Clair Scrine

L I M I N A
‘More Deadly than the Male’
The Sexual Politics of Female Poisoning:
Trials of the Thallium Women

Clair Scrine

In September 1952, 30 year old Yvonne Gladys Fletcher of Newtown, New

South Wales, stood trial before Justice Kinsella at Sydney’s Central Criminal
Court for the murder by poison of her first husband, Desmond George
Butler. Popularised through Sydney newspapers this story was a gruesome
tale of not one but two husbands’ deaths at the hands of a woman presented
as deceitful, treacherous, and self-serving. Yet within 12 months Fletcher’s
trial was only one of a succession that saw six women charged with
poisoning various family members. Common to all the crimes was a
household commodity – the rodenticide ‘Thall-rat’, a thallium-based product
common to many 1950s suburban homes. These women and their crimes
captured the imagination of the press and public and it is the way they
were represented by both the law and print media that forms the subject
matter of this paper.

Examining female crime reveals numerous anxieties that are deeply

linked to gendered expectations about women’s familial role, the
marriage contract, and patriarchal authority. Female poisoners
present a particularly interesting focus on female offenders because
most of their victims are intimates – husbands, children, or other
family members. The wife or mother who poisons highlights the
instability of women’s docility and subservience to certain domestic
ideals general ly seen as ensuri ng women’s confinement and
subordination. The threat and danger such women pose lies in the
power they can wield through the inversion of their assigned roles
and their ability to deceive. In fact, the deceitful nature of poisoning
is said to account for its ‘feminine coding’. In 1950 American

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criminologist Otto Pollak in his text The Criminality of Women,
considered one of the most influential studies on women and crime
in the postwar era, argued all women were physiologically deceitful.
He claimed conceali ng menstruation, the ‘pretence of sexual
response’ during intercourse, and misrepresenting sex to her
children, shaped a woman’s character. 1 Pollak attributed women’s
propensity for poisoning, and their greater success at concealing
their criminal activities, to this natural deceit.2
Such deep-seated myths and beliefs about women’s poisoning
have a long historical legacy that reveal a range of misogynist views.3
In examining the cases of ‘the thallium women’ this paper seeks to
show the way such notions manifest themselves in the treatment
and perception of women accused of such crimes. Exploring these
trials involves analysing their representation in the contemporary
print media and institutions of the criminal justice system, both of
which constructed a particular perception of these women and their
alleged crimes.
Representations of criminal women are embedded in a cultural
frame informed by values and expectations of the dominant social
order. The stories of the thallium women presented to the courts
and then popularised through the press were constructed in
reference to particular expectations and ideals for women that
permeated 1950s society. Historians have described the immediate
postwar era, and the 1950s in particular, as marking a return to
repressive conservative values where women had second class
status. 4 Men were especially threatened by the upheavals of the war
years that saw change to traditional gender patterns. Women’s active
participation in the war effort brought many new freedoms and
opportunities. The need to re-establish social, political, and economic
stability in the postwar period manifested itself in the promotion of
conservative ideas concerning relations between the sexes and their
roles. Dominant familial ideology advocated a return to ‘traditional
family values’ which essentially meant a return to pre-war patterns
of men as the breadwinners and women as ideal mothers and wives.
This paper is concerned with illustrating the way such dominant
gender norms constituted the ‘filter ’ through which female crime
and the female ‘deviant’ were interpreted, represented, and thus
understood. Ultimately, the images and stories of the thalli um
women demonstrate the way the gendered social order of the early
1950s worked to maintain itself and, in particular, how institutions
such as the media and law were crucial to that process.
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Thallium was discovered in 1861 by chemist William Crookes
and was originally prescribed as a depilatory in dermatological
practice. The abundance of acute toxic symptoms led to its eventual
abandonment.5 In the twentieth century it resurfaced as a treatment
for ringworm in the form of thallium acetate, although it became
restricted after the deaths of 13 children in Spain in 1930. In Australia
it was still used predominantly for the treatment of ringworm until
the mid-1940s, after which it was mainly utilised as a pesticide. 6 In
New South Wales, thallium was available in liquid form in ‘Thall-
rat’. At a time when rats were increasingly a problem for many inner
city suburban and rural households, the commercial availability and
cheapness of this rodenticide meant it was a common domestic item.
Indeed, a witness at one of the trials, a hardware salesman at Nock
and Kirby’s Ltd., claimed that his store in George Street, Sydney,
sold on average three dozen bottles of ‘Thall-rat’ per week.7
Most of the women involved in the thallium cases resided in
suburbs around metropolitan Sydney. Yvonne Gladys Fletcher,
Australia’s first thallium poisoning suspect, lived in Newtown.
