Louisa Collins
Louisa Collins was an Australian convicted murderer. She lived in the Sydney suburb of Botany and married twice, with both husbands dying of arsenic poisoning under suspicious circumstances. Collins was tried for murder on four separate occasions, with the first three juries failing to reach a verdict. At the fourth trial the jury delivered a guilty verdict for the murder of her second husband and she was sentenced to death. Collins was hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol on the morning of 8 January 1889. She was the last woman to be executed in New South Wales.
Biography
Early life
Louisa Hall was born on 11 August 1847 at 'Belltrees' station on the Hunter River, near Scone in New South Wales. She was the fourth-born of nine children of Henry Hall and Catherine. Louisa was baptised on 7 November 1847 in St. Luke's church in Scone. Her father, Henry Hall, was an agricultural labourer, born in Birmingham, England, who had arrived in Australia in 1832 as a convict aboard the vessel Asia. Louisa's mother, Catherine King, was a native of Dublin, Ireland, who emigrated to Australia in 1841 aboard the Fairlie. With four years of his sentence to complete, Hall obtained a ticket of leave and was granted permission to marry Catherine King; the couple were married at Scone in August 1842.Louisa's early teenage years were described in the following terms: "With good looks, attractive presence, and winning ways, she was no sooner in her 'teens' than she developed all the qualities of a country coquette, and earned for herself the reputation of being a heartless flirt". As a consequence of her vivacious demeanour she "had many suitors and youthful sweethearts".
When Louisa Hall was aged about fourteen she found employment as a domestic servant for a solicitor at Merriwa, 30 miles west of Scone.
Marriage to Andrews
In Merriwa Louisa met Charles Andrews, who was working as a butcher in the township. Andrews was 14 years older than Louisa and a widower. Andrews began to court Louisa, in a match that was encouraged by her mother "who seemed to consider she had secured an excellent alliance for her daughter". Louisa's opinion of her suitor was much more tentative; she later stated, "I never liked, or cared for Andrews, although I didn't murder him". Louisa Hall and Charles Andrews were married at Merriwa in August 1865.Louisa Andrews had nine children from the marriage, born between June 1867 and May 1883, two of whom died as young children. After the birth of her first child at Merriwa in 1867, accounts of Louisa's life state that she "took to drink". Her intemperate habits, described as "secret drinking", became a factor in the domestic discord that developed in the Andrews household. By 1871 the family had relocated to Muswellbrook. In December 1876 Andrews was granted a license by the local bench of magistrates to slaughter animals in his own yard. By 1877 Andrews had accumulated unmanageable debts and in January 1878 insolvency proceedings were initiated against him.
With Andrews in a precarious financial position, he relocated with his family to Sydney in order to find work. The family's first place of residence was "in Berry's paddock", near Ricketty Street in St. Peters, where Andrews was employed by John Sugden Berry, a bone-dust manufacturer. By May 1880, when Louisa's seventh child was baptised, the family were probably living near Moore Park and Charles was working as a carter. By about 1882 Charles Andrews had found work as a driver of drays with the woolscouring and fellmongering establishments operated by the Geddes brothers, based at Botany. With Andrews working for the Geddes brothers, the family began living at No. 1 Pople's Terrace, in a swampy area of Botany known as 'Frog's Hollow'. They occupied one of two adjoining semi-detached cottages, in a row of similar four-roomed cottages running at right angles to Botany Road, separated from the Springvale woolwash by a small paddock and a creek. 'Frog Hollow' was a low-lying flat adjacent to the creek. Andrews was recognised as a hard worker and "a sober, honest, good-hearted, simple-minded man".
