Mount Rennie rape case

The Mount Rennie rape case is the only gang rape in Sydney during the 1880s that led to a full conviction of the participants involved in the crime.^[1] The attack is sometimes referred to as the "Mount Rennie Outrage". The crime was a pivotal point in New South Wales history coming after a history of failure of other gang rapes trials in that time period.

The incident

The rape occurred on September 9, 1886. Sixteen-year old Mary Jane Hicks was offered a lift by a man named Charles Sweetman. She had been educated at a convent school and had only recently arrived in Sydney.^[2] Sweetman diverted the cab to Moore Park area, then an isolated piece of bushland in Sydney's suburbs. He attempted to rape her in the cab but she screamed for help. A group of around twenty men known as "larrikins" answered the call. They surrounded the cab and knocked on the door. They persuaded Hicks to leave with them. Sweetman fled in his cab and left Hicks to her fate.^[3] However, the group of men proved not to be rescuers, but took her further away.

Various men held her down and took turns to rape her. Hicks fell into and out of consciousness during the ordeal. Some men attempted to rescue her but they were beaten back by the gang with bricks, stones and bottles.^[4] At one stage during the attack, Hicks attempted to drown herself.^[3] One author states that the larakins also mutilated her, but this is not reflected in any other commentary of the incident.^[5]

Police found her at five the next morning in a state of exhaustion and extreme terror.^[3] She claimed to have been raped by eight to twelve men. After a police search, she identified her assailants later that day. Fifteen men were arrested.

Public reaction

The rape caused a "frenzy" of outrage and sensation in Sydney. The Sydney press focused on the brutal nature of the perpetrators. The Sydney Daily Telegraph newspaper described the crime as one "which no parallel can be found in the crimes of civilized life or in the savageries of barbarism". The Sydney Bulletin newspaper instead argued that Hicks was an "unfortunate", or in other words, a prostitute. It focused on her lack of virginity. Crucially though it ignored Hick's claim that she had been raped at the age of fourteen by a married man. Geoffrey Partington notes that the Bulletin likened the incident to British oppression of the Irish.^[6] He notes the Bulletin accused the then Governor of New South Wales Lord Carrington as "dragging from the grave the skeletons of the poor wretched ignorant boys whom he sent to the gallows in deference to the laws of a convict colony that has not even yet emerged from beneath the shadow of the gaol wall"^[6]

William Hill, Michael Donnellan, Joseph Martin, William Boyce, George Duffy, William Newman, Hugh Miller, George Keegan and Robert Read were tried for the crime. Justice Windeyer declared the crime as a "most atrocious crime, a crime so horrible that every lover of his country must feel that it is a disgrace to our civilization". Nine men were convicted and sentenced to death. Two were acquitted. Sweetman received fourteen years prison with two floggings for his part.

Reaction to the sentences

There was an outcry over the death penalty being too harsh for the nine men. In 1887, the Sydney Town Hall was said to have been packed to protest against the hangings. A deputation of 150 citizens attended the governor in support of the hanging. Five eventually had their sentences reduced to life imprisonment by the Governor. However, for the first three years they had to be served in fetters. The remaining four were hanged in January 1887. One of the men was seventeen.^[7] Two thousand people were said to have turned out to witness the hangings. Bondi resident Robert Howard botched the hangings when he miscalculated the drop necessary for the youths.^[8] One died instantly but the remaining three struggled for several minutes. One of the three struggled for six minutes and bit his tongue in half in the process.^[8]

Subsequent impact on Australia

Donald McLean used the crime as the basis for his 1962 novel "The World Turned Upside Down". McLean kept Hicks and Sweetman as the protagonists in the novel. However, he used other names for other participants in the events.

The incident has been compared to the Sydney gang rapes of 2000.^[9][10]

References

1. ^ Cossin, p. 13.
2. ^ Mary Jane Hicks Autobiographical Statement Sydney Morning Herald 13 September 1886 p 4
3. ^ ^{a b c} Gleeson, p. 189.
4. ^ Peers, p. 124.
5. ^ The Samuel Griffith Society — Chapter Eight: Republicanism and the Repudiation of post-1788 Australia (Dr. Geoffrey Partington)
6. ^ ^{a b} Partington
7. ^ Peers
8. ^ ^{a b} Waverley
9. ^ McGuinness, Padraic P (July 23, 2002). "No one gang has the monopoly on rape". The Sydney Morning Herald. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/22/1027332344339.html. Retrieved 2007-03-14. 
10. ^ Clune, Frank (1957). Scandals of Sydney Town. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. pp. 228. 

Sources

• Barker, Anthony (2001). What Happened When: A Chronology of Australia from 1788. Allen & Unwin. p. 52. ISBN 1865084263. 
• Cossins, Anne (2000). Masculinities, Sexualities and Child Sexual Abuse. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ISBN 904111355X. 
• Gleeson, Kate. From Centenary to the Olympics, Gang Rape in Sydney.
• Partington, Geoffrey (July 1999). "The Samuel Griffith Society — Chapter Eight: Republicanism and the Repudiation of post-1788 Australia". Proceedings of the Eleventh Conference of The Samuel Griffith Society. http://www.samuelgriffith.org.au/papers/html/volume11/v11chap8.htm. Retrieved 2008-09-04. 
• Peers, Juliet. Accept any Woman's Word? Rape and Republicanism.
• Simon, Rita James (2001). A Comparative Perspective on Major Social Problems. Lexington Books. p. 18. ISBN 0739102486. 
• "Robert "Nosey Bob" Howard (1832–1906)". Waverly Library. 2008-05-25. Archived from the original on 2008-07-23. http://web.archive.org/web/20080723170652/http://www.waverley.nsw.gov.au/library/localstudies/historical/nosey.htm. Retrieved 2008-09-04.