Henry James O'Farrell
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Henry James O'Farrell aged 35 years and originally from Dublin in Ireland, is the first recorded man in Australia's history to attempt a political assassination, it is still claimed by some that he was a law clerk who had travelled from Ballarat 3350 to make the attempt.
O'Farrell was an alcoholic listed as a law clerk having briefly been employed by his brother a Melbourne solicitor with Messrs O'Farrell & Son who regularly advertised in The Star newspaper of Ballarat from premises on Doveton Street, Ballarat. His most recent occupation was as a produce merchant at Ballarat's Haymarket. Immediately before the attempt he had been released from a mental asylum.
In 1868, as part of a world tour, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh aged 23 years; the second son of Queen Victoria and fourth in line to the English throne, visited Australia. This was the first royal tour to Australia and included planned stops to Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney among many others.
On 12 March 1868, at the Sailor's Picnic, while the duke was picnicking in the beachfront suburb of Clontarf, Henry James O'Farrell fired a revolver into the Duke’s back. O'Farrell was only just saved from being lynched by a crowd that gathered.
The Prince was shot in the back just right of the spine, and thereafter tended for 2-weeks by six ladies who were Nurse Florence Nightingale trained nurses newly arrived in February 1868 under Matron Lucy OSBURN.
The attack caused great embarrassment in the colony led to a wave of anti-Irish sentiment, directed at all Irish people, including Protestant Loyalists. A day after the shooting, 20,000 Australians attended a meeting in response to “yesterday’s outrage”.
O'Farrell first claimed, falsely, to be under orders from the Fenian Brotherhood though he was violently anti-British and anti-Royalist, he denied being a Fenian [1].
The solicitor with the luckless task of attempting to defend him was Butler Cole Aspinall, an Englishman born 1830 and died 4 April 1875 in England; who had been one of the counsel who defended the leaders of the 3 Dec 1854 'Eureka Rebellion' that is usually known as Eureka Stockade, at Ballaarat in Victoria. The solicitor defended O'Farrell and used a defence strategy of innocence on the grounds of insanity: O’Farrell had recently been released from a mental asylum and had a history of mental illness.
However, despite Prince Alfred's attempts to intercede to save his would-be killer, and his questionable state of mind, O’Farrell was tried at Sydney on 30 March 1868 and hanged on 21 April 1868, less than two months after the shooting.
Prince Alfred soon recovered and was able to resume command of his ship and return home in early April, 1868. However the impact of the shooting is still felt today. On 24 March 1868 the Australian government in New South Wales voted for a memorial building to be erected. In order “to raise a permanent and substantial monument in testimony of the heartfelt gratitude of the community at the recovery of HRH” it will be a hospital called the Prince Alfred Hospital. At some stage correspondence reached Queen Victoria who then permitted the use of the term 'Royal' thus renaming the memorial building as The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital built using funds from a public conscription.
