By Michaela Ann Cameron

Supported by a Create NSW Arts and Cultural Grant – Old Parramattans & Murder Tales

WARNING: This essay discusses domestic violence, murder and suicide, which may be distressing to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

In the midst of his fury, he was so sure she deserved it. ‘Come on, get up!’ he might have spat in her direction afterwards, irritated that she had not yet gotten to her feet. Did he hover above her then, waiting for her to stir? Did he shake her, slightly at first, then more vigorously? ‘Prudie?’ Silence. Stillness. ‘Prudie?’ Did he then feel the strange sensation of that intense and unadulterated yet (in his eyes) wholly justified rage of only a moment before evaporating with frightening speed? In its place, a horrid, sinking feeling from his chest to his stomach morphing with even greater speed into quiet fear as well as desperate denial: ‘Oh, Prudie! Please open your eyes!’[1] But there would be nothing now besides the voluminous thud of his own accelerated heartbeat reverberating in his ears. This was the thing that could not be undone.

No one knows how long Joseph Kerr sat there, beholding the destruction his own hands had wrought. It might have been hours. It might have been days. Perhaps during that indefinite period, wave after wave of memories, feelings of tenderness interrupted by vivid flashbacks of the violence he had inflicted, and grief-stricken ‘if-onlys’ overwhelmed him many times to the point of madness. After all, though he was her infernal destroyer, that inanimate, bloody pile of flesh and bone had been his wife.

The couple had married by banns a little over two years before, on 30 April 1831 at Parramatta.[2] Forty-four-year-old Joseph Kerr and thirty-five-year-old Prudence Lindesay had first needed to be granted permission to wed, as Prudie was still a convict under sentence of seven years transportation, having been tried and convicted of shoplifting in Londonderry on 5 August 1828.[3] A native of County Down, the ‘maid of all work’ by trade had no prior offences.[4] She was just a desperate widow with three mouths to feed: two boys, and a little girl.[5] Joseph, too, hailed from Ulster (Northern Ireland) and had been a convict with a life sentence for horse stealing, no less.[6] But things had altered substantially since he disembarked from the convict ship Almorah (2) (1820) in late December 1820 and was forwarded to Parramatta for distribution in early January 1821.[7]

Within a few short years, the weaver by trade and reformed horse thief had his ticket of leave and was appointed a Parramatta town constable.[8] During his stint in the constabulary, he apprehended as many as twelve runaway convicts in total, for which he was rewarded by having his ticket of leave extended to cover not only Parramatta but also ‘the Districts of Sydney and Windsor.’[9] In spite of these achievements, in late July 1829, Joseph resigned from the role.[10] For a while he probably thought his transportable crime was an anomaly; that his true self was the good, upright, hardworking man who caught the wrongdoers rather than ran with them. Yet here before him now was all the proof he would ever need that the balance of good and bad deeds had, at last, conclusively tipped in the latter direction. At some point, Joseph Kerr decided he would not be found there, in that house, with that body.

On Tuesday 27 August 1833, Kerr ‘discharged the amount of his lodgings, stating that he was going into the country to fence,’ and hired a cart from John Hodges—an ex-con and sly-grog trader who, thanks to a huge £1,000 win at a card game back in 1819, owned a two-storey inn nearby on the corner of George and Marsden Streets, Parramatta.[11] Kerr then called upon two neighbours for their assistance in loading up the cart.[12] By the time all this was said and done it was late in the day so, having already vacated his former premises, Kerr took a room at Hodges’s Inn for the night, leaving the cart loaded with his belongings in the inn-keeper’s yard.[13] It is hard to imagine Kerr got any sleep: then again, he had done so many things that day with the appearance of normality.

