According to Ethel’s statement to the court, Worrall assaulted her many times over a period of months, but she was too frightened to tell anyone - not Worrall’s wife, her own brothers or her father. Wilkinson had been a sole parent for around four years and Ethel only saw him once a week on his day off, as he lived in a rooming house in the CBD while his three children lodged with the Worrall family in suburban Ascot Vale. Eventually, in October 1895, Ethel found a time and the courage to tell her father that she had a "secret". She whispered it to him. Outraged, Wilkinson confronted Worrall, but he denied everything. Wilkinson wrote several letters to Worrall and offered to set up a conciliation with three respectable local women. Worrall refused. Next, Wilkinson took his daughter to Dr Emma Constance Stone, the first woman doctor to practise in Australia and to register with the Medical Board of Victoria. Doctor Emma Constance Stone, a pioneer in women's rights and medicine. Credit:Queen Victoria Women's Centre Stone examined Ethel, confirmed that there was physical evidence to support Ethel’s claim of assault and provided an expert report. Wilkinson lodged a complaint with the Essendon police.

On November 11, 1895, Worrall went with his family to the Age office where Wilkinson worked and argued with him. Worrall was arrested by police and charged with "assault with intent to carnally know a girl under 10 years of age". The case came before the Essendon Court of Petty Sessions on November 18, and was heard by four justices of the peace. In her deposition, Ethel, who was required to swear on the Bible, described instance after instance of Worrall isolating her from the other children in the household - his own children and Ethel's brothers. Ethel described assaults occurring in the washhouse with the door locked while the other children were sent to take the dog for a walk, in the kitchen when the others were out and in her bedroom after Worrall had sent his daughters into another room. She described one evening when Worrall had come home drunk and, after his wife had sent him out of their marital bedroom, he had gone into Ethel’s room and bed - but not before removing his own daughters to another room. In her childish vocabulary, Ethel told how he: Put the place where he makes water to the place where I make water. He had sent the others out of the kitchen before this. He told them to go and take the dog for a walk. He said to me not to tell Mrs W.

Ethel’s father and Stone also made detailed depositions and took the witness stand. Wilkinson was cross-examined by counsel for the defence, James Purves QC, who accused him of making the story up to avoid paying a debt to Worrall. This he denied. He was also cross-examined on his suitability as a parent. Stone’s evidence comprised details of a thorough physical examination of the child and her opinion that the evidence was consistent with Ethel’s claims. Represented by Purves and George Dethridge QC, the accused was not required to address the court and the case was dismissed. Unhappy with this result, the police prosecutor, Robert Walsh, took his concerns to Victoria's attorney-general, Isaac Isaacs. Isaac Isaacs, then Victoria's attorney-general, became involved in the case. Credit:Victorian Parliamentary Library Isaacs shared Walsh's concerns and they met with the JPs of the Essendon court to discuss their decision. The notes of this meeting, made by Isaacs, document the reasons given by the four men for dismissing the case. They pointed to Ethel's failure to complain to Worrall's wife, and argued that it was "a crime that is not likely to have been committed in daylight". The JPs also had issues with Ethel's presentation in court. "The girl’s statement was apparently straightforward but too good to be real - more like a child repeating a lesson it had learnt," Isaacs records them saying. Yet at another stage in the conversation he is told that "when [Ethel] was cross-examined she began to cry ... and that led me to doubt whether she was telling the truth".

"There was a lack of corroborative evidence which they thought was necessary in the case of rape," Isaacs noted. "This had been impressed upon them by [counsel for the defence] Mr Purves. One of the justices was at first in favour of committing [the case to trial] but he afterwards fell into [the other JPs'] view on the grounds that corroboration was necessary." After further discussion with the police prosecutor, Walsh, and John Davies, chairman of the Essendon Bench, Isaacs dismissed this last objection out of hand. "The magistrates were evidently under some degree of misapprehension as to the law respecting the necessity of 'sufficient corroboration'," he said. "As the girl was sworn, her evidence did not require by law any corroboration. 'The evidence of the girl was, according to the depositions, clear and distinct': Isaac Isaacs in 1930. Credit:National Library of Australia "In the next place, the evidence of the girl was, according to the depositions, clear and distinct, and unshaken in cross-examination." Crucially, Isaacs added, "certain [physical] appearances, as partial rupture deposed to by Dr Stone, are so far unaccounted for".

Isaacs stated that "after weighing all the circumstances I think there is no course open to me other than directing the case to be tried". Ethel’s allegations would proceed to the Supreme Court, to be heard before a judge and jury. 'I was abused and reviled' Before the Supreme Court trial began, Wilkinson wrote to the Crown prosecutor asking for permission to submit further evidence. He explained that "when this case was heard at the Essendon Court I was abused and reviled by the accused’s counsel because I owed some money. I was not allowed to make any explanation." Coverage of the case from The Ovens and Murray Advertiser in December 1895. Credit:National Library of Australia Wilkinson had been accused of making the story up because he owed money to Worrall. Therefore, he provided detailed information to the court on his earnings, expenditure, borrowings and loans. He also supplied a number of character references from a sub-editor of The Age and former employers.

