Faces of Australia: Alexander Pearce

If you are an American and don’t know who Alferd Packer is or just have a vague memory of hearing this name before than you then have about the same historical memory that many Australians have of the notorious Alexander Pearce.  Packer was a member of a mining party who were caught in a blizzard while crossing Colorado’s San Juan Mountains.  The facts are unclear, but when the miners could not free themselves from the snow, Packer resorted to cannibalism by killing the other miners to survive.  Basically Alexander Pearce is Australia’s very own version of Alferd Packer, however I think can be made that Pearce is far worse.

Alferd Packer

Alexander Pearce was a small blue eyed Irishman that was originally sentenced to hang for stealing six pairs of shoes.  However, the sentenced was eventually reduced to a seventeen year sentence to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania).  A lot of people don’t realize that a sentence to Van Diemen’s Land did not mean you would actually spend time in prison there.  Instead the prisoners were sent to work apprenticeships for various industries on the island and were not kept in jails.  They in fact lived very normal lives as long as they did not break the rules.  The British believed by sending convicts to Australia they would remove the poor troublemaking underclass out of Britain while at the same time giving them job training.  The British also thought that by the time the convicts finished their sentences they may have married, started families, and owned land and not want to move back to the United Kingdom.  For the most part the British were right and this convict system proved to be an ingenious way to colonize Australia. 

Alexander Pearce played by actor Ciaran McMenamin 

Anyway Pearce’s apprenticeship on Van Diemen’s Land was to be a farmhand.  However, Pearce proved to not be a very good farmhand and repeatedly got in trouble.  The British typically punished convicts that broke the rules on Van Diemen’s Land with floggings before they would actually send them to prison.  So criminals that actually spent time in prison in Australia were truly the worst of the worst and that was what Pearce was.  The Hobart magistrates first tried floggings with Pearce, but in less then year after being transported to Australia, Pearce was sent to the notorious Macquarie Harbour Penal Settlement in August 1822.  The prison located on Sarah Island was thought to be escape proof due to its remote location in western Tasmania.  Convicts at the prison were forced to conduct hard labor, eat near starvation rations, and were flogged for the most minor offenses. 

Macquarie Harbour with the Frenchman’s Cap in the background.

Pearce lasted at the prison for only six weeks before he decided to escape with seven other prisoners.  The eight prisoners headed east through the thick bush country.  For the first week they marched through constant rain and sleet, which prevented them from starting a fire.  Two days later the group ran out of food and somebody came up with the idea of eating one of the group for food.  Pearce claimed that the two convicts Robert Greenhill and Matthew Travers are the ones that began the killing by smashing convict Alexander Dalton’s skull while he slept near the Franklin River.  Dalton was chosen because he had volunteered to be a flogger during his time at the prison.  After Dalton was killed he was chopped up and eaten by the group. 

Members of a team who trekked the footsteps of Alexander Pearce stand on the ruins of Macquarie Harbour Prison Settlement.

The group’s two oldest members, William Brown and William Kennerly feared that they could be next to be eaten, so they turned around and headed back to the prison.  These two convicts returned to Sarah Island 22 days after they had escaped.  Though they left the escapees because of their fear of being killed it didn’t matter because both died soon after returning to the prison due to exhaustion. 

The remaining escapees Pearce, Travers, Greenhill, Thomas Bodenham, and John Mather continued to head east to get to Hobart with the understanding that anyone who slept would be killed and eaten.  Bodenham was killed next near the Frenchman’s Cap.  Mather was the next to be killed while he slept near Mt. King William I.  This left Pearce, Travers, and Greenhill.  Travers and Greenhill were good friends and it appeared that Pearce would likely be the next to be eaten.  However, as fortune would have it for Pearce, Travers was bitten by a snake.  He was carried by Pearce and Greenhill for several days until his foot turned gangrenous and was killed while he slept.  This left Greenhill and Pearce to play a game chicken to see who would fall asleep first and killed.  This game went on for many days until Greenhill fell asleep first and Pearce killed him. 

Movie trailer of The Last Confession Of Alexander Pearce that was broadcast on ABC in January 2009.

All the suffering and killing would ultimately be for naught for Pearce because he was captured by colonial authorities 113 days after his escape when he alone made it to settled areas of Tasmania and pro
ceeded to rob the homes of farmers and their sheep.  Pearce had made it a total of 170 kilometers from the prison before his capture.  Pearce admitted to the authorities after his capture that he had eaten his fellow escapees, but the authorities did not believe him.  They thought Pearce was just trying to cover for his mates who were still on the lose.  Pearce was returned to the Sarah Island prison where he was sentenced for a total of seven years.  Pearce returned to the prison as a hero due to his exploits as an escaped convict. 

Instead of lying low and doing his time in the prison, Pearce decided to escape again.  This time he escaped with only one companion Thomas Cox who looked up to Pearce as a hero figure due to his prior exploits.  You have to wonder about the mental facualties of man willing wanting to escape with a convict known as Cannibal Pearce.  Especially since everyone else in the prison was smart enough to not attempt an escape with Pearce.  Anyway Cox’s fate was sealed when Pearce killed and ate him during their escape attempt.  Pearce eventually flagged down a passing boat but the captain searched Pearce and found a piece of human flesh in his pocket.  Pearce claimed that Cox had drowned, but now no one believed him and Pearce with ordered to be hanged.

Before being hanged Pearce was asked by a guard what had caused to him to want to eat another person?  Pearce replied that, “No man can tell what he will do when driven by hunger.”  He then concluded by informing the guard that, “Man’s flesh is delicious, far better than fish or pork.”  Pearce was hanged in Hobart on July 19, 1824 and no, no one ate him afterwards.