James Yates

James Yates

In 1850, Adelaide was a small colony with very little to do once work had finished for the day. Gaol Executions, although distressing and grotesque, attracted large crowds of onlookers.
The execution day of James Yates was no different. On that day, the crowd grew to six hundred strong, despite the inclement weather.

Yates had been found guilty of murdering a Shepard at Skillagogee Creek. A fellow workman known locally as “The Sergeant” because of his past military service.

 Yates was found guilty of a brutal murder by way of repeated blows to the head.
He denied any wrongdoings in court, claiming loudly that he was innocent, and later that it was self-defence as the old Sergeant had been quite drunk and came at him first.

Yates hanging was a horrible one, with the knot of the noose getting caught behind his neck, and his constant struggling witnessed by the large crowd. He was eventually let down, and his body evaluated before being buried inside the stone walls of The Adelaide Gaol.



The following poem was written by condemned man, James Yates, this poetry, although badly written, was heartfelt and in appreciation of his lawyer, Mr G.M. Stephen, for his tireless, although unsuccessful, efforts to save him from the gallows.

If I had always refrained from drink 

and paid attenshion to the word of God 

I never would have had to have rued the day 

Or on the wretched scaffold to have trod

Since i have now come to this untimely end 

And in this world i found one onely friend 

Who tried his utmost for me to defend 

I hope God will reward him in the end

His honner the guge to me he has proved kind 

Nearley three weeks he has gave me to make up my mind 

For this wicked world to leave behind 

And in the next i hope soon my God to find

I was brought up by my tender parents 

Who always was to me so kind and free 

But little did they ever think 

That I should di on the gallows tree

James Yates