Alien Robinson

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Heather Stevens on 5th July 2022

The following is from Pamela Harrison, "The Life of Alexander Green Revisited: did he really hang 490 criminals in the colony of New South Wales?" in the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 103(2), 181–200  (2017): "Alien had arrived in Sydney on 22 December 1837, on board the convict transport "Henry Wellesley". She had been found guilty at the Old Bailey of stealing seven shillings ‘from the person’ of Thomas Glosser, and sentenced to seven years transportation. Convict indents showed her occupation was a laundress, although the trial proceedings suggest that she may have been a prostitute. Alien was a widow, aged 42, born in County Cork, and had two female children. According to the convict indents her sister, Caroline McCarthy, aged 16, was also on board the Henry Wellesley. Her daughter, Margaret, accompanied her, as will be seen later, although she is not mentioned in the records consulted. Alien was described as 4 feet 11 inches tall, with a brown and freckled complexion, brown hair and grey eyes." She was described as a 42-year-old widow when she married the hangman, Alexander Green (age 36, "Countess of Harcourt" 1824) at St James Church on 15 October 1838 [1838 1694 Vol.22]. "The application for her marriage to Green shows this was done with the consent of Mr Howell, the person to whom she was assigned. "Alien received her Certificate of Freedom, dated 15 April 1845, on which it was noted ‘Wife of Alexander Green per Countess of Harcourt free by servitude’. "On 6 September 1840, less than two years after his marriage, Green was arrested for assaulting his wife, and released on bail. He appeared before the Quarter Sessions on 23 November, but his wife refused to give evidence as ‘the prisoner had behaved well to her and her children, both previously and subsequently to the assault charged’. His stepdaughter, Margaret Robinson, also wished to decline to give evidence, but this was disallowed. According to newspaper accounts, Green gave his wife a pound before breakfast on the morning of the assault, most of which was spent on liquor. Later, Green, now intoxicated, called his wife upstairs and proceeded to beat her with a pot stick, and when he broke it he kicked her. His stepdaughter tried to intervene, calling him names including ‘an howdacious [sic] hangman’.The police were called and Inspector Ryan found the wife unconscious and arrested Green. When Green appeared at the Quarter Sessions on 23 November he defended himself by claiming 'it had been a drunken spree between himself and his wife’ and it was his step daughter calling him names that made him strike his wife. Green was sentenced to six months imprisonment in Sydney Gaol