Eliza Batman murdered in Geelong after incredible life

Her neighbours knew her as Sarah Willoughby, but the woman they found brutally beaten to death in Geelong in 1852 had a secret past none could have imagined.

William Duke oil painting of Geelong from Mr Hiatt's, Barrabool Hills, 1851.

Neighbours crowded around the bloody and bruised body of Sarah Willoughby in her Autumn St home in Geelong in 1852.

Her face had been battered, left arm broken, and four ribs were cracked. The violence inflicted on her was extreme. The assorted residents who knew her to varying degrees pitied her fate. She was considered a drunk and a prostitute, but nobody deserved such a brutal end.

What they didn’t know, however, was the secret past of the dead woman who was once part of Melbourne society and the wife of one of the fledgling city’s most well-known residents.

Sara Willoughby was born Eliza Callaghan in Ireland in 1803. Adventurous and beautiful, Eliza headed to London at 15 and soon started surviving on the profits of crime. She also developed a taste for alcohol that would plague her the rest of her days.

Crime and liquor nearly cost Eliza her life in 1820. She and two male co-offenders were arrested for using forged currency – a crime considered to be against the King himself – at a pub in London’s East End. The two men were hung for the offence after all three were found guilty. Only Eliza’s age saved her from the noose, and she was shipped to Australia instead.

When she arrived in Hobart in 1821, she was far from a model convict. Eliza was assigned to a family for domestic service but repeatedly absconded. A life of servitude was not for her.

It was during one of her ‘escapes’ that she likely first encountered future Melbourne pioneer John Batman. Batman had settled on 600 acres at the foothills of Ben Lomond Mountain, in the northeast of Tasmania, on a property he called Kingston.

The two began a dangerous relationship. Batman harbored Eliza, who in 1825 was listed as a runaway convict. During this period the couple had three children before Batman was granted permission from the Governor to marry her.

The wedding took place on March 29, 1828 in Launceston, the union producing five more children before Batman’s death from syphilis 11 years later.

As Batman started to physically deteriorate from his condition, Eliza began an affair with her husband’s clerk, William Willoughby. This led to Batman revising his will and leaving his wife only five pounds.

An artist depicts how Eliza might have looked.

Statue of John Batman.

Eliza was in England when Batman died on May 6, 1839. It wasn’t until nearly a year later that she found out about his passing and the revised will.

Batman’s once large and wealthy estate had diminished in his later years as syphilis attacked his mind, leading to many bad business decisions and a string of debts. After his death the Government seized the couple’s former home, locked away his money and sold his possessions off at discount prices.

Eliza was broke, but within two years had married Willoughby. Their relationship, however, didn’t last. The drowning death of Eliza’s only son, John Batman, when he was nine in 1845 appeared to have broken the former convict.

Two years later she abandoned Willoughby and moved to Geelong, where she went by the name Sarah. There she turned to a life of drink and prostitution before meeting her brutal end.

Two people, John Trigg and Eliza Wilson, were strongly suspected of being involved in Eliza’s death but were never convicted.

Originally published as Eliza Batman murdered in Geelong after incredible life