Caroline Grills, the accused in perhaps Australia’s most infamous
poisoning case and suspected of poisoning over 11 members of her
family, resided in Gladesville. Mabel Monty, certainly the most
scandalous of the thallium cases, lived with her daughter and son-
in-law in Ryde, while Beryl Hague resided in Leichardt. Aileen Smith
and Ruby Norton both lived on rural properties battling the problem
of rats, the former in the Bathurst area, the latter in the northern
New South Wales town of Maclean. While ‘Thall-rat’ was deemed a
useful and effective solution to rats, a spate of poisonings and
homicides quickly saw it assuming menacing proportions as a
‘diabolical and inhumane weapon’ which had come to ‘supplant
arsenic, strychnine and cyanide as the most widely-used poison
murder weapon in New South Wales’.8
It was in September 1952, when Australia’s first thallium murder
trial took place, that the alarm was raised about this poison. Through
the trial of Yvonne Gladys Fletcher, forensic experts and medical
authorities were alerted to the ease with which thallium could be
obtained and administered, and the extremely debilitating effects
of this toxic substance. A dose of one gram was considered sufficient
to cause death within two to 14 days, with the most striking
symptoms including loss of hair, pain in the abdomen, back and
legs, extreme tenderness of the soles of the feet, loss of vision, and
periods of lethargy, delirium and depression.9 Newspapers were
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particularly fascinated by thallium’s lethal qualities. In somewhat
hyperbolic tones, the Sydney Morning Herald reported ‘a piece of
thallium the size of a headache tablet is sufficient to kill five people’.10
However, the revelation of another thallium murder case sent the
papers into a frenzy. The substance became notorious not simply
for its deadly properties, but for its connection to women and
murder.
In October 1952 50 year old Ruby Norton stood trial charged
with the murder by thallium poisoning of her daughter ’s fiancé,
Allen Williams, who died in Cowra hospital in July of that year.
Fletcher ’s case was said to have provided Norton with the idea of
how she could rid herself of an unwanted son-in-law. Norton’s other
son-in-law testified that she showed great interest in the Fletcher
trial when he read it to her. At her initial questioning by police,
Norton is said to have admitted finding a bottle of poison in the
house, claiming ‘it was the same as that stuff that woman used in
Sydney, the one that murdered her two husbands with rat poison,
wasn’t she a terrible person’.11
Together these two cases were represented in both the court and
the media as women exacting their revenge against the men in their
lives. Norton’s trial generated great interest within the towns of
Noonbinna (Norton’s residence) and Bathurst, with the two local
newspapers devoting large amounts of coverage to this drama.12
The prosecution portrayed Norton as a woman who despised all
the men in her family and publicly declared her intentions to rid
herself of them, yet the case against her was dependent on gossip
and hearsay. Various witnesses, including other family members,
provided evidence of supposed incrimi nating conversations.
Norton’s sister stated that one evening after a fight with Williams,
Norton turned up at her house asking for poison to give to him. ‘I
told her she would hang if she did and she said, “I’ll give it to him
in a way I won’t hang for”.’13 Norton’s neighbour, Mrs Muriel
Bridgett Hackett, who also admitted to sending a letter around the
town which contained malicious gossip about Norton and her
daughter, testified that on her inquiring into Williams’ health,
Norton had stated, ‘the doctors have given up all hope of him, I’ll
get rid of him’.14 The prosecution alleged Norton had poisoned
Williams’ food, in particular, a bacon pie she had cooked for him
not long before the start of his physical decline. Norton and her
daughter denied such statements and claimed Williams had bought
‘Thall-rat’ to get rid of the rats in his car. Norton declared at her
trial: ‘I am innocent of this terrible crime. I have been arrested and
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tried as a result of wicked gossip. ... Allen was a wonderful chap
and I loved him very much’. 15
Both Fletcher and Norton’s trials highlighted the widespread
availability of thallium and the fact that it escaped detection by its
victims and physicians. It appeared women could literally ‘get away
with murder ’ and the call was made for greater thallium regulation.
Despite fierce opposition from the manufacturers of ‘Thall-rat’, by
September 1953 the NSW Poisons Act was extended to include the
banning of all thallium to anyone under 18 years of age. Other
provisions included restricting all sales to one bottle per customer,
and that the customer must be known to the retailer unless in the
presence of a witness known to both retailer and purchaser, all of
whom had to sign a ‘ poisons book’. Such measures proved
inadequate and the Truth took great delight in ri diculing and
exposing their ineffectiveness by reporting the story of a young girl
they sent out who successfully purchased a large quantity of the
product. 16 By November an inclusive Poisons Act, the Therapeutic
Substances Bill, was passed unifying standards among all states so
that the sale of thallium was effectively banned.