By about the mid-1880s Charles and Louisa Andrews began to take in boarders to ease their financial situation. In addition to themselves and the four children who remained in the household, there were often four or five boarders living in the small four-roomed cottage. From early in 1886, one of the boarders living in the house was Michael Peter Collins, known familiarly as 'Mick'. Collins was also employed by Messrs. T. Geddes and Co., primarily carting skins from the Glebe Island Abattoirs to the Botany tannery. Retrospective assessments of Louisa Andrews' character during this period emphasised the impropriety of her actions, stating she was prone to drinking to excess. The local police and neighbours reported "that she was seldom sober when at home". Louisa was "fond of dress and gaiety, and never dropped her habits of flirtation", with such behaviour often directed at her boarders. Many instances of arguments and domestic strife arose as a consequence of "Andrews remonstrating with his wife on her improper conduct" with Collins and other boarders.
A "great intimacy" developed between Louisa Andrews and Mick Collins and the pair were often seen together in surrounding bushland. Louisa was in the habit of meeting Collins on the tram, where they were witnessed kissing each other. With the relationship between the boarder and his wife becoming increasingly blatant, Andrews confronted and accused Louisa, who denied any wrongdoing. Despite the denials, Andrews eventually ordered Collins and the other boarders to leave the house, after which Collins found lodgings at a nearby boarding house. On 16 December 1886 Andrews returned home unexpectedly to find Collins sitting in his front room. Andrews flew into a rage and ejected Collins from the house and threatened to throw his wife into the street as well. Louisa took the matter to Constable George Jeffes, the watchhouse-keeper at Botany police station, who investigated what had happened but took no action, nor did any of the parties wish to instigate legal proceedings. As a result of this incident, Louisa "became enraged at her husband, and carried on her shameless doings with even greater energy".
Six weeks later Charles Andrews became gravely ill, with severe stomach pain and constant vomiting and diarrhoea. The patient was visited on several occasions by Dr. Thomas Martin, but the medicine he prescribed was to no avail. The doctor later testified that Louisa "seemed indifferent as to the fate" of her husband. Neighbours later commented that Louisa seemed certain her husband would die. During his illness she travelled to Sydney to have a will drawn up on behalf of her husband by a clerk in the insurance office; on the evening of 31 January the document was signed by Andrews and witnessed by two men from the neighbourhood. The will specified that all of Andrews' assets would go to his wife after his death. Apart from furniture and a small amount in a savings account, Andrews' assets consisted of a life insurance policy with the Mutual Life Association of Australasia, with a potential worth of two hundred pounds.
Charles Andrews died on the afternoon of 2 February 1887. Shortly after he expired, Louisa sent her daughter May to fetch a neighbour named Mary Law. Soon after Mrs. Law arrived, Louisa left the house to catch a tram to Sydney to "see the insurance people". Leaving her husband's body on a stretcher in the Pople's Terrace cottage, Louisa travelled to Sydney to inform the bank and the insurance company of his death. On her return she called at the house of Mrs. Ellen Price, to ask for her assistance to prepare her husband's body for burial. Louisa then sent her son Arthur to Dr. Martin to obtain a death certificate. The cause of Andrews' death was recorded as "acute gastritis".
Marriage to Collins
Charles Andrews was buried at Rookwood Cemetery on 5 February 1887. Three days later Louisa approached the savings bank in Sydney requesting withdrawal of the balance left to her in her late husband's will. About a week after the burial Mick Collins moved back into the Pople's Terrace cottage. The neighbour Mrs. Law later recalled seeing them arm-in-arm "as if already married". With the money from the bank, Louisa cleared Collins' gambling debts and bought him a new watch and chain and a suit of clothes, as well as new furniture for the house. After her husband's death, Louisa moved with her family from Pople's Terrace to a cottage in Johnson's Lane in North Botany. However, within weeks of moving she "expressed an unaccountable burning desire to again occupy her old residence; even going so far as to offer a premium to the occupier if she would vacate the cottage in her favor". When this was unsuccessful, Louisa rented a cottage at the rear of her former home at 'Frog Hollow'.Louisa Andrews and Michael Collins were married on 9 April 1887 at St. Silas' Anglican church near the Waterloo tram terminus, just three months after Louisa's first husband's death. On the marriage registration Louisa was recorded as a widow, aged 28 years. Michael Collins' age was recorded as 26 years. The couple took no witnesses to church with them and their wedding vows were witnessed by available members of the parsonage.