Early next morning, beneath the burnt brick diamond pattern on the back wall of the inn commemorating Hodges’s winning hand in that card game years before, the far less fortunate ex-con Kerr readied his horse and rented cart for the journey.[14] Towering behind him was the Colonial Hospital, where medical gentlemen ‘dissected and anatomised’ the likes of him after a good old-fashioned public hanging.[15] He gave his horse the usual signal and left town, travelling west ‘along the Sydney road,’ (that is, Parramatta Road).[16] He was ‘seen…near to Bates’s Farm,’ the site of circa early-1830s heritage-listed property Dayton House, 37–39 Roger Place, Seven Hills, Dharug Country, but Kerr returned to Hodges’s Inn around noon the same day to discharge the now empty cart.[17] He was not sighted again in the town and, with everything paid up and all property returned, the people of Parramatta, going about their own lives and assuming he had ‘gone into the country to fence’ as stated, had no reason to think anymore of Joseph or his wife.[18]

In bushland at Bates’s Hill, the sun was shining, the wind was low, birds were singing, spring was just a couple of days away, and Prudie, ‘in the hollow of a stump, covered over with boughs,’ was a part of it all.[19] The Sydney Monitor stated ‘a lad named FULLIGER [sic], a resident at Parramatta, went into the bush at Bates’s Hill to get wood,’ and found Prudie’s body on Friday 30 August 1833, less than two days after Joseph put her there.[20] The Sydney Herald subsequently claimed ‘some constables searching the Bush near Post’s, on the Parramatta road, for runaways…fell in with a woman that was murdered, her feet were tied with a cord,’ so it may be that the lad ‘Fulliger’ alerted these constables who happened to be in the vicinity.[21] Prudie’s ‘body was naked’ with the exception of her wedding ring, which remained on her finger.[22] And while her convict indent recorded that she was five feet and one-and-a-half inches tall with a ‘dark ruddy complexion, brown hair, brown eyes,’ and a distinguishing mark in the form of a ‘diagonal scar at [the] top of [her] forehead,’ that distinctive scar was now entirely lost amid the injuries sustained during the fatal attack; indeed, her face was now ‘so disfigured as to render identity impossible.’[23] Nevertheless, some of her personal items were scattered nearby: an old blanket, a gown, and some other articles.[24] These items in conjunction with the ring were ‘sworn to as having been [Kerr’s] wife’s,’ so ‘the body [was] supposed to be that of Mrs. [Kerr] herself.’[25] A warrant was issued for Joseph Kerr’s arrest but, despite the efforts of police, he remained at large.[26]

By the following day, Saturday 31 August 1833, the battered remains of Prudence Kerr had been returned to Parramatta.[27] A Coroner’s Inquest sat on view of the body’ there until 10 o’Clock that night, at which point ‘the court was adjourned until Monday.’[28] The coronial investigation found that Prudie had not been seen ‘for a day or two previously to’ Kerr’s sudden decision to pack up and leave town; that she had died by ‘being violently beaten over the head’; and that her body was obscenely ‘doubled up, as though it had been compressed into some close vessel.’[29]For those who had directly interacted with Joseph Kerr during his last days in town, this final revelation left no doubt as to his guilt, but their certainty was accompanied by a disturbing realisation. Among the items Kerr’s two neighbours had helped him load into the cart was a heavy cask that was ‘headed up’ and which Kerr claimed at the time ‘contained salted beef’—the neighbours had unwittingly helped him to dispose of his wife’s body.[30]

In light of the violent attack Prudence suffered at Joseph Kerr’s hands, the absurd calm and seeming mundanity of her killer’s movements afterwards had a horror all of its own. Nothing had seemed amiss with him when he outlined his fictional work plans in the country, when he requested neighbourly assistance with loading a cask containing his wife’s dead body, when he left the cask unattended in Hodges’s yard while he tarried a night in Hodges’s Inn, when he set off on the Wednesday morning, or when he returned from Bates’s Hill, having emptied the cart’s lifeless contents into the bush. It was as though he had no conscience. Few would have doubted, then, that Kerr, the former convict and former constable, was a monster and was already far away, ready to begin a new life with nary a thought for poor Prudie.