Despite regulation, by the time the trials of Veronica Mabel Monty
and Caroline Grills came to Sydney’s Central Criminal Court in late
1953 Australia was in the grip of a thallium panic. Along with these
trials, a spate of suicides and accidental poisonings attributed to
thallium were said to account for up to 55 casualties and 10 deaths.17
Reporting on this craze, the Sydney Morning Herald claimed thallium
was ‘acquiring a certain unhealthy popularity as an instrument for
both murder and suicide’.18 The trials of Monty and Grills further
entrenched in the minds of the reading public the association
between women and thallium poisoning. The manner in which the
papers constantly referred to those previousl y accused in the
repor ting of each new case also directly contributed to the
‘serialisation’ of these women and their crimes. In fact, much of the
frenzy surrounding the thallium women owed a great deal to the
print media, which used them for public titillation and fantasy. The
way in which the thallium stories were presented heightened their
sensational quality and the mystery surrounding those involved.
Particular representations served to satisfy the desires of the reading
public, yet, at a more implicit level, they can also be seen as having
a significant impact in codifying and reinforcing certain portrayals
of these women.
The heavily publicised trial of Caroline Grills in October 1953
fascinated the reading public not only because of its thallium
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connections, but also due to the extent of the allegations. The
preoccupation with this case was especially true of women, who
flocked to the trial daily to hear the details of an entire family ‘whose
close bonds since before the turn of the century had been a thing at
which to marvel’. Yet this family had been ‘torn asunder ’ as its
members were methodically ‘wiped out’, supposedly by Grills.19
Although Grills was only being tried for the attempted murder of
her sister-in-law, Mrs Eveline Lundberg, the prosecution were
permitted to use evidence regarding the suspicious deaths of all
her family members, effectively contributing to the image of Grills
as serial killer. The prosecution alleged that, since 1946, Grills had
slowly poisoned Mrs Christina Mickelson, her 84 year old sister-in-
law, and Mrs Angelina Thomas, aged 87, a close friend of Grills’
mother. Both bodies were later exhumed to reveal lethal quantities
of thallium. Grills was also accused of attempting to poison her
brother ’s second wife, Mrs Mary Ann Mickelson, and another 11
members of her immediate family. 20
The papers took great delight in reporting the trial of ‘Aunt
Carrie’, as Grills became known, particularly her more extroverted
actions in court. Descriptions of her laughter, smiles and waves
towards members of the gallery were commonplace. The Truth
described Grills as ‘completely self-possessed, smiling and waving
at the intervals to women who jostled for seats in the back of the
courts’, and suggested, ‘she has enjoyed her forays and skirmishes
with the eager cameraman’ . 21 Once when Gr ill s reached the
courtroom, leaving a trail of rueful photographers outside, she was
said to have laughed and declared the trial ‘the fun of the world’. 22
While initially such portrayals painted Grills as a quaint and curious
character, eventually they worked to effectively establish the notion
of her as a malevolent thrill killer. The papers began to report on
the way Grills did not shy away from questions that were quite
obviously designed to imply her guilt. Asked if she knew of the
product ‘Thall-rat’, Grill s was quoted as giving it a glowing
endorsement, admitting she had in fact given bottles of it to two of
her victims.23 Similarly indicting were stories about Grills being
renowned for predicting the deaths of various family members,
whom she was later accused of killing. Grills was reported as taking
great delight in her predictions, attributing her success to the power
of her ‘intuitions’. 24 By the end of the trial, some five months after
Grills had hit the headlines, it seems the prosecution’s portrayal of
her as a cold and calculated poisoner won out, as reflected by the
newspapers’ more sinister depictions. In reporting the verdict, the
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media emphasised her complete absence of concern or emotion at
the guilty finding. She simply ‘drummed her fingers on a rail in the
dock ... [and] was otherwise apparently unmoved’.25 After a record
jury deliberation of only 12 minutes, Grills was pronounced guilty.
She spent her remaining days in Long Bay Gaol, where she became
renowned for dispensing motherly advice, singing softly to herself
and embroidering hankies.26
The tr ial of Veronica Mabel Monty was al so a par ticular ly
poignant example of the sensationalism the papers ascribed to the
thallium women. The trial took place in November 1953 and had
daily front-page coverage in both the Truth and the Sydney Morning
Herald. The sense of sensationalism and scandal attributed to this
story arose not only because Monty was accused of poisoning
handsome young Australian football hero, Robert (Bob) Lulham,
but equally because of the revelation of a sexual relationship between
this newly-married man and Monty, his mother-in-law. Having
separated from her husband, Veronica Monty moved in with her
daughter and Lulham in late 1952. In her defence, Monty claimed
she was very depressed at her circumstances and felt suicidal. 27 She
told police she purchased ‘Thall-rat’ ‘on impulse’ with the intention
of poisoning herself, which was how the thallium came to be in a
cup of Milo Lulham received. Monty stated that it was her usual
routine to make herself, Lulham, and her daughter a nightly cup,
and claimed that, on that particular night, ‘I must have picked up
the wrong cup. I really thought I was going to get the poison’.28
Lulham became very sick, to the puzzlement of his physicians. It
was only through anonymous calls to the police and his doctor made,
it was later revealed, by Monty, that Lulham’s symptoms were
identified as that of thallium poisoning. Monty also sent imitation
hate mail implying the poison was part of a vendetta against Lulham
which she later claimed was merely designed to divert attention
from herself.
