Stephen Lacey

51

Chris Ison on 11th December 2024

On Tuesday afternoon, five convicts named Williams, Haynes, Stevens, Campbell, and Lacey, working in a quarry gang at Fremantle, made their escape, which, we understand, was not discovered for nearly an hour afterwards, which left little chance of their being recaptured that night. On the following day it was found they had made their way over the hills to the Canning, on coming to which they waded in the water alongside the shore into Melville Water and round that till they got to Point Walter where they found a gig with four oars in her moored in the canal, this they took and were afterwards seen by a fisherman pulling rapidly down the river, and after landing at North Fremantle, where they obtained a water beaker belonging to the gang employed there, they no doubt went over the bar. The men are convicts of the most desperate character; Williams, was one of the convicts concerned in the seizure of the Lady Franklin on her voyage from Norfolk Island to Hobart Town, and Haynes, was also, we believe, for many months at a time in the bush with the natives in the other colonies, and are both most determined men, but all are equally desperate and will stick at nothing. (Perth Gazette 28 Jan 1859, p. 2.) Recapture of the Escaped Convicts. THE schooner Les trois Amis arrived on Tuesday last from Sharks Bay with the Water Police and four out of the five escaped convicts. … On the 14th, when going down the channel between Dirk Hartog's Island and the main, a fire was observed in the same place as where the convicts were first discovered, and on the Police proceeding there four of the fugitives were found, reduced to submission by starvation, and quietly gave themselves up. … (Perth Gazette 4 Mar 1859, p. 2.) … We have some farther information respecting the captured convicts, one of whom has revealed the particulars as to the death of the missing man Lacey, who in the first instance was stated to have died from diarrhoea. As was suspected, from certain expressions let drop during their passage from Shark's Bay to Fremantle, the death resulted from violence on the part of his fellow-absconders. … (Sydney Morning Herald 19 May 1859, p. 3.) [John Williams was ultimately tried and found guilty of murdering Stephen Lacey at Shark Bay. CHRIS ISON]