Ceduna. Marble headstone in the cemetery of Maria Moody who died in 1917. : 無料・フリー素材/写真
Ceduna. Marble headstone in the cemetery of Maria Moody who died in 1917. / denisbin
| ライセンス | クリエイティブ・コモンズ 表示-改変禁止 2.1 |
|---|---|
| 説明 | Ceduna cemetery. All towns need a cemetery as did Ceduna but the earliest burials in the district were at the Denial Bay Lutheran Church from the mid-1890s. The earliest burial I saw as in 1903. Some interesting ones to look out for with old headstones are Bernard Dowling of Walkerville waged 25 years who fell from a horse. Another is the graves of some children one of the early pioneers, Dorothy and Geoffrey Mudge who both died ten days apart in 1945 as infants. They probably contracted typhoid or some other terrible childhood disease. I also noted a couple of graves with the headstones written only in Greek. They undoubtedly came from Thevenard which still has a Greek Orthodox Church. On the western side is a Commonwealth War Graves section for military personnel. The main gates to the cemetery are a memorial to Mary Hattam. Nine year old Mary was raped and murdered in the summer of 1958. Her body was found in a cave near Ceduna. On the morning of her funeral and burial in Ceduna cemetery Maxwell Stuart, a travelling Aboriginal man was arrested for her murder. He was forced to sign a confession and his story began a national news frenzy and eventually the abolition of the death penalty in South Australia. The white community of South Australia was against Maxwell Stuart and a taxi driver testified he drove Stuart at the murder scene and footprints at the murder site were identified as those of Stuart. No forensic evidence was presented and Stuart’s alibi was not even checked by the police. Stuart was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged despite two appeals to this sentence. In his final days on death row Stuart confessed to a Catholic priest that his confession was forced and untrue. His confession was written in perfect English not the Pidgin English that Stuart spoke. The Murdoch press in Adelaide picked up the story and financed research into the case and spoke to people who were part of the travelling circus that Stuart worked for when it was in Queensland. Newspaper articles refuted the contrived evidence and testimonies presented in the court case. Pressure was put on Premier Sir Thomas Playford to commute the death sentence and abolish it. Playford called for a Royal Commission in 1959 into Mary Hattam’s death. The Royal Commissioner was criticised by several judges as not being fair in his review. Playford tried to sue the Adelaide News (paper) and Rupert Murdoch for libel. Playford finally had the Stuart sentenced commuted to life imprisonment despite the Royal Commission upholding the death penalty. After eleven years in prison Maxwell Stuart was released on parole and returned to his Arrernte country at Alice Springs. He was a respected man in Alice Springs and even met Queen Elizabeth on one of her trips to Alice Springs. The death penalty in South Australia was not abolished until 1976 and the last hanging was in 1964. Mary Hattam’s grave is to the left of the memorial gates, which were paid for by public subscription, and four rows into the cemetery. |
| 撮影日 | 2023-08-23 16:52:04 |
| 撮影者 | denisbin |
| タグ | |
| 撮影地 | |
| カメラ | DSC-HX90V , SONY |
| 露出 | 0.003 sec (1/320) |
| 開放F値 | f/5.0 |