The prosecution based thei r case against Monty on th e
relationship between her and Lulham. The Crown Prosecutor, Mr
Charles Rooney, claimed it was her ‘incestuous passion’ that led to
Lulham’s poisoning, and was the motive for wishing her son-in-
law dead. 29 Rooney sought to portray Monty as manipulative,
sexually devouring, desperate and entirely responsible for the sexual
relations with her son-in-law. Questions directed at Bob Lulham
during the trial continually sought to emphasise Monty’s seduction
of him, typically focusing on how she dressed and behaved. In
outlining the prosecution’s case, Rooney stated that the evidence
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‘demonstrated beyond all doubt that a most infamous and unnatural
relationship of sexual nature existed between the pair ’, declaring it
‘a disgraceful episode’ in which ‘the guilty pair polluted the marital
bed’ and where ‘obviously the male party was the pursued’.30
The newspapers also focused on the sexual details of this case
that acquired colossal proportions because of these ‘scandalous’
revelations. With headlines such as ‘Lulham tells of Petting’ and
‘Lulham - a little familiar with Mrs Monty’, both the Truth and the
Sydney Morning Herald deliberately emphasised the more sordid
aspects of the case.31 Such was the nature of their representation
that Monty’s solicitor wrote to the Attorney General, accusing the
papers of simply further gratifying ‘the sensual desires of those who
enjoy publishing and reading pornographic matter ’. 32 Despite
Lulham’s acquiescence, Monty was always the one portrayed as
responsible for the affair. The Truth claimed her ‘connubial feelings’
towards Lulham were a classic case of ‘mother-in-law syndrome’.33
It seems the reading public revelled in the opportunity to gaze
into the domestic life of a man they regarded as the ‘average
Australian bloke ’, ye t whose m arital proble ms and sexual
indiscretions presented a very different picture to the expected
domestic scene. Women seemed fascinated by the Monty trial and
many took a particular ly active i nterest in the case. It was
reported that
[a]t each day’s hear ing a crowd of women
bustled into the small courtroom as soon as the
doors opened, cut lunches in their string bags,
ready to listen to the details of Lulham’s
domestic attachments. Many were respectable
suburban housewives. Others came from the
glamour ranks.34
The Monty case certainly made a mockery of dominant values and
domestic ideals of the 1950s, and this aspect seemed to attract the
interest of many women. In fact, this accounts for much of the appeal
and fascination of all the thallium cases. Despite the entrenched
familial ideology that portrayed life for women as ‘domestic bliss’
in the 1950s, many Australian women experienced a very different
reality. In her study of housewives and mental illness in the 1950s,
psychologist Carol Warren argues that women lacked the legitimate
means through which to articulate their grievances. 35 She claims
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women were isolated not only in their suburbs and homes, but also
by their sense of alienation from societal expectations of their
primary role. 36 Widespread dissatisfaction amongst suburban
women in the 1950s was identified as ‘the problem that has no name’
in Betty Friedan’s ground-breaking work, The Feminine Mystique.37
In this respect the thallium trials provided a rare opportunity for
women to he ar these discontents and frustrations publi cly
expressed. The extent to which the thallium women challenged or
subverted the dominant rhetoric was also undoubtedly equally
important in accounting for women’s attraction to the cases.
Certai nly it was these aspects which structured the media’s
representation of the thallium women and contributed to their
‘deviant’ image.
Examining the representation of the thallium women by various
prosecutors suggests it was more the nature of the crimes, rather
than the actual crimes for which they were accused, that directed
the portrayals. A wealth of imagery and myth was utilised that
sought to relate these women and their alleged crimes to classic
images of woman’s deceit and the pe rception of the femal e
poisoner ’s treachery. Thi s effectively reduced the women to
archetypal notions that dismissed the need to explore the particular
circumstances surrounding each case. In effect, it reduced them to
the ‘fact’ that they were simply cold and calculated poisoners.
