Balmain’s Bloody Tide: The Waterview Murder Conspiracy of 1831

Headless corpses, riverside whispers, and betrayal in 1831 — uncover one of Balmain’s earliest unsolved murder conspiracies

By Elliot Lindsay

The Parramatta River hid a grim secret in late November 1831. When a fisherman found a headless corpse floating near Goat Island, off Mort’s Bay, though in those early colonial days, long before Balmain was known for its terraces and shipyards, this bay was known as Waterview. Thus, Balmain's Waterview Murder Conspiracy of 1831 came to prominence.

The body, gnawed by fish, wore only tattered shoes, sparking dread in Sydney’s small waterfront community. In a small, smoky inn on Kent Street, a coroner's inquest packed the room with a tense, buzzing crowd, thick with whispers and the weight of grim curiosity. 

The remains, sprawled in the dim candlelight, were those of Samuel Priest, a Clarence Street butcher, his neck carved with a chillingly precise, unnatural gash that no beast could have wrought. Charles Bayles, a colleague of the deceased, muttered about a cut that resembled the skill of a butcher.

 Joseph Wilks, Priest’s hired man, had reported only days earlier that his master had fallen accidentally overboard in Birchgrove Bay after a debt-collecting trip to Kissing Point. Brought before the court, his story was shaky, and the jury smelled lies, branding Wilks an accessory to murder and sending him to Sydney Gaol. Yet the river’s depths held the truth, and Balmain’s Waterview Bay whispered of darker deeds.

Days earlier, Rev. George Middleton’s servant, Mary Brady, had been frozen with terror as she sat on the veranda of Waterview House, the old colonial villa that once stood where Colgate Avenue and St John Street today meet. Hearing groans—“Oh! Oh!”—and a scuffle coming from the bay which the house overlooked, she was too frightened to investigate further. In her imagination, it was “rogues” or worse, some bushrangers who had been recently raiding the Balmain region.

The following day, when the Reverend walked down to investigate, he found a black beaver hat near the shore, stuffed with butcher’s receipts. When presented to the court some were revealed to be in Wilks’ scrawl. At the Currency Lad Hotel on George Street, patrons swapped theories over rum: robbery, betrayal, or something colder?

The headless corpse screamed foul play, but Wilks walked free in April 1832, the judge citing thin evidence. Sydney churned on—and the people forgot. Balmain, though, could not shake the shadow.

In May 1834, Joseph Wilks, finding himself behind bars once again, this time for forgery, spilled a story that turned stomachs. Facing his own noose, he struck a bargain. He would exchange the “truth” behind Samuel Priest’s murder in exchange for his life. In doing so, he betrayed two men: William Chapman, the late Samuel’s supposed brother, and Henry Mills, another member of the butcher fraternity. 

At the Police Office, Wilks’ words wove a nightmare. On November 10, 1831, he and Priest rowed from Kissing Point in a borrowed boat, collecting a debt from schoolmaster James Warman. After the men had beer and rum at James Squires’ old hotel, Priest, drunk, slumped in the boat and went to sleep. Warman asked if he could return with them to Sydney, Wilks was adamant that he could not. When nearing Long Nose Point, Wilks alleged that the two accused men William Chapman and Henry Mills appeared before them, their boat slicing the dusk.

In Waterview Bay, Wilks claimed the two men insisted they swap boats, leaving Priest with them as his larger boat was harder to row alone. As he drifted away, he heard Mills curse at the drunk Priest followed by a violent thud. Wilks looked back to see Chapman battering Priest’s head with an oar. Next, Mills, holding the bloodied man by the legs dunked him overboard and drowned him. 

Wilks followed their boat to shore, approximately where the Colgate building is today. Mills and Chapman dragged the drowned man onto the beach. To his horror, he watched one of the men reveal a butcher’s knife and carve around the dead man’s neck and with a twisting motion, he removed the head, making a popping sound. 

Bank notes were removed from Priest’s waistband; Wilks, spineless, took a £5 note for himself. He was given the severed head and, under the threat of violence,e was forced to wrap it in a handkerchief and drop it into Cockle Bay. The body was opened so it may sink to the depths of the river.

Suspicion tightened. Reverend Middleton confirmed that when the hat was found, he saw Chapman and Mills lurking around his bay with the excuse that they were searching for the missing Samuel Priest. Warman’s testimony about Wilks’ refusal to let him board the boat and his belief that Priest was in fact not drunk also casts doubt. 

At the Rum-Puncheon Hotel on King’s Wharf, whispers grew: Julia Priest, Samuel’s widow, had seemed too close to Chapman so soon after his brother’s death, they even began living as man and wife in 1833. Constable Edward Cochrane saw her drunk and laughing with Chapman only hours after her husband was initially reported missing, her grief appeared lukewarm. A witness swore Julia once offered “twenty pounds to have her husband put away.” 

By June 1834, Chapman, Mills, and Julia faced charges—murder for the men, accessory for her.

In August 1834, the trial packed the Supreme Court. Wilks’ testimony, dripping with self-preservation, riveted the crowd, detailing the slaughter and his own cowardice. Julia’s defence held; her tears muddied her guilt. Chapman and Mills were convicted, their denials drowned out. Soon after, they swung at Gallows Hill, proclaiming innocence to the end, as a mob gawked at the spectacle. 

Wilks, the snake, slithered free, his betrayal sparing him the rope. But was he merely a coward—or something darker? His tale, so vivid, condemned two men who never confessed. Could a psychopath lurk behind his trembling facade, weaving lies to bury his own evil? Joseph Wilks’ shadow stretched far beyond the Balmain murder. Many years later, in 1855, Wilks had settled with his family at Deep Creek, near the town of Casino. One grim day Wilks’ wife, Margaret, and two sons were found butchered, their heads hacked by a tomahawk. 

Wilks claimed he was shepherding, finding his wife dead and his sons missing. Initially, he let others suggest it was the result of an Aboriginal raiding party, only for the theory to be dismissed when looting patterns did not fit and only Wilk’s tracks were found at the scene of the crime. Later, he accused a man named James Lynch, spinning a wild story that he had a dream where his family came to him and named Lynch the killer.

His bizarre, contradictory stories drew suspicion as he was arrested, released and then re-arrested. Finally, the weight of evidence against him was enough to convince a jury, and he was finally convicted in 1858 for his son’s murder. Wilks faced the gallows but was reprieved for life imprisonment, public doubt clouding the circumstantial case. His knack for blaming others, from Balmain to Deep Creek, paints a chilling portrait: perhaps not just a betrayer of those who trust him, but a man whose lies masked a deeper, monstrous darkness.