When Melbourne feared London’s Jack the Ripper had come to town

When three women were brutally killed in Collingwood, locals feared a copycat was at work – or even Jack the Ripper himself.

John Finnegan, aka the Brewery Ripper.. Source: Public Record Office Victoria.

In 1890-91, a year or two after Jack the Ripper terrorised London, three women were killed in a similar style in Collingwood.

It wasn’t long before fears were raised that a copycat was on the loose – or even Jack the Ripper himself.

The story is told in today’s new episode of the free In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters:

It’s one of many gripping tales in a new book called The Hunt for the Australian Ripper, by crime writer Roy Maloy.

All three victims, Catherine Smith, Jane Gordon and Rose Sumner, were killed within months of each other, and their bodies found with similar slash wounds to their abdomens.

Their bodies were found within a block of a well-known brewery in Hoddle St, Collingwood, which was surrounded by dozens of small, dark lanes.

“When the initial murder happened, I don’t think it was necessarily so quickly identified as ‘this is the same MO as Jack the Ripper’, even though it was spookily similar,” Maloy says.

“It was when the second murder took place, and they were both almost identical.”

At the time, “Jack the Ripper” had become a generic expression for a violent murderer who used similar methods to the notorious London serial killer.

“So they initially started saying, ‘Do we have a Jack the Ripper on our hands?’ Then it became very much, ‘Is this Jack the Ripper?’” Maloy says.

“There was a lot of anxiety that the actual Jack the Ripper had come to Australia, and that’s why the killings stopped.”

It was only after the third murder that the killer was caught.

Rose, a vulnerable woman whose husband abused her, was drinking with a local man named John Finnegan at the Yorkshire Stingo Hotel when he invited her to his home opposite the pub.

Before long, Finnegan ran back across the road into the pub and raised the alarm, asking for a glass of brandy to help revive her.

When Finnegan and the bartender ran back to the house, they found blood in the bed and Rose near death in the backyard.

Rose’s life could not be saved, and Finnegan was convicted of the third murder and sentenced to death, but this was commuted to prison time.

To find out more, listen to the interview in the free In Black and White podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or web.

See In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper every Friday for more stories and photos from Victoria’s past.