. Their name came from The Clash song and musicologist Billy Pinnell described their first album as the best Australian rock debut since Skyhooks' Living in the '70s.-Formation and...
's song "A Tale They Won't Believe". The Drones
The Drones
The Drones are an Australian rock group who rose to prominence during the early 2000s. They are influenced by a variety of bands and soloists including Neil Young, The Velvet Underground, Bad Brains, Suicide, Green on Red, The Birthday Party, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and Nina Simone.- The Sound...
also recorded "Words from the Executioner to Alexander Pearce".
A biographical film, The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce
The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce
The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce is a 2008 Australian film directed by Michael James Rowland starring Irish actors Adrian Dunbar as Philip Conolly and Ciaran McMenamin as Alexander Pearce...
was shot on location in 2008 in Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
and Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
. It was shown on RTE
Raidió Teilifís Éireann
Raidió Teilifís Éireann is a semi-state company and the public service broadcaster of Ireland. It both produces programmes and broadcasts them on television, radio and the Internet. The radio service began on January 1, 1926, while regular television broadcasts began on December 31, 1961, making...
Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
on 29 December 2008 and ABC1
ABC Television
ABC Television is a service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation launched in 1956. As a public broadcasting broadcaster, the ABC provides four non-commercial channels within Australia, and a partially advertising-funded satellite channel overseas....
Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
on 25 January 2009. The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce
The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce
The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce is a 2008 Australian film directed by Michael James Rowland starring Irish actors Adrian Dunbar as Philip Conolly and Ciaran McMenamin as Alexander Pearce...
was also screened under the title "Confessions of a Cannibal Convict" on UK channel More4
More4
More4 is a digital television channel, run by British broadcaster Channel 4, that launched on 10 October 2005. It is carried on Freeview, on satellite broadcasters Freesat and Sky, UK IPTV broadcaster TalkTalk TV and on UK cable network Virgin Media and in the Republic of Ireland cable networks...
on 10 July 2010.
Also in 2008, Dying Breed
Dying Breed
Dying Breed is an Australian horror film, which was directed by Jody Dwyer and stars Leigh Whannell and Nathan Phillips.-Synopsis:A group of hikers looking for a Tasmanian Tiger encounter a family of cannibals descended from Alexander Pearce who are out to find fresh breeding stock to...
, a horror film about Pearce was released. It featured fictional "descendants" of Pearce.Dying Breed IMDb. Retrieved 2008-11-02. Shot in Tasmania and Melbourne (including at the Pieman River
Pieman River
The Pieman River is a river on the West Coast of Tasmania, Australia. It was dammed with the 122m high Reece Dam in 1986 - creating Lake Pieman.-Name:...
on the West Coast of Tasmania), Dying Breed stars writer/actor Leigh Whannell
Leigh Whannell
Leigh Whannell is an Australian screenwriter, producer, and actor, best known for his work on the Saw franchise.-Life and career:...
and Nathan Phillips
Nathan Phillips (actor)
Nathan Scott Phillips is an Australian actor who is currently based in Los Angeles. He is perhaps best known for his role as backpacker Ben Mitchell in Wolf Creek and for his American film debut, Snakes on a Plane, opposite Samuel L...
.
The story of Pearce's cannibalism was made into another feature-length movie called Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land (film)
Van Diemen's Land is a 2009 Australian thriller set in 1822 in colonial Tasmania. It follows the story of the infamous Australian convict, Alexander Pearce, played by Oscar Redding and his escape with seven other convicts.-Plot:...
, released to Australian cinemas in September 2009.
See also
- Hell's GatesHell's Gates (Tasmania)Hells Gates is the name of the mouth of Macquarie Harbour on the West Coast of Tasmania. It is a notoriously shallow and dangerous channel entrance to the harbour. The actual channel is between Cape Sorell, Tasmania on the west and Entrance Island on the east...
- Convicts on the West Coast of TasmaniaConvicts on the West Coast of TasmaniaThe West Coast of Tasmania has a significant convict heritage. The use of the West Coast as an outpost to house convicts in isolated penal settlements occurred in the era 1822-1833, and 1846-1847....
Further reading
- Collins, Paul. Hell's Gates: the terrible journey of Alexander Pearce, Van Dieman's Land Cannibal. South Yarra, 2002. ISBN 1-74064-083-7
- Sprod, Dan. Alexander Pearce of Macquarie Harbour. Hobart: Cat & Fiddle Press, 1977. ISBN 0-85853-031-7
- Kidd, Paul B. Australia's Serial Killers ISBN 0-7329-1036-6
External links
- Alexander Pearce executed for murder, 19 July 1824 Thomas Bock (c. 1793–1855) Pencil Drawing. State Library of New South Wales