Such deliberate ploys were apparent in the work of Senior Crown
Prosecutor Charles Rooney who was present at the trials of Fletcher,
Norton, Monty, and Grills. In continually invoking potent imagery
and ideas about female poisoning, Rooney situated these women
in a credible system of meaning. In the case of Grills he utilised
notions of the poisoner ’s deceit and disguise in order to overcome
the incredulity of the serial killer tag being accorded to this ‘dear
old woman’. 38 In the absence of any clear motive he simply asked,
‘who can look into the mind of a poisoner?’39 Through recourse to
such well-established conventions and historical associations he
reduced the character of Grills to that of a type. He stated that
classical cases show that poisoners poison for
the thrill they get from watching the effect of
the poison and knowing that they alone in the
world know what is causing the symptoms. …
[T]he ordinary murderer kills in a white heat of
passion, the poisoner plots and plots, wins the
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confidence of their victim, admini sters the
poison, then watches its effect over days, weeks,
months or even years.40
The case built up against Ruby Norton also sought to portray
her as a cold-blooded, spiteful, and malicious character. Rooney
stated Norton was typical in that ‘poisoners work by stealth and
there is never an eyewitness. ... [B]y the cold blooded nature of the
offence, they make no direct admissions’. 41 He claimed that
it is difficult to think of an act containing more
hatred and malice. ... [I]t was done with wilful,
deliberate malice and a desire to hurt and injure,
and could only be done by a person possessing
malice to the last degree.42
In 1955, at the inquest of Aileen Smith who was charged with
murdering her husband with thallium, the police prosecutor argued
that although many had claimed she always acted lovingly towards
her husband, ‘[o]ne of the characteristics of poisoners ... is that they
have ki ndl y and he l pful ways and have hi ther to be en of
unimpeachable character ’.43 Again, at Smith’s trial, the Crown
Prosecutor, Mr Reynolds, acknowledged the evidence he was
presenting was highly circumstantial but claimed this was inevitable
because ‘the poisoner was a person who acted in secret and in
the dark’.44
As with their ‘historical counterparts’, notions of ‘domestic
treachery’ underlay the stories of the thallium women. All the
accused used the term ‘domestic duties’ to describe their occupation.
Yet the juxtaposition of their domesticity with these crimes simply
contributed to the sense of treachery and deceit surrounding these
women. Through their representation in both court and the media
the thallium women’s identities as primary care-givers were given
an element of suspicion and threat. The young wife, the dear old
aunty, and the m other -i n-l aw assumed monstrous and
menacing qualities.
In the case against Grills, Justice Brereton stated her treachery
was made all the more sinister because it came in the pretence of a
caring aunt: ‘under the guise of friendship and loving kindness but
with apparently motiveless malignity, you administered poison’.45
Similarly, at Fletcher ’s trial Justice Kinsella declared that
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the crime of murder is a terrible one, and when
the killing is by means of an insidious poison,
secretly administered within the family circle to
an unsuspecting victim, which destroyed him
mentally and physically while permitting him
to linger for months in wretched agony then the
crime is a horrible one. 46
The fact that women in the 1950s could buy ‘Thall-rat’ openly at the
grocery store under the guise of their household activ ities
heightened the deceitful nature of these crimes. That the thallium
was always administered by way of comforting items such as a cup
of Milo or tea, and gifts of cakes and biscuits brought to family
occasions, simply intensified the level of treachery surrounding these
women and their domestic image.
Such ideas can be identified in the case of Beryl Hague who stood
trial in July 1953 at the Darlinghurst sessions court for ‘maliciously
admi nistering thallium ’ and endangering her husband’s life.
Hague’s case poignantly reflects, both within the court and the
media, how the perception of these crimes and the women accused
was centred on the threat they posed to the domestic scene. This
trial also illustrates the contempt that was held for a woman so
brazen in admitting her deliberate intentions to harm her husband
and abuse his trust. Hague confessed to going to the corner shop,
buying ‘Thall-rat’ and putting it in her husband’s tea. She also
admitted that her actions were a result of a fairly violent domestic
dispute. She claimed she had only intended to ‘give him a headache
to re pay the many he adaches h e h ad gi ven me ’. 47 Hague
subsequently began to regret her actions and eventually took her
husband to hospital in time for him to fully recover. Despite this,
Hague was sentenced to two years in Long Bay Gaol for what Judge
Holden described as ‘a grave matrimonial offence’.48 Evoking classic
poison imagery, Holden stated that to excuse the deliberate actions
of Hague would mean, ‘ we would be back to the days of
the Borgias’. 49
Much of the anxiety surrounding the thallium cases can be linked
to the challenge they posed to the stability of the dominant ideologies
of postwar society. This era saw women’s femininity, subjectivity
and status become synonymous with their domesticity, monogamy
and (hetero)sexuality, which, Marilyn Lake argues, can be seen as a
direct response to the anxieties generated over women pursuing
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their own interests during the war years. 50 Images and philosophies
supported and perpetuated by advertising and ‘professionals’
claimed that a woman’s happiness, self-fulfilment, and a successful
marriage, depended on her domestic capabilities and remaining
alluring to her husband. The mass media played a crucial role in
promoting such ideas, with imagery constantly presenting women
as extremely domestic and sexy. A wealth of commodities flooded
the market which were promoted as guaranteeing those qualities.
