Alexander Pearce (1790 - 1824)[1] was known as an Irish penal convict in Tasmania who was hanged in Hobart in 1824, for murder and cannibalism.[1]
He originally was a farm labourer from County Fermanagh who was sentenced at Armagh in 1819 to penal transportation to Van Diemen's Land for "the theft of six pairs of shoes".[2] After committing various offences in Van Diemens Land, on 18 May 1822 he was advertised in the Hobart Town Gazette as an absconder with a 10-pound reward on his head. On his recapture he received a second sentence of transportation, and was sent to the new secondary penal establishment at Sarah Island, Macquarie Harbour.
Alexander Pearce gained a reputation as a bushranger who had escaped from the Macquarie Harbour Penal Settlement and is best known for cannibalising his fellow escapees while travelling through the West Coast of Tasmania.[1]
Transported to Sarah Island in 1822, he escaped with seven other convicts, Alexander Dalton, Thomas Bodenham, William Kennerly, Matthew Travers, Edward Brown, Robert Greenhill and John Mather. Kennerly and Brown later voluntarily gave themselves up and were taken back to the settlement, where they died from their privations at the prison's hospital, but the other six pressed on.[1]
Pearce was captured later near Hobart and in custody made a confession that he and the other men had cannibalised each other over a number of weeks, with Pearce being the last to survive. The Hobart magistrate believed this to be a fabrication and that the other men were still alive and living in the bush as bushrangers. Pearce was then sent back to Sarah Island.
Within a year Pearce again escaped, this time with Thomas Cox. This time he was found within ten days, but with some of the remains of Cox in his pockets, even though he still had other food available to him. This time he was taken back to Hobart and eventually hanged in the Town jail at 9am on July 19, 1824.[1]
Pearce was the subject of a song by Australian rock/folk band Weddings Parties Anything titled "A Tale They Won't Believe" as well as The Drones song titled "Words From The Executioner To Alexander Pearce".
In 2008 a spate of film productions regarding Pearce are being made. One is in post production of a horror/thriller called Dying Breed, featuring the entirely fictional descendants of Alexander Pearce.[3] Shot in Tasmania and Melbourne (including at the Pieman River on the West Coast of Tasmania), Dying Breed stars writer/actor, Leigh Whannell and Nathan Phillips.[3]
Despite references to the contrary in this film, the once-common suggestion that the Pieman River was named after Alexander Pearce is not correct. "The Pieman" was in fact Thomas Kent of Southampton, a pastry-cook who was transported to Van Diemen's Land in 1816. After a long series of offences in the colony, he was sent to the Macquarie Harbour penal settlement in 1822 but subsequently escaped, and was recaptured near the mouth of the river which now bears his nickname. [citation needed] The river has significant timber, mining and industrial heritage along its shores.
See The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce for details
The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce was a 2008 film. The film was shot on location in Tasmania and Sydney in April and May 2008. It was shown on RTE Ireland on 29 December 2008 and ABC1 Australia on 25 January 2009.