The Ormondville family massacre of 1884
Love, lunacy and liquor led to one of New Zealand’s most horrific mass murders, as Tommy Livingston reports.
IIn the corner of a country cemetery near the central North Island town of Ormondville stands a worn, washed-out white headstone. It sits alone, the only reminder of the dark days of February 1884 where a tragic tale of love and lunacy played out.
Back then, the silence which settled over the village each evening was disrupted by a loud bang.
Rowland Herbert Edwards, a father of four, was knocking on the door of two neighbours at 3am.
He asked for two things – a glass of water, and a gun to kill himself.
When his neighbours refused him both, Edwards vanished into the darkness.
The neighbours, two men named Plank and Pyke, tried to follow Edwards, but he disappeared.
Knowing his habit of drinking, the pair called on the nearby Constable Shultz in the next village for help.
They decided to visit Edwards’ house, where he, his wife and four children lived.
A newspaper report at the time said the men approached the home, allowing Constable Shultz to enter first.
‘‘The constable called Mrs Edwards, but got no answer, and afterwards went in. He immediately afterwards called out ‘Pyke and Plank, come over, there is something wrong’,’’ the report said.
The trio struck a match, which illuminated a gory scene.
Lying on one bed were the bodies of three children, Robert, 7, Ella, 5, and Arthur Edwards, 3, whose throats had been cut.
On the opposite bed lay Edwards’ wife, Mary Ann Edwards, 33, and their newborn, Maud, who had both suffered the same gruesome fate earlier in the evening.
The alarm was raised around the village and a manhunt started.
Edwards was found soon afterward, believed to be naked, hiding under a railway bridge.
He had tried to take his own life by slitting his throat, but had failed.
Newspapers at the time claimed the murders were ‘‘one of the most tragic crimes ever committed in the colony’’.
At his trial, it was revealed that previous to the murders, Edwards had been arrested twice on a charge of lunacy.
Each time he was released from prison, he was considered to be of sound mind – despite him trying to kill his wife multiple times.
During his stints in prison it was reported his wife often stayed with him to care for him.
Edwards and his wife had emigrated from England in 1872, settling in the Tararua village.
He worked on the railways, but was also sent money from home, which he often spent on booze.
Newspapers at the time claimed the murders to be the ‘‘one of the most tragical crimes ever committed in the colony’’.
‘‘One one occasion he put a keg of gunpowder under his wife’s bed and endeavoured to explode it, the poor woman shrieking in her agony and terror,’’ a newspaper reported at the time.
‘‘On several occasions he had presented a loaded gun at her with the intention of shooting her.’’
On the night before she was killed, Mary Edwards seemed to be in good spirits, despite her husband’s struggles, according to locals.
‘‘In her conversation she told a witness that her husband was not well,’’ a report read.
‘‘She said she had hid away his gun, and also the slashing hook, but that Edwards had found the latter again. Mrs Edwards was in good spirits and was laughing as she talked.’’
Following his arrest, Edwards explained he had killed his family because he heard a large crowd gathering outside his house.
He believed they were going to burn the house down, so he decided to bludgeon his wife and children with a piece of wood, before slitting their throats.
‘‘I had very little sleep for four nights before the murder. I was all right on Sunday morning, but towards evening I got strange fancies in my head,’’ he said at the time.
‘‘I fancied I heard a crowd of people onside threatening to burn me and my family alive.
‘‘I then got a piece of firewood and got it ready.’’
‘‘I could not stand to see them burnt alive.’’
On July 15, 1884, at the Napier prison, Edwards was hanged to death.
A few metres from the courtyard where hangings took place a small grave remains, with the initials R.H.E.
While his family rest beneath a white, worn headstone outside of Ormondville, Edwards is believed to be buried standing up under a slab of concrete in a prison yard.