Elizabeth Woolcock

Pencil on paper

38 x 30 cm
2013

Elizabeth Woolcock was hung in Adelaide in 1873. Her life was full of trauma. As a child she witnessed the violent events of the Eureka Stockade including the extremely brutal murder of her fathers friend by the police. Not long after at the age of 7 she was raped, after being left alone in the tent she shared with her father in the goldfields. She was left for dead and due to her injurys was administered opium, she became addicted. At 9 her father died and she was left alone. She became a house keeper and eventually married a man who was a heavy drinker and abused her. Elizabeth was now addicted to morphine. When her husband died she was acussed of his murder. She pleaded not guilty but she was sentenced to death. It now appears that she was innocent of this crime. For all of these reasons she became a subject for my Shameful Australian Series. I have drawn her with her opium pipe, the stockade flag and the noose around her neck.