The black cap of death

His Honour Justice Henry Barnes Gresson placed a little black cap on his head on October 28, 1862, as he sat in the Supreme Court in Dunedin.
It was a fateful moment. Putting on the black cap meant someone was about to be sentenced to death, an odd tradition from England, supposedly from the Irish caip bháis or cap of death,
It was historic - the first (reported) murder trial and death sentence passed in Otago.
And the man was John Fratson - whose murder of Andrew Wilson, was considered one of the first in the colony.
Wilson, who was 25, had left Dunedin to look at some land near the Clutha district - after all, the possibility of land was why so many came to New Zealand.
But a short time later when his friend Richard Leary hadn’t heard from him in a while, he went looking.
He discovered that Andrew had been seen in the company of a John Fratson who lived in a hut near the river. Richard returned to Dunedin and told the police who went to look for Fratson.
They found him trying to make his getaway. He, his wife and two children were on the ship Gothenburg, about to sail for Melbourne.
But initially no one knew where Andrew was. The winter of 1862 was unusually severe. And the Molyneaux River was very low. It took some time but Andrew’s body was eventually found with his head smashed in and an axe, found to be Fratson’s, was found with the body.
The theory was that Fratson had invited Andrew into his home but then murdered him,
No newspaper report mentions why Fratson committed murder but it was clear he and his family - a wife and child - were living in extreme poverty, while Andrew had at least enough wealth to buy some land.
The inquest found that Fratson should stand charges and the trial took place quickly.
As Fratson’s wife and child sat in the back of the court, the jury took very little time to find him guilty.
And Justice Gresson sentenced him to death almost immediately as Fratson sobbed.
It must have been quite the moment for Gresson, who had been born on January 31, 1908, in County Meath, Ireland.
He became a lawyer there then emigrated with his family in 1854, landing in Nelson and taking an overland track to Canterbury. For a time he was a prosecutor but was appointed a judge in 1857 and became the presiding judge for the South Island.
That would have meant the trial of Fratson would likely have been the first murder in the area and the first time Gresson had put on the little black cap and ordered an execution.
He later gave up the post of judge when Parliament decided the Minister of Justice could order judges to move to different courts. He turned to farming.
Gresson had married Anne Beatty in 1845 and they had two girls and a boy. Gresson died on January 31, 1901 - his birthday - and is buried in the St Barnabas Anglican Cemetery in Canterbury.
Fratson however is not listed among those executed in New Zealand after his sentence was commuted to a life sentence in December 1862 following a petition to overturn his death sentence.
Photo from The Press.​