Captured: Portraits of Crime 1870-1930 - Flipbook - Page 89
1914
GRAFTON
GAO L
I D I D N ’ T K N OW
I T WA S A C R I M E
Wa l t e r S w a f f i e l d
I N D E C E N T A S S A U LT
Walter Swaffield, a 16 year old labourer from England, was photographed at Grafton
Gaol on 12 May 1914 while serving a sentence of nine months hard labour for indecent
assault on a male person.
Swaffield had only recently arrived in Australia as part of the Dreadnought
Scheme, which aimed to bring out British boys of ‘good character’ aged between 16 and
19 years for agricultural experience on training farms. Swaffield was sent to the
Glenn Innes Experiment Farm on 29 November 1913 as an apprentice. There were no
complaints about his work in the six weeks he was there except that he did carry a
firearm. The assault happened on the night of 9 January 1914 on another youth,
Russell Canham, and was witnessed by several other apprentices.
The farm manager, Richard Henn-Gennys, held an inquiry the following day and
both boys were expelled. Henn-Gennys took the boys to Sydney, but it was another month
before the incident was brought to the attention of police. Swaffield was arrested,
brought back to Glenn Innes and charged with an ‘abominable offence against
nature’— buggery. Swaffield then spent three months in Armidale Gaol waiting for his
trial. This took place in the Supreme Court, which sat in Armidale on 15 April. As
Swaffield had pleaded guilty, the charge was reduced to indecent assault on another
male person. A warrant for the arrest of Canham was issued but the youth could not be
located. In Court, Swaffield remained quiet and only said that he “did not know it was
a crime”. In sentencing Swaffield to nine months hard labour, Judge Cullen hoped the
boy “might redeem the disgrace he had brought upon himself, the institution he was
connected with, and his parents and friends”.
Walter Swaffield does not appear again in the NSW Gaol Photographic Description
Books, 1870-1930. It appears Swaffield stayed in NSW, working as a municipal employee
before returning to England in March 1925. He then seems to have travelled to Canada,
once again on a government farm worker scheme.
89
