The Butterfly Women: Murder and survival in colonial Melbourne

Madeleine Cleary’s ‘The Butterfly Women’ brings colonial Melbourne to life in a gripping tale of murder, resilience and the women who refused to be forgotten, writes Anne Layton-Bennett.

INITIALLY, THIS NOVEL seemed to be a Jack the Ripper-type whodunit set in colonial Melbourne during the 1860s. While it’s certainly a murder mystery involving a serial killer, the book is also a social history of that period, albeit one that focuses on women's stories rather than men's.

It was learning about and then researching some of her ancestors that prompted the idea for Madeleine Cleary’s first novel, The Butterfly Women. Several of her forbears once lived in the city’s seedier red light area, formerly known as Little Lon, bulldozed during the 1940s. One of the story’s principal protagonists, Johanna, is loosely based on her great-great-great-grandmother.

History books tend to focus on the lives of men, but it was the women’s lives that fascinated Cleary and how they managed to survive when their menfolk were absent, either away on the goldfields, in prison, or dead. The women’s precarious lives were too often in servitude and for the mostly unskilled and illiterate women in Little Lon, the only other option was prostitution.

If they were lucky, the younger ones might become “dressed girls”, living and working in the relative safety of brothels — at least until their looks faded, they were considered too old, or their services were no longer being requested. At that point, it was onto the streets to rely on the riskier business of streetwalking or petty crime to keep a roof over their head and put food in the mouths of their children.

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To tell the story of these “butterfly women”, Cleary drew on the documented accounts of women who mostly hailed from Ireland and England to create all her female characters. Each played a part in uncovering the identity of the serial killer whose victims, like those of the infamous Jack, were also prostitutes. They include the exotic and flamboyant Madame Laurent, owner and Madam of the brothel Papillon, where Johanna eventually becomes a “dressed girl” following a shocking and brutal attack by her former employer, and being left for dead.

Then there is Mary Jenkins, who donned her police constable husband’s uniform so she could patrol the streets of Little Lon and prevent her husband from losing his job when he was too drunk to work. As this was a frequent occurrence, