Mabel Ambrose: The tragic case of the body in the trunk
When two young boys fished a trunk from the Yarra River in 1899 and found a body inside it sparked a sad and sordid tale in Melbourne’s history. The victim was a young seamstress and tickets were sold to the trial of those who killed her.
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It was summer in Melbourne and two young boys were rowing a boat on the Yarra.
Christmas was about a week away and days were long and lazy.
In a couple of weeks the New Year would bring in 1899 and the final year of colonial Victoria.
The boys’ meandering vessel brought them up to the shade of the Church St Bridge.
That was where they found the trunk.
It was about 1m long, 45cm wide and 40cm deep.
And it was heavy.
A big stone had been tied to the trunk to keep in underwater, but it hadn’t worked.
The container was bobbing on the surface when they found it, beckoning them to open it.
The young discoverers’ minds must have been racing.
On a rowing adventure on a summer day, what would they find in this hidden chest? Buried treasure? Discarded junk? Secret documents?
It was far more horrible than that.
When the trunk was opened, there was the body of a young woman, stripped naked with her hair cut short.
She had died more than a week ago, and whoever did this to her had contorted her body to fit in the makeshift coffin.
The boys did not realise they had found the remains of 17-year-old Mabel Ambrose, a Melbourne seamstress.
Her treatment at the hands of her killers was bad enough.
But the treatment of her remains by authorities, the macabre fascination of the public and the tragic circumstances surrounding her death paint a portrait of a young woman failed by the societal norms of her time.
A SAD DISPLAY
Bodies in the Yarra were not uncommon.
Economic downturn lingered in Melbourne after the gold rush and crime was a big problem.
Less than a month before the discovery of the trunk, newspapers had described the discovery of another body in the river, found one piece at a time.
But it was the trunk case that had everybody talking.
Nobody fitting the description of the young woman had been reported missing and police were at a loss to identify the body.
What they did next defies belief by modern standards.
The victim’s head was removed and put on display at the morgue, and the public were invited to view it.
A photograph of the gruesome sight was published in newspapers, showing the head from two angles, and a reward of 50 pounds was offered for anyone who could identify the victim.
A few weeks later the circumstances of the death became clearer.
A woman named Beatrice came forward with a confession.
She had met the victim in a house in Osborne St, South Yarra where, under the direction of another woman named Madame Redalsky, illegal medicine and operations were administered.
The victim was Mabel Ambrose, a teenager who was working as hired help at the house.
A Chapel St estate agent, named Travice Tod, had also been involved. When police rounded them up, they all confessed, and a doctor accused of providing drugs for illegal operations was also arrested.
As the trial got underway, public interest was so feverish the court was overrun with spectators.
At one stage, tickets were sold.
When the crowds were deemed too great, only people with official business in the courthouse were admitted, much to the disappointment of a curious public.
When the victim’s mother came forward, she was given no comfort by police.
Instead, after they witnessed the squalid conditions in which she and her other children were living, they charged her with vagrancy and took the children.
An ugly scene at court saw the children forcibly removed, although they were later returned to her.
She later attempted to claim the 50 pounds for identification of her daughter, although authorities argued Beatrice Jamieson had already come forward with a confession by that stage, voiding the reward.
A GIRL LOST
Gradually the full tragedy of the killing came to light.
Mabel Ambrose had consorted with Madame Redalsky, Beatrice Jamieson and Travice Tod at the house in South Yarra.
She and Tod had been intimate.
Although no newspaper dared to directly address it, it was apparent that Ambrose was relying on Redalsky to administer treatment for an illegal termination.
A series of methods were used and, during one of the medical sessions, Mabel Ambrose was killed.
When they realised what had happened, the trio plotted to dispose of the body.
Tod hired a buggy cart, the body was stripped and the hair cut to hamper identification, and a trunk that belonged to the victim was used as a coffin.
The trunk was carted through the streets of Melbourne, with the offenders horrified the smell would attract attention.
But they made it to the river where they cast it into the water, watched it sink and hoped that would be the end of it.
Instead the body was discovered more than a week later.
The trio were tried and Radelsky and Tod were sentenced to death for murder, although the sentence was later reduced to imprisonment.
Beatrice Jamieson, who also went by the name Thelka Debburke, was dealt with lightly because of her willingness to inform to police, and the doctor accused of involvement was acquitted.
The case was talked about for decades and has echoed for more than a century as a tragic sketch of Melbourne society at the time.
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