1957: One More Hanging

February 18, 2025

By AHNZ

Today in history, 18 February, 1957, James Bolton was killed by The State. The last man hanged in New Zealand. Being an official Bad Guy he gets the full 3 names treatment: Walter James Bolton. However, his friends called him Jim.

Jim was a Wanganui farmer of the ANZAC Generation (b.1888.) Now in his 60s, he lived with his sick wife at Rusthall Farm; The kids had all grown up and moved on. Bolton did a great deal to help his wife but neither he nor the doctors managed to put 2 and 2 together and spell “arsenic.”

Doctors “…asked Jim Bolton if he would consent to a post mortem examination…Walter Bolton told the doctor, he had spent something like £500 on private medical care, trying to determine what was wrong with his wife. For his own peace of mind, he wished to uncover the mystery.” – True Crime NZ (2019)

As Bolton’s request an post mortem was performed and that did find arsenic as the killer. Now the eyes of the State turned on Jim and found him guilty of a capital crime.

The defence claimed that the arsenic was in the house water supply, seeping in from the sheep dip pit. It was. Jim was spared because he took his drink elsewhere but Beatrice Bolton dwelled in the home. The prosecution conceded this but insisted that the dose, even over time, was not enough to kill.

“The Crown couldn’t prove Walter Bolton poisoned his wife- it would only show he had the opportunity and motive to do so. The case stood or fell on which forensic evidence the jury believed.” – p133, Gittens (1997)

There was another big problem for Bolton in the eyes of this 1950s jury: He had been having an extramarital affair with his wife’s sister which she revealed to police much against the interests of her brother-in-law. For a bit of impulsive pay-back to her, and a way to divert the implied motive, he said “What of it? We are only human. Well, I suppose I could have gone up the street and got what I wanted.” This verbal drama took place at Rusthall Farm at the instigation of police investigators who wrote it all down in their little books. Stowed it away to use in the courtroom much later. Police inspectors (and journalists, for that matter) are trained in a sort of demonic modality of Talk Therapy that solicits their suspects into incriminating themselves. Jim had already said “Don’t tell them anything..not another word until you’ve seen a solicitor” but within minutes he was drawn in too.

Further, despite saying he had spent his life savings it turned out that Bolton had £2556 in the bank. And, £1250 in the garden. That’s $235,140.15 in the 2020s. In court family members testified that the majority belonged to the poisoned wife. He was going down. Ref. RBNZ Inflation Calculator

Bolton’s response to the guilty verdict was to say “I plead not guilty, sir.” Justice Gresson had no option but to pass the mandatory death sentence. This was carried out on the night of February 18th, 1957, to the usual high standard. However, 30 years later a persistent rumor set in that the hanging had gone wrong and caused unwarranted suffering to the victim.

Of course, the National 1.0 Ministry could have prevented the execution and probably should have. Sydney Holland’s Ministry had campaigned on bringing back the death penalty which had been abolished in 1941 and, indeed, they restored it in 1949 within months of being elected to its first term. Now facing the General Election of 1957 how would it look for the Tough on Crime government to flip when it came to giving ‘justice’ to a killer?

The particular man in the decision box was Minister of Justice Jack Marshall who had this to say in his biography, “During this period all Ministers, with the exception of Ralph Hanan, agreed that the death penalty should apply in the worst cases of murder…coldly and deliberately premeditated..We then searched for extenuating circumstances…in the background of the condemned man. Only where we could find no reason to intervene did the law take its lawful course.” Marshall was pro-death penalty. He says that during this period there were 22 cases of men found guilty of murder and condemned to death and 8 were carried out.

During this time in New Zealand history a death penalty for murder would be carried on depending upon which political party was in office. The Prime Minister was ill, soon to hand over to Keith Holyoake. The Ministry needed to look strong for election ’57 not as if they’d lost the principles they were elected upon. Bolton’s neck was as good as in the noose.

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Image ref. Rusthall farmhouse, Christchurch Star. Colorised by AHNZ (2025)

Ref. Epitaph, Paul Gittens (1997)

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