Henry Louis Bertrand was born in London on September 26, 1840, to Henry and Marian Bertrand, a Jewish couple who had emigrated from Belgium and changed their family name to something easier to pronounce. The family settled in Mayfair, where the father died in 1844 at just 31 years old. Seven years later, still grieving, Marian decided to move her family to Australia, but left her only son behind to finish his schooling and study dentistry. Henry trained in London, Brussels, and Paris before joining his family in Sydney in 1860 at the age of 19.
His mother had remarried a fellow dentist named Louis Eschl, and Henry was expected to assist in the practice. He quickly built a reputation for himself, even claiming he had served as a dentist to Emperor Napoleon III and advertising that fact in the Sydney Morning Herald. Within 18 months, he took over the business and moved to a more prestigious location in Wyard Square. Around that time, he met and married Miss Jane Palmer, a young woman described as having an unblemished character and kindly disposition.
The couple had two children and enjoyed a comfortable life. Among Henry’s patients was Maria Ellen Kinder, a married woman from New Zealand who went by her middle name. She had married Henry Kinder in 1860 and had two children before the family moved to Australia. Ellen was no stranger to infidelity; there were rumors she had conducted an improper relationship with a sheep farmer named Francis Jackson while still in New Zealand, and some said it was discovering this affair that drove her husband to drink.
By the time the Kinders arrived in Sydney, the husband was an alcoholic working as a bank teller with poor finances. The family lived in a rented cottage in St. Leonard’s. Henry Bertrand befriended Mr.
Kinder, and the families became close, which helped conceal the affair developing between Henry and Ellen. Bertrand became increasingly obsessed with Ellen and unwilling to share her. He planned to divorce his own wife, but Ellen could not divorce her husband, and it was unlikely Mr. Kinder would divorce her.
Bertrand’s behavior grew erratic. He forced his dental assistant to row him across the harbor after midnight to spy on her, later forced the same assistant to dress as a woman while accompanying him to buy a pistol, and then purchased a sheep’s head to practice shooting. A mysterious twist came when Francis Jackson, Ellen’s former lover, traveled from Auckland to Sydney. Bertrand initially saw an advantage: if Mr.
Kinder learned Jackson was renewing the relationship, jealousy might drive him to kill Jackson, leading to his own execution. That plan failed, and Bertrand eventually paid Jackson to return to New Zealand. Jackson took the money but instead traveled about 100 miles up the coast to Maitland. Desperate, Bertrand devised a plan to kill Mr.
Kinder and make it look like suicide. On October 2, 1865, at the Kinder cottage, he fired a gunshot at Mr. Kinder’s head. Both Jane Bertrand and Ellen Kinder were present.
The shot failed to kill, leaving the man injured. Bertrand dressed the wound and sent for a doctor. A doctor and police officer arrived, and Bertrand used his persuasive personality to convince them that financial troubles and drinking had driven Mr. Kinder to attempt suicide.
Given the reputation of the dentist and the presence of witnesses, authorities ruled it an attempted suicide. The plan had failed, so Bertrand decided on poison. He mixed belladonna, a toxic perennial herb, with other poisons and added it to a glass of milk. He convinced Ellen to administer it while her husband recovered from the gunshot wound.
This time it worked, and Henry Kinder died on October 6, 1865. The coroner, considering the earlier suicide attempt, ruled the death a suicide. Ellen and her children moved into the Bertrand home immediately after the death, but her parents soon persuaded her to move with them to Bathurst to protect her reputation. Just when it seemed Bertrand had gotten away with the crime, he received a letter from Francis Jackson, who had never returned to New Zealand and had read about the death in the newspapers.
Jackson implied he knew Bertrand had orchestrated the murder and demanded £20 for his silence. Bertrand did not pay. Instead, he took the letter to police, claiming a man was trying to blackmail him and destroy his reputation. The letter was enough for police to arrest Jackson, who was sentenced to 12 months of hard labor at trial.
The case had drawn press attention and public interest, and the inconsistencies were obvious. After Jackson’s arrest, pressure mounted on police to investigate further. They discovered Bertrand had kept a secret diary detailing Mr. Kinder’s death.
They also learned he had boasted to his sister, Mrs. Harriet Kerr, about getting away with murder. His dental assistant provided additional evidence. Police exhumed the body and conducted an autopsy, which found poison in the stomach.
Henry and Jane Bertrand were charged with murder, and Maria Ellen Kinder was charged as an accessory. By then, the case had spread beyond Sydney and was being read about across Australia. Henry was dubbed “the mad dentist of Wyard Square. ”
The trial began on February 14, 1866, at the Sydney Central Criminal Court.
The charges against the two women were dropped for lack of evidence regarding their involvement. There was substantial evidence against Bertrand, most pointing to his passion for Ellen Kinder as the motive. Passages from his diary were cited to argue his guilt, and his eccentric manner was highlighted, including boasts about his success with women, romantic adventures in Brussels, and a duel fought in Paris. Ellen had exchanged many letters with Bertrand while living with her parents, confirming the improper relationship.
Newspapers published the letters, and the Australian public found great amusement in reading them. During the trial, reports also described how Bertrand treated his wife with violence and in a manner not befitting a gentleman. Some reports suggested this cruelty shocked the public almost as much as the murder itself. Henry Louis Bertrand was found guilty of murdering Henry Kinder.
On February 23, 1866, he was sentenced to death, with the execution planned for the following month. A lawyer named Julian Salomons successfully managed to get the sentence commuted to life in prison. Jane Bertrand, overwhelmed by public attention, took her children and moved to New Zealand, settling in Auckland where she had relations. Ellen wasted no time rebuilding her life and married a man named Humphrey Minchin Carden in 1867.
Bertrand spent time in various jails, including Darlinghurst and the Lunatic Asylum at Parramatta. In prison, he unexpectedly developed an artistic talent and played the organ during chapel services. After 29 years, he became the longest-serving prisoner in New South Wales. Reports indicate he was well behaved, breaking only one rule during his entire sentence.
On June 17, 1894, the justice system declared Henry Bertrand no longer a threat to society, and at age 53 he was released. He spent his first night of freedom at the Metropole Hotel and was deported to England on the first available ship. He did not reconcile with his family and kept a low profile for the rest of his life. He set himself up in London, practicing as a surgeon and dentist under the name Mr.
Edward Henry Burton. In 1902, he and his housekeeper, Caroline Lads, moved to Portsmouth. Caroline had been complaining that she believed she had been poisoned, and she died that same year. An inquest found she died of natural causes, though there was speculation Bertrand may have reoffended.
No evidence of foul play was ever found. Henry Bertrand died on September 11, 1924. Whether he had killed again will never be known.