A further witness statement was presented to the court from Jane Falconer, a maid at the Victoria Coffee Palace where Wilkinson boarded. She said she had witnessed a heated exchange between Mr and Mrs Worrall in relation to the night when Worrall came home drunk, was told to leave the marital bedroom and went to the room where Ethel was sleeping. This supported the account given by Ethel in her deposition to the Essendon Court. The trial began on December 16, 1895, before chief justice Sir John Madden and a jury of 12 men. Ethel again gave her evidence, as did her father and Stone. Supporting information was provided by Falconer and Worrall’s wife. Once again, the accused was not required to speak. He had three legal counsel to speak for him, who interrogated a nine-year-old in front of a jury of 12 men, a judge, the accused and a courtroom with the general public and media in attendance. The verdict in the case is reported on page 6 of The Age - where Harry Wilkinson worked - on Christmas Eve, 1895. Credit:National Library of Australia The trial went for over a week. At its conclusion, Madden told the jury: "If you believe the evidence of the little girl, it proves either of the charges made against him."

On Christmas Eve, 1895, the jury found the accused not guilty and the case was dismissed. The verdict was reported in the metropolitan newspapers that afternoon and both Ethel Wilkinson and Edwin Worrall were named. A long-held secret Ethel Wilkinson was my grandmother. Until I found the newspaper reports and court records of this case, Ethel’s grandchildren had known nothing about this harrowing episode in her life; she never breathed a word to anyone. Both her daughters are long dead and it is unlikely that they knew anything about it. To us, Ethel was our adored little Gran; she taught us our table manners, how to use a butter knife and the correct way to take the top off a boiled egg (with a spoon!). Gran told us many stories of her life, but never this one.

I only came to learn of the court case last year, 50 years after Gran died. I was trawling through some old newspapers on the National Library of Australia's Trove database one day and saw an article. This led me to seek out the trial transcripts from the Public Record Office Victoria (PROV). Was this "our" Ethel Wilkinson? Yes, indeed it was. It was all there - over 100 pages of transcripts. I wept as I stood at the PROV copying facility, scanning each page of this traumatic episode. Has anything changed in 120 years? We regularly hear of young women who have decided not to pursue criminal cases of rape, who have been too fearful to face their rapists in court or to endure the cross-examination of counsel for the accused. Has the law developed any more sensitivity than it had in 1895? Will the social and legal system ever be shaken up so that justice can be done? The Queen Victoria Hospital, which stood on Lonsdale Street until 1977. Today the only part of the building that remains is the Queen Victoria Women's Centre. Credit:Queen Victoria Women's Centre In 1896, Dr Emma Constance Stone, her sister, her cousin and other women set up a clinic for women and girls in inner Melbourne and later organised the women of Victoria into a "shilling drive" that resulted in the building of the Victoria Hospital for Women and Children, later the Queen Victoria Hospital.

They were pioneers of the women's rights movement in Australia. When Stone gave evidence at Ethel’s trial, it was the first time a woman doctor had given evidence in a Supreme Court trial. One wonders what the all-male jury, legal counsel and judges made of that. The newspapers certainly noted it. Harry Wilkinson also tried to improve the lot of women in Victoria. In 1895, he became a founding editor of the short-lived feminist-socialist journal The Champion. However by 1898 he was destitute. A front page of The Champion, October 1895. Credit:National Library of Australia The relationship between him and Ethel, now 13, had apparently broken down completely. The Presbyterian and Scots Church Neglected Children’s Aid Society was concerned for her welfare and took her in, against her father’s wishes. Eventually, they convinced him to transfer guardianship to them. They placed Ethel as a servant with a family on a large property on the Goulburn River. She thrived, staying for seven years. She left to marry the love of her life, my grandfather William McKay, Boer War veteran and son of the stationmaster at Trawool, on the other side of the river.

Harry Wilkinson took his younger son Roy to Queensland, where they too thrived and Harry became a respected and commissioned artist using the name Harry Strongitharm Wilkinson, or HSW. His paintings feature in the public collections of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland and the Brisbane Turf Club. In October 1917, Roy Wilkinson fell at Passchendaele on the Western Front. His father died just over a year later. Responsibility for Roy's remembrance then fell to his sister. His headstone at Ypres in Belgium bears the inscription "Ever remembered by his sister Ethel". "Ettie's Dad by Himself", dated July 1892. As far as we know, Harry Wilkinson and his daughter never met again after she was taken from him in 1898. But after her death in 1967, her family found a drawing in her wallet, captioned "Ettie's Dad, by Himself". It is dated July 1892, and we believe it was given to the seven-year-old Ethel when her father left her and her two brothers in a Sydney benevolent home while he went to Melbourne in search of work.