Two Perth court cases reveal how Martha Ellis’s public character was constructed — and later used against her in colonial Western Australia.
This post is part of “Behind the Newsprint,” a series
that grew out of my April 2025 Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Now, instead of
single clippings, I group multiple historical newspaper items—many never before
examined—around one topic and weave them into a single narrative.
A New Beginning
When Martha Ellis arrived in Western Australia in October
1889, she was a young migrant hoping to begin again. Within eighteen months,
she would appear in court twice — once as a convicted defendant, and once as a
shadowy presence in a case that ended in acquittal.
Those two cases, heard less than a year apart, are linked
not only by timing but by the way Martha herself was constructed in the press.
Before she appeared in court records, however, she left behind another kind of
record.
A Portrait Before the Record
Before Martha Ellis became a name in courtroom testimony,
she sat for a formal studio portrait in Perth. The image shows a young woman
presented with care and composure: her dark hair arranged in the fashionable
high chignon of the 1890s, her high-necked bodice carefully fitted, her gaze
steady and direct. It is not the face of a woman who appears to have much money
to spare, but it is the face of someone who wanted to be seen properly.
Formal studio portrait of Martha Sarah Ellis, taken at J. Latimer’s Hay Street studio, Perth (c. 1890). [T059]
This small rectangle of card survives as a quiet artefact of
respectable colonial femininity in a city on the edge of a gold rush. It is
also a reminder that Martha was not only the woman described in court reports.
She was someone who chose how to appear and left behind a face that still
meets ours directly more than a century later.
That image sits in quiet tension with what followed.
The First Case
In May 1890, Martha Ellis, a young domestic servant, was
charged with assaulting another servant, Ellen Carey. She was charged alongside
Sarah Jackson and John Hayes. The three had gone to Carey’s home, where a
confrontation broke out. Newspapers described it as a “great disturbance,”
involving shouting, scuffling, and violence. Carey suffered a dislocated jaw.
Ellis and Jackson were found guilty and fined 40 shillings
each. The magistrate, Mr J. Cowan, remarked that he would have imposed
imprisonment if a “suitable institution” had existed.
But the legal result is only part of the story.
Reputation at Work
By March 1891, Isabella Miles, the former matron of the Colonial Hospital, was charged with larceny after hospital linen was found in her possession.
At first glance, this case seems to have nothing to do with Martha Ellis. But as the testimony unfolded, Ellis reappeared — not as a defendant, but as a problem. She had been working at the hospital since mid-1890, almost certainly still within the six-month probationary phase of a three-year programme she would never be given the chance to complete.
Witnesses spoke of conflict between Ellis and Miles. The matron had reportedly complained that Ellis struck her. Other nurses described constant disturbances. The earlier pattern of behaviour established in the 1890 assault case reappeared in a new setting.
This is where the story becomes more revealing.
Miles’s defence did not need to prove that Ellis had done anything specific. It only needed to suggest that she might have.
No direct evidence was required. Her reputation did the work. Miles was acquitted.
The Connecting Thread
Both cases were heard by Mr J. Cowan, who served as Acting
Police Magistrate or Police Magistrate during both trials.
In the first case, Martha was the defendant in the dock. Her
character was attacked, and the victim described her as a “bad character.” The
magistrate expressed regret that there was no “suitable institution” to
imprison Ellis and her co-defendant, and instead imposed a fine.
In the second case, Martha was no longer a defendant. By
then, she was working as a nurse at the Colonial Hospital under Matron Isabella
Miles. In Miles’s larceny trial, Ellis’s history of disturbances and personal
conflict became part of the defence’s strategy. The conviction in the 1890 case
weakened her credibility in the 1891 case. Because she had already been
publicly marked as a “bad character,” Miles’s lawyer, Mr Parker, could argue
that Ellis might have planted the hospital linen in the matron’s boxes out of
revenge.
That suggestion relied on the fact that Ellis and Miles were
“never on good terms,” and that the matron was “constantly making complaints”
against her. House Surgeon Arthur Edward Sloman testified that Miles had
complained about Ellis striking her, echoing the physical violence Ellis had
been convicted of in the Ellen Carey case.
A Timeline of Events.
1889
- May:
Isabella Miles is appointed Matron of the Colonial Hospital.[i]
- October
8: Martha Ellis arrives in Western Australia on the ship Nairnshire,
migrating from the UK with her sister, Kate.[ii]
1890
- May:
Employed as a domestic servant, employer not identified.[iii]
- May
15 (Thursday): Martha Ellis, Sarah Jackson, and John Hayes visit the
residence of Mr. Justice Stone and assault Ellen Carey, a domestic
servant.[iv]
Carey suffers a dislocated jaw during the scuffle.[v][vi]
- May
19 (Monday): The assault case is heard at the Perth Police Court
before Acting Police Magistrate Mr. J. Cowan.[vii]
- May
20: Martha Ellis and Sarah Jackson are found guilty and fined 40s
each; the magistrate notes he would have imprisoned them if a
"suitable institution" existed.[viii]
- After
May but before November: Martha’s move from domestic servant to nurse almost
certainly happened in the months following her conviction in the assault
case. Another nurse, Catherine Garn, testified that she began working at
the hospital in November 1890 and that Martha was already there, though
the two were "not [friends]" at that point.[ix]
- November:
Catherine Garn begins her employment as a nurse at the Colonial Hospital
while Isabella Miles is Matron.[x]
- December
20 or 21: Matron Isabella Miles is dismissed from her position
at the hospital.
