George Rope

A Christmas Night. A Bloodied Knife. A Murder That Shocked Mudgee.
Shortly after ten o’clock on Christmas night 1875, Ann Mary Martin left her bedroom at the Travellers Rest at Guntawang to speak with a young station hand calling for her outside.
Moments later, her niece, Kate L’Estrange, heard a faint voice calling her name.
When Kate opened the bedroom door, she found twenty-seven-year-old George Pitt standing before her with a knife in his hand, his wrists and fingers covered in blood.
“I’ve cut Mother Martin’s throat,” he declared. “Mind I don’t cut yours.”
The Life & Death of George Pitt tells the complete story of a brutal Christmas-night murder, the woman whose life was taken, and the young station hand who would ultimately face the gallows at Mudgee Gaol.
Who was George Pitt? What brought him to Guntawang, where he worked as a station hand and lodged periodically at the Travellers Rest? What relationship existed between Pitt and Ann Mary Martin—and what caused their encounter on that hot summer night to end in violence?
Author Helen Cottee carefully reconstructs the events surrounding the murder of Ann Mary Martin, from the quiet rural settlement of Guntawang to the investigation, inquest, trial and execution of George Pitt on 21 June 1876.
Drawing upon historical newspapers, court reports, official records and gaol archives, the book examines both the crime and the people caught within its consequences. It also brings to life the district surrounding Guntawang, the neighbouring stations of Guntawang and Biragambil, and the colonial community stunned by a murder committed on what should have been a night of celebration.
This is not merely the story of a condemned man. It is also the story of Ann Mary Martin, Kate L’Estrange and the witnesses whose lives were forever changed by the events of Christmas night 1875.
Part of the Life & Death series—preserving the untold stories of colonial Australia, one execution at a time.
For readers who love Australian history, colonial true crime, local Mudgee history and the forgotten lives hidden within the records of crime and punishment.