Edward Denny Day (1801-76) (pictured) was a major figure in Maitland for many years. Born into the Anglo-Irish aristocracy in County Kerry, he joined the army at the age of 19 and saw service in India before arriving in Sydney in 1834. He became a clerk to the Executive Council and worked for the Colonial Secretary before being appointed Maitland Police Magistrate by Governor Sir George Gipps in 1837. This appointment gave him the task of keeping the peace on the vast frontier of northern NSW, the haunt of many bushrangers and a scene of conflict between European settlers and Indigenous people. Day made his name in this supremely difficult role.
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He is most famous for his role in bringing to justice the perpetrators of the 'Myall Creek massacre' near Inverell in 1838. In that most infamous of events on the nineteenth century colonial frontier at least 28 (but up to 50) Wirrayaraay people, mostly women and children, were wantonly killed by a party of 11 convict and ex-convict stockmen. Day led the party that captured the killers and brought them to justice. After two trials, seven were found guilty and hanged. This was the first case in NSW of white men being executed for murdering natives. It was hugely controversial. For his part in applying the law to the incident, Day was scorned by much of white society, for whom the Indigenous people had to be quelled in the name of colonial advancement. The press pilloried him, and he was attacked by powerful landowners who probably saw him as a traitor to his race. He would have been at some personal peril from their anger. He did better with public opinion as far as the taming of the bushranging problem was concerned.
He led the party that hunted six members of the 'Jew Boy gang' of Edward Davis near Singleton in 1840 and saw them executed. His efforts were fulsomely recognised when a grateful Hunter community presented him with a silver plate. Beyond his work in law enforcement, Day played a significant part in Maitland life. He laid the foundation stones of Maitland Gaol and Maitland Hospital and was Maitland chapter of the Australian Immigration Association President.
Day died in Maitland and was buried in St Peter's Anglican Church, graveyard at East Maitland. Bringing the perpetrators of the Myall Creek massacre to book was his best-known achievement. He was one of those who, in opposition to widespread community sentiment, "did the right thing" as Mark Tedeschi (author of Murder at Myall Creek: the trial that defined a nation) argued in the Sydney Morning Herald on the 185th anniversary of the killings. Day was a brave man to swim against the tide of contemporary opinion. The Herald on 10 June 2023 apologised for its opposition in 1838 to taking the side of the killers and opposing their execution. It had called the Wirrayaraay "murderous wretches" and claimed the colony did not want them to exist. That may have been the dominant European attitude of the time.