On the morning of Wednesday 4 September 1833, one week to the day since Kerr was seen transporting the cask along ‘the Sydney road,’ he ‘was found hung in the bush, within a short distance’ of where Prudie’s body had been discovered.^[31] The wording and the sheer brevity of the newspaper report of Joseph’s demise piques the curiosity. Although we learn from The Sydney Herald that he ‘was found hung,’ the newspaper does not divulge by whom he was found—is that simply because they did not have the details at the time of print? Possibly. But there were no follow up reports with further details either in this newspaper or in The Sydney Monitor, which had also published at length on the discovery of Prudie’s remains the previous week; that in itself is odd, considering Prudie’s murder was branded ‘atrocious,’ the person/people responsible for discovering Prudie’s remains was something both The Sydney Herald and The Sydney Monitor considered significant enough to cover, and the police had been engaged in a manhunt not merely for any old violent criminal but their former colleague. Surely the identity of the person who discovered the body of the killer would have been newsworthy, yet The Sydney Herald opted for a passive sentence construction that excluded the agentive person, enabling them to successfully report on the murderer’s death without placing anyone else at the scene—why? For one thing, the absence of any other name in the final report on this case ensures the reader sees Joseph Kerr entirely alone and, thus, strongly persuades us to immediately conclude that he died by his own hand; it cleverly implies this even as it refrains from explicitly ruling Kerr’s death a suicide. Kerr ‘was found…in the bush’ by an unnamed person, already dead, having been ‘hung.’[32] But even if an innocent person came upon his body hanging from a tree in the bush, it does not rule out the possibility that a person other than Kerr took the law into their own hands and performed the hanging. However, in an era when murderers were legally executed in Parramatta by being hanged as close as possible to the place they committed their heinous crime, and given how the evidence was stacked against Joseph Kerr, there was presumably little reason for anyone to illegally execute Kerr without a trial.[33] The simplest explanation for the newspapers’ reticence to make a clear statement about suicide is probably the correct one: his death had likely not yet been the subject of a coronial inquest, so the newspaper could not state that it was suicide or cast doubt and implicate anyone else by placing them at the scene.

A crime of passion that became a murder-suicide does appear to have been the most likely ending to this sad story of two ex-convicts who had attempted to make a respectable life together far from their native Ulster. It is, at any rate, the more satisfying explanation, for in this version of events at least Joseph’s behaviour in the aftermath of Prudie’s death was driven by immense shame rather than a last-ditch effort at psychopathic self-preservation. His death at his own hands allowed his contemporary Parramattans as well as us to reinterpret what previously appeared to be his chillingly calm demeanour as he carried out the various stages of his plan; cramming Prudie’s poor dead body into that cask and sealing it up, concocting a plausible story about heading out to the country for work, and putting her in that tree stump. He was calm not because he was without remorse or thinking he was going to ‘get away with murder,’ but because he had already resigned himself to his own imminent death. Prudie would not become one with the bush on her own, because he was going to be there, too. In this scenario, he leaves her in the bush only to return the empty cart to John Hodges, and we may picture him returning to Prudie’s bushland resting place on horseback, selecting a tree and a sturdy branch nearby that will withstand his weight, placing a noose around his neck while on his horse, then giving its rump a good, hard slap—leaving him to make the quick drop. Thus, Joseph Kerr, former convict and former constable, becomes for us both the thief of life and the dispenser of justice, hanging himself near to the spot where he had disposed of his wife Prudie’s body, just as any murderer of his era deserved.[34]

No headstone marks the final resting place of Prudence Kerr, but her burial was registered in the parish of St. John’s, Parramatta on 3 September 1833, the day before Joseph’s body was discovered, so we know that she was decently interred.[35] Joseph’s name, by contrast, is notably absent. It may well be that he ended up in the custody of those medical gents behind Hodges’s Inn, after all.

If this essay has raised any personal issues for you please contact: Lifeline 13 11 14 for Australian residents, or a mental health service near you.

CITE THIS

Michaela Ann Cameron, “Dear Prudence,” St. John’s Online, (2020), https://stjohnsonline.org/bio/prudence-kerr, accessed [insert current date]