After their marriage Mick and Louisa Collins lived in "an indolent, unsatisfactory manner, the wife always drinking, and the husband helping to spend what little money there was". Collins had an intermittent work record, with extended periods of unemployment and his gambling activities further depleted the family resources. On 28 November 1887 Louisa gave birth to her tenth child, a son named John. In April 1888 the infant began to suffer from stomach pains. Louisa treated her son with castor oil, but the child died late at night on 10 April. Dr. Martin was summoned; after examining the baby's corpse he filed a report for the Coroner, stating that the child had been "constitutionally delicate". The Coroner concluded that the child had "suffered slightly from a sick stomach two days previous to its death", but "as there are no grounds for supposing this child died from any but natural causes, an inquest may be dispensed with". Ellen Price was again called upon, to prepare the infant's body for burial. Mrs. Price later recalled that she was "amazed by the child's swollen lips and tongue" and noted "the same callousness" was exhibited by Louisa that she had seen after Andrews had died. John Collins was buried in the paupers' section of Rookwood Cemetery.
At about this time Louisa's eldest son, Herbert, who was living and working at Maitland, first heard the news of his father's death. When he arrived at the Botany cottage he discovered his mother had remarried and found his younger siblings "dirty and uncared-for, playing about the untidy house". When Herbert enquired about an inheritance from his father, Louisa told him she had spent all the money Andrews had left her. Herbert was taken aback at the turn of events, and pointed out that "had his mother given him his share of the money he might have opened a small business in Botany or Waterloo, and helped her to live and keep the children in comparative ease and comfort". It was reported that as a result of these interactions, Louisa disowned her son, who then returned to his employment at Maitland.
By June 1887 Mick Collins was again working for Geddes and Sons, carting skins from the slaughter yards at Glebe Island to the Botany tannery. On 23 June, feeling ill, he dismounted from the cart and vomited by the roadside; after further symptoms of diarrhoea and stomach pain, he returned home and took to his sick-bed. On 28 July Mick and Louisa travelled on the tram to Sydney, where Mick was seen by Dr. George Marshall in his Elizabeth Street rooms. Marshall diagnosed "malaise preceding an attack of fever" and prescribed a number of medicines. Over the next several days, Collins' condition deteriorated. On 2 July Louisa returned to Dr. Marshall's rooms and requested he return with her to Botany to examine her husband again.
Dr. Marshall visited Michael Collins in his sick-bed at Pople's Terrace on three occasions over the next five days. On the third occasion, on the evening of 7 July, he arrived in company with Dr. Martin, who had ministered to Charles Andrews in the last days of his life. The two doctors were friends and had "compared notes" about their patients, and were struck by the similarities between the cases. Dr. Marshall began to suspect that the cause of Mick Collins' illness was poisoning. When they arrived at the cottage the patient was "in a very bad state indeed". When they left, both doctors went to the Botany police station to report their suspicions. Constable Jeffes and Senior-constable Abraham Sherwood arrived at the cottage just after eleven that night. They questioned Collins, but elicited no response that supported their suspicion he was being poisoned. Doctors Marshall and Martin made another visit at midday on 8 July, finding the patient close to death with barely a pulse. Michael Collins died at about three o'clock that afternoon, soon after which Louisa sent her son Arthur to take the tram to Sydney to obtain a death certificate from Dr. Marshall.
When Constable Jeffes learned of Collins' death, he and Senior-constable Sherwood visited the house to confirm this was the case. When returning to the police station they met Arthur, who told them that the doctors had refused to issue a death certificate. Jeffes then returned to the cottage with Arthur and proceeded to collect any medicines and substances he could find in the household, as well as the clothes worn by the deceased. Louisa was distraught and threatened to leave the cottage, but Jeffes ordered her to remain. A police officer was placed at the front door during the night.