Macquarie Monsters: Gruesome tale of convict cannibals

Ratbags & Roustabouts

Edward Broughton and Matthew McAvoy were executed in 1831 for being “illegally at large”. It seemed a harsh punishment for two runaways. But after their deaths, the truth would emerge of the crimes they had committed — which included murder and cannibalism.

In 1830, two escaped convicts stumbled out of the Tasmanian wilderness with an incredible tale of survival. But authorities were skeptical as to whether their story was true.

Edward Broughton and Matthew McAvoy were among five prisoners who had escaped from the hellish Macquarie Harbour penal station. But when the pair reached Hobart, they explained that their three companions hadn’t survived. They said two of the men had been left behind when they couldn’t swim across the Gordon River. The third, they claimed, had been killed by a tribe of Indigenous people.

But something about their story didn’t ring true for authorities, and the two men were held in gaol on a charge of being “illegally at large while under sentence of transportation” for months while they were encouraged to tell what really happened.

They became the only two men in Australia’s history to be executed for the sole crime of being illegally at large.

But their full confession as they faced the gallows — a story of mind games and paranoia, murder and cannibalism — would send chills throughout Van Diemen’s Land.

Hosted by Marion Langford. Follow on Instagram or check out the website at ratbagsandroustabouts.com. Do you know a story that the history books forgot? Let us know about it!