References

• Biographical Database of Australia (BDA) (https://www.bda-online.org.au/, 12 July 2020).
• Irish Convicts to New South Wales, 1788–1849, (http://members.pcug.org.au/~ppmay/cgi-bin/irish/irish.cgi, 2011), accessed 27 October 2020.
• Michaela Ann Cameron, “Brislington,” Dictionary of Sydney, (2014), https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/brislington, accessed 27 October 2020.
• Lennon-McCartney, “Dear Prudence,” The Beatles, aka The White Album, (Trident, London: Apple, 1968).
• New South Wales Government, Bound Manuscript Indents, 1788–1842, Series: 12188, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia).
• New South Wales Government, Copies of Letters Sent within the Colony, Series: 937, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia).
• New South Wales Government, “Dayton House,” New South Wales State Heritage Register, https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/heritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5045311, accessed 27 October 2020.
• New South Wales Government, Registers of Convicts’ Applications to Marry, Series: 12212, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia).
• New South Wales Government, Ticket of Leave Butts, 31 Mar 1827–20 Aug 1867, Series: 12202, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia).
• Parish Burial Registers, Textual Records, St. John’s Anglican Church, Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia.
• The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 – 1848).
• The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842).
• The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838).

NOTES

[1] Popular culture reference, “Dear Prudence, won’t you open up your eyes?” from Lennon-McCartney, “Dear Prudence,” The Beatles, aka The White Album, (Trident, London: Apple, 1968).

[2] Joseph Kerr and Prudence Lindesay were married by banns at Parramatta by John McGarvie in the presence of James Bradley and Jane McGillivray, both of Parramatta, but their marriage was registered at the Scots Presbyterian Church, Sydney. Biographical Database of Australia (BDA) (https://www.bda-online.org.au/), Marriage of Prudence LINDSAY (Person ID: T#34023018302) and Joseph KERR (Person ID: U#34023018301), accessed 27 October 2020. See also: New South Wales Government, Scots Church, Presbyterian, Sydney NSW: Church Register – Marriages, Reel: 5027; Vol. 73, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia).

[3] New South Wales Government, Registers of Convicts’ Applications to Marry, Series: 12212; Item: 4/4512; Page: 9, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia). For the details of Prudence Lindesay’s crime and trial, see New South Wales Government, Bound Manuscript Indents, 1788–1842, Series: 12188; Item: 4/4015; Microfiche: 674, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia).

[4] New South Wales Government, Bound Manuscript Indents, 1788–1842, Series: 12188; Item: 4/4015; Microfiche: 674, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia).

[5] New South Wales Government, Bound Manuscript Indents, 1788–1842, Series: 12188; Item: 4/4015; Microfiche: 674, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia). Prudence Lindesay aka Lindsey, Lindsay, was transported per Asia I (5) (1830). See also Irish Convicts to New South Wales, 1788–1849, (http://members.pcug.org.au/~ppmay/cgi-bin/irish/irish.cgi, 2011), PRUDENCE LINDESAY, http://members.pcug.org.au/~ppmay/cgi-bin/irish/irish.cgi?requestType=Search2&id=17020, accessed 27 October 2020.

[6] New South Wales Government, Bound Manuscript Indents, 1788–1842, Series: 12188; Item: 4/4007; Microfiche: 645, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia). See also Irish Convicts to New South Wales, 1788–1849, (http://members.pcug.org.au/~ppmay/cgi-bin/irish/irish.cgi, 2011), JOSEPH or JOHN KERR, http://members.pcug.org.au/~ppmay/cgi-bin/irish/irish.cgi?requestType=Search2&id=16039, accessed 27 October 2020.

[7] New South Wales Government, Copies of Letters Sent within the Colony, Series: 937; Reels: 6004–6016, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia).

[8] For evidence of his trade as a weaver see New South Wales Government, Bound Manuscript Indents, 1788–1842, Series: 12188; Item: 4/4007; Microfiche: 645, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia). Joseph Kerr’s surname was frequently misspelt ‘Carr,’ on the basis of its pronunciation, therefore he may have been the “Joseph Carr” working as a Parramatta constable as early as 1826, when ‘a constable’ named JOSEPH CARR ‘attached to No. 1 round house, on the Parramatta road, was ‘found drunk in the streets at a late hour at night [and] was recommended a three days’ walk on the tread mill, as a recipe for sobriety’: “Offences, Charges, & c.,” The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 – 1848), Saturday 15 April 1826, p. 3. Perhaps he lost his position as a result of this misdemeanour; if so, he was soon reappointed: “Government Notice. Colonial Secretary’s Office, 20^th December, 1827,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), Friday 21 December 1827, p. 1.