Indeed, the commodities themselves assumed an explicit erotic
significance, invoking sexual desire, pleasure and fulfilment. 51 Yet
while women’s sexuality was increasingly emphasised, in truth it
was intended solely for the purpose of monogamous marriage and
ultimately for the satisfaction of one’s husband. Women were opened
up to a new sense of sexual potential and yet, at the same time,
were told it was to be expressed in very narrow margins. As Carol
Smart claims, a wife was encouraged to be sexual, but her sexuality
‘had to be functional in terms of family stability’.52 The moral panic
over women who transgressed such narrow limits, particularly
divorced, adulterous, an d promiscuous women , reveals the
incon sistencie s and conservatism surroundin g im ages and
expectations of women.53 While statistics reveal many women were
increasingly seeking to end their marriages – in 1950 in New South
Wales alone, 2221 women petitioned for divorce compared to 1718
men – the horror evoked over the unmarried mother and the
‘divorcee’ continued to manifest itself both ideologically and
institutionally. 54 As Smart states, such women challenged the
conservative order and became ‘ the n ew folk devil ’. 55 The
demonising of such women was especially reflected in thei r
treatment in the criminal arena.
Judith Allen argues that the concerted effort to establish male
authori ty in postwar society directly re asserted an inh erent
patr iarchal and mi sogynist culture within the criminal justice
system, particularly manifesting itself in differing perceptions of
men’s and women’s crime.56 She claims that dominant sexual and
political positions in postwar Australia informed responses to crimes
against, and by, women. Allen argues this is evident in the reception
of trials involving the slaying of wives that were increasingly framed
in the context of a crime of passion where women’s infidelities or
actions were said to ‘unreasonably provoke’ the husband.57 Certainly,
powerful and conservative expectations permeating postwar society,
particularly with regard to women’s sexual conduct, were pervasive
in the tr ials of Fletcher, Monty and Smith. The alleged sexual
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‘deviance’ of these women became a matter of immense scrutiny
and significance in the eyes of the prosecution, law makers, and the
press. These cases indicate the manner in which women’s moral
character became a central issue in their trials. Furthermore, these
examples reveal how concern with criminal women was as much
with their distance from, or subversion of, dominant roles and
expectations for women as with their crimes. Fletcher and Monty
were consistently presented as fail ing to embody domin ant
stereotypes of the caring mother, devoted wife, and virtuous woman,
against which their characters and their actions were judged.
Nowhere is this made more apparent than by Chief Prosecutor
Rooney who, in a letter to the Attorney General regarding Monty,
stated ‘there can be no doubt’ evidence of her sexual misconduct
with her son-in-law
is highly prejudicial to the accused and must
inevitably alienate from her any sympathy a jury
might feel for a person accused of a capital
offence , par ticular ly whe re the accuse d is
a woman. 58
Evidence of marital disharmony in a woman’s trial was equally
damning because it revealed she had violated her duty to ‘love,
honour and obey’, and as such was capable of other transgressions.
In the thallium trials witnesses provided valuable and ‘authoritative’
local opinion on the state of the defendant’s marri age and the
character of the defendant. Certainly Fletcher ’s acknowledgment
that both her marriages were unhappy and violent worked against
her. In fact an earlier application for an apprehended violence order
against her second husband contributed to her image as a bad wife
and was used as evidence of Fletcher’s desire to be rid of her
husband. It was acknowledged during Fletcher ’s trial that the rule
of law was such that ‘it is not permissible to show that the accused
is the kind of person who might be expected to do this kind of
thing’.59 Yet the case against her was explicitly based on ‘matrimonial
differences, her obvious dislike of her husband, [and] her reluctance
to care for him’.60 The prosecution’s case was thus principally built
around establishing her as the very antithesis of the good, happy
wife, an image which was then utilised by the prosecution as an
adequate motive for the deaths of her first and second husbands.
As with Fletcher, the case against Aileen Smith was built around
linking her character and motive to evidence that she had been
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unfaithful to her husband, an accusation based heavily on the gossip
of numerous locals regarding an alleged relationship between her
and a close family friend. 61 In contrast to Fletcher, Aileen Smith’s
image as a caring, devoted wife and mother of five was continually
invoked. As such, it seems she succeeded in conforming to the
domestic and devoted model the jury expected and understood.
