Elizabeth Woolcock – murderer or victim?
A South Australian true crime.
In September 1873 in Moonta, Thomas Woolcock died slowly from mercury poisoning. His wife, Elizabeth Woolcock, was convicted of his murder and became the only woman hanged in South Australia.
Many believe she was innocent. Read on, see if you think she did it.
Elizabeth Woolcock had a terrible childhood. Abandoned by her mother when she was very young, a witness to the brutal murder of a family friend, and the victim of a vicious rape at just seven, she sadly became addicted to the opium prescribed to help her cope with her ordeal. Her father died when she was around ten years old, so she started working in a chemist’s shop run by the owners of the household in which she lived. This gave her access to more of the opioid drugs that were making her life bearable at this point and, importantly, knowledge of how they were made.
At 15 years old, she moved to the ‘bright lights and big city’ of Ballarat, where she inadvertently fell in with a group of prostitutes. After initially being shocked by their lifestyle, she soon realised that there was money to be made from this way of life. She also quickly realised that her knowledge of how to make drugs could help her and the other girls make money from customers without having to sleep with them. She created a potion that could be slipped into a man’s drink. When he slipped into semi-unconsciousness, the girls would ransack his pockets and make off with whatever cash or valuables they found.
Eventually, Elizabeth was found in Ballarat by a preacher from South Australia and taken back to Moonta, where, at 17 years old, she was reunited with her mother and new stepfather. She found work as a live-in housekeeper for widower Thomas Woolcock, but this caused a huge scandal in the small town. So, in February 1867, they married, and Elizabeth became stepmother to Thomas’ young son, Tom.
It was not a happy marriage. Her husband drank heavily and became increasingly demanding and abusive. Elizabeth ran away twice, but in a pattern all too familiar even now, he managed to talk her into returning.
Then, in September 1873, after several weeks of illness, Thomas died. A post-mortem confirmed that he had died from mercury poisoning. Elizabeth had been sending her stepson Tom to the local pharmacies to buy mercury compounds to treat head-lice, but a Coroner’s Inquest believed that she had actually been using them to slowly poison her husband.
A little more than a year after Elizabeth Woolcock died, the judge who sentenced her, William Alfred Wearing, was lost in the wreck of the Gothenburg off the Queensland coast, 24 February 1875. He was 59 years old. Over one hundred people were drowned in the disaster including all women and children on board and many high ranking civil servants and dignitaries. Only twenty two men survived. SLSA: B 7711
The Supreme Court Building dominates the southwest side of Victoria Square. It was built in 1869 of Tea Tree Gully sandstone, from a design by the Colonial Architect RG Thomas, possibly with assistance from William McMinn. A gentleman wearing a top hat poses for the photographer in front of the building alongside a horse-drawn buggy. Victoria Square. SLSA: B 5007
Lithograph of the Adelaide Gaol, looking at the tower entrance across the railway lines. Geoffrey Brown, artist,1933. SLSA: B 10005
Ellen Street, Moonta, circa 1874. SLSA: B 24477
She was sent to stand trial at the Supreme Court in Adelaide. A jury took less than half an hour to find her guilty. Despite their recommendations for mercy given the conflicting medical evidence, and the lifelong abuse she had suffered, the judge (Mr Justice Wearing) sentenced her to death.
Two weeks before her execution, Elizabeth wrote a confession and handed it to the Reverend James Bickford, who had been visiting her in the Gaol, with the instruction that it be read after her death.
On 30 December 1873, Elizabeth was hanged in the yard at Adelaide Gaol. She was 26 years old.
In the years since her death, questions have been raised over whether she did indeed commit this crime, whether the confession was written entirely by someone else, and how much of this story was the result of the mental instability created by her tragic life.
Do you think Elizabeth killed Thomas Woolcock and if so, did she deserve to die for her crime?
More to explore
'Confession of Elizabeth Woolcock,' South Australian Register , 2 January 1874, page 5.
'Execution of Elizabeth Woolcock,' Wallaroo times, 3 January 1874, page 3.
If you want to find out more, the following books are available to read within the State Library, or you could search for these books at your local library.
Peters, A.L. (1992). No Monument of Stone.
Peters, A.L. (2008). Dead Woman Walking.
Written by Isabel Story, Engagement Librarian