- December
24: Nurse Catherine Lapsley leaves the hospital "of her own
accord" due to poor conditions and constant "rows".
- Late
December: "Soon after" the Matron's departure, Martha Ellis
is also dismissed from the hospital.
1891
·
January 26, 1891: Martha’s sister, Kate,
gets married in Fremantle.[xi]
- February
18: Detectives Gurney and Connell arrest Isabella Miles at her
home after finding hospital-marked linen in her bedroom.
- March
2 (Monday): The larceny trial of Isabella Miles takes place at the
City Police Court.
- March
7: The news of the trial is published, detailing that Miles was
acquitted after the bench found no evidence of theft and concluded the
items might have been packed by mistake.
What the Newspapers Leave Out
What the newspapers do not tell us is whether Martha Ellis
ever knew she had been used.
In the 1891 trial, Ellis’s name was spoken in a courtroom
she may not even have attended. The newspapers do not list her among those
present. House Surgeon Arthur Edward Sloman, Nurse Catherine Garn, Detective
Gurney, and Nurse Catherine Lapsley are named, but not Martha herself. Instead,
she appears only in the third person: “the nurse Martha Ellis,” “the girl
Ellis.”
Without taking the stand and without any charge against her,
Martha became part of the defence’s argument. Her absence, combined with her
history of conflict, allowed the lawyer to suggest that she might have planted
the linen out of revenge.
Her earlier conviction was treated as proof of a violent
character. Her disagreements with the matron were recast as possible evidence
of sabotage. In effect, she became a ghost witness for the defence.
Closing Reflection
The matron walked free. Martha had already been dismissed
from the hospital. By early 1892, she had left Western Australia entirely,
later marrying Walter Todman in Victoria.
Did she leave because her reputation had made life in Perth
impossible? The record is silent. But the record does show this: once a
person’s character was branded “bad” in the newspapers, that label could be
used by others in ways the subject never controlled.
Martha Ellis did not simply pass through two court cases.
She became the connective tissue between them — whether she wanted to or not.
She may never have become a household scandal, but the
record suggests that her reputation was damaged in a very practical way. A
prior conviction and a reputation for conflict were enough to make her name
useful in court, and once that happened, she lost control over the story others
told about her. In that sense, the harm was real even if it was not loudly
recorded. It is possible that the reputational damage attached to Martha Ellis
in Perth helped push her toward Victoria, though the surviving record does not
prove this.
Martha’s reputation probably did not make work or marriage
impossible, but it may well have made both harder. In a society where a woman’s
character shaped how others judged her, a conviction and a public reputation
for conflict could reduce opportunity, limit trust, and make a fresh start more
appealing.
And yet, set against the surviving portrait, that later
reputation does not quite settle into place.
This post is also part of Sepia Saturday 825 : Portraits,
9th May 2026. Click here to
see how others are sharing their history through photographs.
For those
interested in learning more about Martha Ellis, or Catherine Elizabeth Lapsley see their profiles on WikiTree.
A NURSE'S DAY IN HOSPITAL. (1888, June 16). Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), p. 7. Retrieved May 8, 2026, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32711964 [Explanation: The article describes the standard three-year training model of the period, including a six-month probationary phase; the inference that Martha's tenure placed her within this phase is the author's own.]
Sources:
[i] CHARGES
AGAINST THE LATE MATRON OF THE COLONIAL HOSPITAL. (1891, March 7). Western Mail
(Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), p. 9. Retrieved May 5, 2026, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article33064465
[ii] Shipping
Records for the 'Nairnshire', Page 3 Passenger listing, 8 Oct 1889; Passenger
and Crew Lists (State Records Office, Western Australia. [Copy of the original
record provided via email by Tom Reynolds from the State Records Office of
Western Australia on 8 February 2013
[iii] NEWS
AND NOTES. (1890, May 20). The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), p. 3.
Retrieved May 5, 2026, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3134319
[iv] TO-DAYS
CITY POLICE NEWS, (1890, May 21). The Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth, WA :
1855 - 1901), p. 2. Retrieved May 5, 2026, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66930962
[v] ASSAULT
ON A SERVANT GIRL. (1890, May 24). Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), p.
3. Retrieved May 5, 2026, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32731935
[vi] ASSAULT
ON A SERVANT GIRL. (1890, May 20). The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 -
1954), p. 3. Retrieved May 5, 2026, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3134312
[vii] TO-DAYS
CITY POLICE NEWS, (1890, May 21). The Inquirer and Commercial News (Perth, WA :
1855 - 1901), p. 2. Retrieved May 5, 2026, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66930962
[viii]
NEWS AND NOTES. (1890, May 20). The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954),
p. 3. Retrieved May 5, 2026, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3134319
[ix] All
subsequent references to the Matron's trial in this timeline are from: CHARGES
AGAINST THE LATE MATRON OF THE COLONIAL HOSPITAL. (1891, March 7). Western Mail
(Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), p. 9. Retrieved May 5, 2026, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article33064465
[x] CHARGES
AGAINST THE LATE MATRON OF THE COLONIAL HOSPITAL. (1891, March 7). Western Mail
(Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), p. 9. Retrieved May 5, 2026, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article33064465