Both cases are poignant examples of the degree to which women’s
deviation from dominant notions of appropriate behaviour came
to be as significant as the crimes of which they were accused. The
reliance on circumstantial evidence always means a great deal of
inference informs poison trials. Thus, certain ‘deviant’ behaviour is
used in a manner that suggests it is a legitimate explanation for
women’s criminal actions. Yet in truth, such an idea is directly
informed by the view that women who fail to embody certain images
and expectations are inherently bad. Carol Smart argues that the
‘sexed woman’, the ‘unruly mother ’, the ‘criminal woman’, and ‘the
prostitute’ are the characterisations of women constructed in and
by legal discourse.62 Similarly Jocelyn Scutt claims the Australian
law has historically defined women in male terms within which
they are ‘dependent wives with no ability to make their own
decisions or, wretched whores’. 63 The representations of women on
trial in the 1950s illustrates the way such stereotypes and images
inform the discourse of the ‘deviant’ woman, and how enormously
influential they are wi thin the crim inal justice system. The
construction and representation of these women as ‘deviant’ can
also be seen as ensuring the maintenance of ‘appropriate’ gendered
behaviour by contributing to the censure of all women who
contravene overwhelmingly powerful expectations.
Other studies that have explored the perception and treatment
of female criminals in Australia have also dem onstrated how
dominant notions regarding women are pervasive in the operations
of the justice system. In her examination of women and capital
pun ishmen t in Vi ctoria between 1842 an d 1951, Mel bourn e
criminologist Kathy Laster found that out of the total 185 women
sentenced to death, the five who were executed were all portrayed
as promiscuous and immoral.64 She argues such portrayals saw these
five women treated more harshly precisely because they failed to
live up to stereotypical feminine roles. The fact that such women
were regarded as ‘irredeemable’ was apparent justification for their
execution. The case of Jean Lee, who in 1951 was the last woman
hanged in Australia, is a particularly pertinent example of a woman
being judged for what she did (and did not) represent, as much as
140
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for her crime. As Laster shows, Lee’s identity as a prostitute, a single
mother, and ‘all round good time girl’, was the very antithesis of
ideals of the dominant moral, social, and political authority of the
early 1950s, and she paid the ultimate price. 65
For this article, the question of the thallium women’s innocence
is not of primary concern. Rather, the intention is to illustrate that
social codes, rather than simply the laws, were at work in these
trials. Representations of the thallium women within both the court
and media reveal less about the reality and complexity of their crimes
and more about the workings of a patriarchal and conservative value
system entrenched within 1950s Australia. Both institutions position
women within culturally constructed categories which support
dominant value systems and specific gendered stereotypes that
serve to either legitimate or discredit these women and their
testimonies. 66 The deviant nature of the thallium women derived
less from their alleged crimes and more from the extent to which
they departed from such ideals. Accused of poisoning, the thallium
women also faced the double burden of a history of popular and
misogynist stereotypes surrounding such crimes and such women.
Like gender ideology, the ‘genre’ of the archetypal female poisoner
provided a system of meaning to narratives within the courts and
media. Yet, paradoxically, this discourse suggested it was through
their very domesticity that these women were able to carry out such
crimes. Women’s domestic and familial lives actually became a form
of stealthy insubordination. In this sense, the threat posed by the
thallium women was mul ti-layered, arisi ng not just from the
challenge they presented to expectations of women, but also in
revealing the danger and power women could wield in those roles.
The investment Australian society had in particular identities
and behaviour for women in the early 1950s reveals itself in the
perception and treatment of women who challenged such ideals
and expectations. The social and sexual stereotypes in the postwar
era inevitably worked against women whose actions seemingly
contr avene d or thr eaten ed the stabi l ity of such i mages.
Representation of the thallium women was informed by women’s
position within the gendered social order of the 1950s. Such
representations are thus a mi rror to a wider social context, in
particular, the problems and tensions arising from changes to the
roles and identities of men and women at the time. Ultimately,
examining the thallium women illustrates the way both the law and
media sought to contain the threat these women posed to the status
quo, and thus how deeply interconnected these institutions were to
the social control of all women.
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LIMINA Volume 8, 2002 Clair Scrine

33
Notes Truth, 13 September 1953.
34
ibid.
35
1
C. Warren, Madwives: Schizophrenic Women in the 1950s, Rutgers University Press,
O. Pollak, The Criminality of Women, University of New York Press, New York, 1950, New Brunswick, 1987, p.8.
p.10. 36
2 ibid.
ibid., p.11. 37
3 Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, Norton, New York, 1963, pp.15-32.
G. Robb, ‘ Circe in Crinoline: Domestic Poisonings in Victorian England’, Journal of 38
Sydne y Morning Herald, 15 October 1953.
Family History, vol. 22, no. 2, 1997, pp.165-177; E. Dolan, ‘Home Rebels and House 39
ibid.
Traitors: Murderous Wives in Early Modern England’, Yale Journal of Law and the 40
ibid.
Humanities, vol. 4, 1992, pp.1-31. 41
4 National Advocate, 24 October 1952.
For instance, see A. Summers, Damned Whores and God’s Police: The Colonisation of 42
ibid.
