Exhibition focuses on domestic violence murder that divided colonial Perth

Australia Broadcast Center

06-05-2025

In 1876, a wealthy pastoralist from a prominent colonial family shot and killed his 26-year-old wife at the family property near Geraldton, and was promptly arrested and put on trial in Perth.
There was never any doubt that 37-year-old Kenneth Brown had killed his wife Mary Ann, but such was his standing in the community that it took three trials, and three juries, before he was convicted and hanged for murder.
The case is the subject of a detailed exhibition at the Old Court House Law Museum in Perth, titled The Unfortunate Woman Versus Her Well-Respected Killer.
The exhibition invites reflection on what has — and has not — changed for women who experience violence from their partners over the past 150 years.
Old Court House Law Museum curator Megan Shaw said what made Kenneth Brown's case so important to discuss was his family's wealth and status among the elite.
"And traditionally morality and criminality were linked, so people really thought that breaking the law was for lower class people," she said.
"To have someone in the elite commit such a grave crime was really out of the ordinary and really surprised everyone.
"Mary Ann, his wife, was of a lower social station, she was actually from the eastern colonies, her father was a convict."
Megan Shaw has curated the exhibition at the Old Court House Law Museum.
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ABC News: Emma Wynne
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A tumultuous marriage
Mary Ann was Kenneth's second wife — his first wife Mary died in 1968, leaving four children.
In the years after his first wife's death, Kenneth's interests turned from pastoralism to horse racing and breeding and that's what led to him to Victoria, where he met Mary Ann Tindall around 1873.
"They had a child and then married afterwards, and then moved to New Zealand," Ms Shaw said.
"There was a lot of secrecy around the births of the children and when that happened … because of the time that it was as well."
A photograph of Kenneth Brown at the Old Court House Law Museum.
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ABC News: Emma Wynne
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She said evidence had emerged in recent years that Kenneth was violent towards his wife, and others, while in New Zealand.
In late 1875, the couple returned to Western Australia with their two young daughters, Rose and Amy, to live at the family property at Champion Bay.
"That's when his neighbours and people in his family noticed that there was a change in his disposition and that he is an alcoholic," Ms Shaw said.
"Then on January 3 in 1876 he shot and killed his wife after a minor argument in front of independent witnesses at the house where they were staying.
"He was then taken into custody."
The 'good bloke' provoked story
The trial was a sensation in Perth, which had a population of about 25,000 people at the time.
Only European men aged between 21 and 60, with a certain amount of wealth and property, were allowed to serve on juries.
Ms Shaw said the pool was small and loyalty to the Brown family ran high in certain circles.
An aerial view of Perth looking north from the town hall tower in the 1870s.
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Supplied: State Library of WA
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"The main argument of the defence was that he was provoked, and that he was insane and could not be held accountable for those crimes, and there should be clemency," she said.
"One of the main defence witnesses was the brother, Maitland Brown, who was a magistrate.
"He was a big person to go against, and the lawyer actually said, 'You know Maitland Brown, you would not say that he would commit perjury'.
"So there was so much pressure on these juries at the time.
"Their names were also published in the paper, everyone knew who they were."
To make out provocation, Ms Shaw said the defence told the court Mary Ann had provoked her husband by being too loud and not submissive enough.
Across the road from the court at the exclusive gentleman's club,
"Apparently there were people at the Weld Club saying that they would never say guilty," Ms Shaw said.
"It was really spoken about, and there was one newspaper which was written by ex-convicts, and they were really writing about how unjust this was, and if it was a man of a lower social class, the jury would have already made up their mind."
The Old Court House Law Museum, dating to 1836, is the oldest building in Perth city.
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ABC News: Emma Wynne
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The result was a jury that could not come to a unanimous verdict, which was required in the case of a capital crime.
Insanity defence
Ms Shaw said the defence leant harder into the insanity argument at the retrial.
An undated image of Archibald Paull Burt.
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"The mother, she went to the trial to say that her mother was insane, and that Kenneth Brown's insanity had to be hereditary," she said.
"She apparently never ever went out into society after that, because of the shame that it brought her."
The expert witness was a man who had spent time institutionalised in a lunatic asylum.
"He said he'd seen someone [in the asylum] who reminded him of Kenneth Brown, and that was evidence about his mental health," Ms Shaw said.
While no transcripts exist of the trial, the judge, Archibald Paull Burt, was keeping detailed handwritten records.
The museum still holds those record books.
"Reading Archibald Paull Burt's notes on it, the insanity argument was not really well argued, and it wasn't very convincing," Ms Shaw said.
"
It was pretty clear that Kenneth Brown only had an issue when he was drinking.
"
A third trial
Despite the insanity argument, the second jury could not reach a unanimous verdict either.
The chief justice was forced to look around for people to make up a third jury.
Photo shows
Portrait photographs believed to be of Audrey Jacob, c1920
Audrey Jacob shot her former fiancé in front of hundreds of witnesses. A few months later, a jury found her not guilty. How did she get away with it?
Ms Shaw said it seemed the jury eventually assembled was not of quite the same social status as Kenneth Brown.
"A lot of the jury list had been exhausted, so they had to find jurors," she said.
"He selected some people from around the courthouse to make up the jury, and it is noted in the newspapers on the third jury, the prisoners' [social] class was not represented, which was seen as quite unfair.
"That jury, after a very small time, deliberated and found him guilty, and he was executed a few days later on June 10."
Inspiring change
For most of Perth, it brought an end to a sensational trial that had made it as far as the east coast newspapers.
Kenneth and Mary Ann Brown's children were split up and sent to live with relatives.
His brother, Maitland Brown, resumed his place in the legislative council and in society.
But the case left a lasting mark on one person and set the course for the rest of her life.
Edith Brown married James Cowan, the registrar of the Supreme Court of Western Australia.
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Supplied: State Library of WA
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Edith Brown, one of Kenneth's daughters from his first marriage, was 15 when her father was hanged.
When she was 18 she married and took her husband's surname, becoming Edith Cowan.
"Her career was built on women's safety and women's rights and so [the case] did have one positive impact, which was her life and what she achieved," she said.
Edith Cowan, who has a university named after her and whose face adorns the $50 note, became the first woman ever to be elected to an Australian parliament when she was elected to the WA legislative assembly in 1921.
Some of her most passionate advocacy was for women's equality, including the right to vote and be admitted to the legal profession.
One of her campaigns was for endowment payments to mothers and daycare for working women, two radical ideas at the time that were intended to grant women a measure of financial independence.
Edith Cowan's face is on the $50 note.
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ABC News: Nick Haggarty
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In her step-mother Mary Ann's lifetime, leaving a violent marriage would have been a practical impossibility.
"It makes me sad to think about Mary Ann's possibility of survival within and outside of the marriage,"
Ms Shaw said.
"She was born in Victoria and then moved to Western Australia with her family, with Kenneth Brown. She had no connections here. She had two young children under four. One was a baby. She couldn't get any work."
To leave a marriage, a woman had to prove two of three grounds — cruelty, adultery or desertion.
If granted a judicial separation, she could receive alimony but no property, and only have custody of children until they were seven years old.
"We went through a lot of the matrimonial causes in the Supreme Court and read some cases," Ms Shaw said.
"Women who had sustained years of violence had to remain in marriages because the sanctity of marriage was, at the time, valued as the backbone of the community rather than the safety of the individual women in those situations."
The Unfortunate Woman v Her Well-Respected Killer is on display at the
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