[9] New South Wales Government, Ticket of Leave Butts, 31 Mar 1827–20 Aug 1867, Series: 12202; Item: 4/4076; Reels: 909–965, 2688A, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia).

[10] “Government Notice: Colonial Secretary’s Office, Sydney, July 31^st, 1829,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), Saturday 1 August 1829, p. 1.

[11] “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2. Regarding John Hodges, his gambling win, and his inn, see Michaela Ann Cameron, “Brislington,” Dictionary of Sydney, (2014), https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/brislington, accessed 27 October 2020.

[12]  “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2.

[13]  “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2.

[14] Michaela Ann Cameron, “Brislington,” Dictionary of Sydney, (2014), https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/brislington, accessed 27 October 2020.

[15] See, for example, John Dunne, who was executed for the murder of Mary Rowe in 1811: New South Wales Government, Special Bundles, 1794–1825, Series: 898; Reels: 6020-6040, 6070; Fiche: 3260–3312; Pages: 233–4, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia); see also

Thomas Mahony and Pearce Conden, who were executed at Parramatta in 1813 having been convicted of murdering Joseph Sutton near, of all places, John Hodges’s Inn: “A little after four they were launched into eternity, and their bodies, when taken down, were…given for dissection.” “Execution,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842),Saturday 27 March 1813, p. 4. For more examples outside of Parramatta, see “Domestic Intelligence,” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Monday 14 May 1832, p. 3 and “Law Intelligence. Supreme Court (Criminal Side),” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Monday 28 May 1832, p. 3.

[16] “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2.

[17] For information about Bates’s Farm, see New South Wales Government, “Dayton House,” New South Wales State Heritage Register, https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/heritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5045311, accessed 27 October 2020. The heritage-listed property is thought to have been completed by the time of James Bates’s own death in November 1834, so it may well have already been standing at Bates’s Farm at the time of the August 1833 events outlined above.  “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2.

[18] “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2.

[19] “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2. This sentence also features another integration of lyrical content from Lennon-McCartney, “Dear Prudence,” The Beatles, aka The White Album, (Trident, London: Apple, 1968). “Dear Prudence, see the sunny skies / The wind is low, the birds will sing / That you are part of everything / Dear Prudence, won’t you open up your eyes?” The Sydney Herald providing a conflicting account of the body’s situation: “the body [was] wrapped up in a bed and blanket”: “Accidents, Offences, &c.: MURDER,” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Thursday 5 September 1833, p. 3.

[20] “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2.

[21] “Accidents, Offences, &c.: MURDER,” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Thursday 5 September 1833, p. 3.

[22] “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2.

[23] New South Wales Government, Bound Manuscript Indents, 1788–1842, Series: 12188; Item: 4/4015; Microfiche: 674, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia); “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2.

[24] “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2.

[25] “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2.

[26] “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2; “Accidents, Offences, &c.: MURDER,” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Thursday 5 September 1833, p. 3.

[27] “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2.

[28] “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2.

[29] “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2; “Accidents, Offences, &c.: MURDER,” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Thursday 5 September 1833, p. 3.

[30] “Atrocious Murder,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 4 September 1833, p. 2.

[31] “Accidents, Offences, &c.: MURDER,” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Thursday 5 September 1833, p. 3.

[32] “Accidents, Offences, &c.: MURDER,” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Thursday 5 September 1833, p. 3.

[33] The case of Thomas Mahony and Pearce Conden being hanged as close to where they murdered Joseph Sutton as possible, near Hodges’s Inn, is a prime example of this practice: “Execution,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842),Saturday 27 March 1813, p. 4.

[34] See for example “Execution,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842),Saturday 27 March 1813, p. 4. For more examples outside of Parramatta, see “Domestic Intelligence,” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Monday 14 May 1832, p. 3 and “Law Intelligence. Supreme Court (Criminal Side),” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Monday 28 May 1832, p. 3.

[35] “Burial of Prudence Carr [sic], 3 September 1833, Late Constable’s Wife,” Parish Burial Registers, Textual Records, St. John’s Anglican Church, Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia.

© Copyright 2020 Michaela Ann Cameron