How Percy Ramage, one of Australia’s most violent prisoners was once declared insane
Known on the streets of Melbourne as “the Policeman Puncher”, Percy Ramage was such a dangerous prisoner he lived almost constantly in shackles and handcuffs. IN BLACK AND WHITE PODCAST
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Percy Ramage was one of the most violent prisoners in Australian history.
Known on the streets of Melbourne as “the Policeman Puncher”, his hatred for authority was redirected at prison warders when on the inside.
He was so dangerous he had to be almost constantly manacled with leg-irons and handcuffs. In 1902 he was declared insane and transferred to Kew Asylum. Within two weeks, the psychiatrists at the asylum had declared him sane and sent him back. He’d been a “wanted man”, but it turns out he wasn’t that wanted at all.
Ramage was born in Geelong in 1875 into a family of 13 children.
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As a teenager, he ran with a gang of larrikin thieves.
In 1895, Sergeant Rogers of Geelong Police described him as “a larrikin of the first water, the worst larrikin in Geelong, and a terror to the hotel keepers”.
The word “larrikin” in those days was used to describe a street thug or hooligan. He was sent to prison twice that year for assaulting the public and police.
During one altercation he sank his teeth into a police baton, refusing to let go.
Within a few years, Ramage had moved to Melbourne’s inner-city brothel district: “Little Lon”.
Here he led a larrikin gang who made their living by threat and demand.
They had no fear of the law and regularly clashed with the police. In 1898, he and seven other gang members entered the front bar of the Black Eagle Hotel in Lonsdale Street and demanded free drinks.
When the publican sent a messenger for the police, the gang ran out of the pub and into the lane beside it. Here they took up positions behind a pile of old bricks.
A lone policeman entered the lane to investigate and looked up to see Ramage standing on top of the pile with a brick in each hand.
“Come on you (expletive), and I will deal with you”, Ramage threatened. The constable returned with reinforcements, but by then the gang had cleared out. Ramage was arrested later in Little Lonsdale St and received one month in prison for threatening words.
The following year, Constable Luke was in a struggle with Ramage’s compatriot, William Buck.
Ramage thought he would help by knocking the constable senseless with a heavy bottle over the head.
Buck got a shard of glass in the eye, sending it blind. Constable Luke sustained serious concussion and required 12 months off work.
The judge was so appalled that he sentenced Ramage to five years hard labour with 15 strokes of the cat o’ nine tails.
Ramage was diagnosed with diabetes in prison and was subsequently spared the lash, but it was during this sentence that he became known as the most violent prisoner in Victoria. Shortly after his incarceration he attacked a warder with a long-handled broom, which resulted in him being shackled in irons for six months.
On another occasion he broke free from the grip of two warders, ran to where a fellow prisoner was chopping firewood, took the axe, and used it to keep the guards at bay. He was eventually recaptured and placed back in his cell. There he attempted to slash his own throat with a broken light bulb. To prevent this happening again he was put in handcuffs.
The next day, while being searched, he escaped his cell and ran up the stairs to the top balcony of the prison: 12m above the ground.
He leapt off but his handcuffs caught on a rail and he dangled in the air until warders were able to secure him.
After this episode he was medically examined, found to be insane, and transferred to the Kew Asylum.
The asylum psychiatrists then declared him sane and sent him back.
By the end of his five-year sentence, Ramage had accrued an additional two years for misdemeanours. He was released on the understanding that he would leave Australia to live with his brother in South Africa.
The owners of the shipping companies had been reading the newspapers, though, and they refused to have him on their boats.
The first thing he did when released was to head straight back into Little Lon, meet up with his mate William Buck, and fight the police.
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In 1907 he was arrested, along with the well-known gangster Squizzy Taylor, at Squizzy’s girlfriend’s brothel in Bendigo. They were both sentenced to 12 months in prison for being in possession of house-breaking implements, but their convictions were quashed on appeal.
Percy Ramage continued to cause problems for the authorities, but with each year his health declined and his outbursts became fewer.
It was kidney disease that finally got him: chronic nephritis. He died in 1913, aged 38. He had been living at his mother’s house.
— Michael Shelford is a Melbourne writer, researcher, and creator and guide for Melbourne Historical Crime Tours.
Listen to the interview now in today’s new free episode of the In Black and White podcast on Victoria’s forgotten characters to learn more.
And listen to our previous podcasts including the Essendon Football Club trainer who was a quack doctor, the story of Australia’s Willy Wonka, or the piano prodigy who became a “musical spy” in World War II.
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Originally published as How Percy Ramage, one of Australia’s most violent prisoners was once declared insane