By Carolyn Webb
Staff of the National Trust of Victoria have been stunned to discover a murder mystery on their own doorstep.
Research into the history of the trust's headquarters, Tasma Terrace in East Melbourne, found that in 1890, Edith Jubb, who managed a lodging house on the site, was shot dead there.
Curator Lizzie Anya-Petrivna at Tasma Terrace.Credit: Penny Stephens
Staff at the trust, which has occupied this row of terraces on Parliament Place near State Parliament for 36 years, had not known of it and are calling for public help to find out more.
Lizzie Anya-Petrivna, the curator who made the discovery, believes Mrs Jubb was wronged, by being judged by the courts and media of the day to have committed suicide.
She died in her first-floor bedroom, from two gunshots to the head, and would have had to re-cock the gun in between. Her lover, Alfred Turner, who lived on the premises, had been abusive and threatened to shoot her and she had had a morbid fear of guns.
The gun was found in her left hand and she was right-handed. Turner was tried for murder but acquitted. He claimed in court to have argued with her, and dodged a bullet she fired at him before she shot herself.
''In the trial and coroner's inquest from the PROV [Public Record Office Victoria], she was portrayed as someone with loose morals, a great flirt,'' Ms Anya-Petrivna says. ''One horrible article hinted she'd formerly been on the stage and that she'd left Perth under a cloud of scandal because she'd had doings with a military man.''
Mrs Jubb was also described as an attractive woman and good conversationalist. The autopsy described her as ''well endowed''.
But Ms Anya-Petrivna discovered the boarding house had been respectable: living there were unmarried women including teachers and nurses and also male barristers and journalists.
Ms Anya-Petrivna said over the years there had been ghost sightings at Tasma Terrace, including a buxom woman standing at a third-floor photocopier.
There were rumours something nasty had happened in the building. ''But no one had been able to categorically point to an event. To discover there was this terrible murder was quite a shock.''
Ms Anya-Petrivna stumbled on the case while studying the architectural history of Tasma Terrace with a view to opening more rooms to the public. ''Tragedy in Parliament Place'', said an article from The Argus of August 15, 1890. The article - published the day after the death - deemed it an ''attempted murder and suicide'' and ''the outcome of a woman's jealousy''.
Ms Anya-Petrivna called for a reappraisal: she reckons Alfred Turner did it. ''I want justice for Edith. I feel as if she wanted me to find the story.'' She admits she has become ''completely and utterly obsessed'' with the case.
On May 16, as part of the National Trust Heritage Festival, she will give a free public tour at Tasma Terrace. She has written about the murder on the trust's website and is thinking of writing a book.
She is seeking public help, particularly a photo of Edith, and is keen to hear from descendants of Edith's three children, Fanny, Hatfield and Richard, from a failed marriage.