Women in Australia, Penguin, Melbourne, 1994; J.J. Matthews, Good and Mad Women: 43
AONSW: SCCC, CD, R. v. Aileen Fay Smith, 19/13213. In 1955, four years after his
The Historical Construction of Femininity in Twentieth Century Aus tralia,Allen & Unwin,
death, Alfred Smith’s body was exhumed. Medical authorities testified that the
Sydney, 1987.
5 concentrated amounts of thallium found in his stomach region probably meant he
R. Hausman & W. Wilson, ‘Thallotoxicosis - A Social Menace’, Journal of Forensic
died within three days of its consumption.
Scie nces , vol. 9, no. 1, 1964, p.701. 44
6 Northern Star, 1 September 1955.
Noel Sanders claims the Spanish case was well known to authorities in Australia 45
Sydne y Morning Herald, 16 October 1953.
yet thallium continued to be used in the treatment of ringworm. N. Sanders, The 46
ibid., 24 September 1952.
Thallium Enthusiasms and Other Australian Outrages, Local Consumption Publications, 47
Truth, 31 July 1953.
Sydney, 1995, p.45. 48
7 ibid.
Archives Office of New South Wales (AONSW): Clerk of the Peace (CP), Supreme 49
ibid.
Court (SC), Criminal Depositions (CD), R. v. Veronica Mabel Monty, 3/19989. 50
8 M. Lake, ‘A Case of Male Justice’, The Australian Review of Books, supplement in The
Truth , 18 October 1953.
9 Australian, February 1997, p.6.
D. Glaister, ‘Thallium’, Journal of Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology, 1973, pp.701- 51
See G. Reekie, Temptations: Sex, Selling and the Department Store, Allen & Unwin,
702.
10 Sydney, 1993, pp.161-167.
Sydne y Morning Herald, 9 October 1952. 52
11 C. Smart, ‘Law and the Control of Women’s Sexuality: The Case of the 1950s’, in B.
AONSW: CP, Supreme Court and Courts on Circuit (SCCC), CD, R. v. Ruby May
Hutter & G. Williams (eds), Controlling Women, Croom Helm, London, 1981, p.48.
Norton, 10/10484. 53
12 On the discriminations divorced women faced, see Matthews, Good and Mad Women,
See Western Times and National Advocate (Bathurst), 21-25 October 1952.
13 p.132.
AONSW: CP, SCCC, CD, R. v. Ruby May Norton. 54
14 J.S. Mukherjee & A. Scandin (eds), Source Book of Australian Criminal Statistics 1804-
ibid.
15 1988, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra, 1989, p.13.
Western Times , 24 October 1952. 55
16 Smart, ‘Law and the Control of Women’s Sexuality’, p.48.
Truth, 16 October 1953. 56
17 J. Allen, Sex and Secrets: Crimes Involving Australian Women Since 1880, Oxford
Sydne y Morning Herald, 24 June 1953.
18 University Press, Oxford, 1990, p.242.
ibid. 57
19 ibid., p.234.
Truth, 18 October 1953. 58
20 Rooney to Attorney General, 4 November 1953, emphasis added.
AONSW: CP, SC, CD, R. v. Caroline Grills, 19/9841. 59
21 N.S.W. State Reports, vol. 53, 1953, p.77.
Truth, 11 October 1953. 60
22 ibid., pp.74-75.
ibid, 16 August 1953. 61
23 ibid.
Sydne y Morning Herald, 14 October 1953. 62
24 C. Smart, Law, Crime and Sexuality: Essays in Feminism, Sage Publications, London,
ibid.
25 1995, p.221.
Sydne y Morning Herald, 16 October 1953. 63
26 J. Scutt, ‘Sexism in Criminal Law’, in S.K. Mukherjee & J. Scutt (eds), Women and
Sanders, The Thallium Enthusiasms, p.45.
27 Crime , Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1981, p.17.
AONSW: CP, SC, CD, R. v. Veronica Mabel Monty. 64
28 K. Laster, ‘Arbitrary Chivalry: Women and Capital Punishment in Victoria, Australia
ibid.
29 1842-1967’, Women and Criminal Justice, vol. 6, no. 1, 1994, p.70.
ibid. 65
30 ibid.
C.V. Rooney to Attorney General, 4 November 1953, AONSW: SC, CD, R. v. Veronica 66
See L. Code, Rhetorical Spaces: Ess ays on Gendered Locations, Routledge, New York,
Mabel Monty.
31 1995, p.45.
Truth, 13 September 1953; Sydne y Morning Herald, 11 September 1953.
32
Jack Thom to Attorney General, 7 October 1953, AONSW: SC, CD, R. v. Veronica
Mabel Monty.

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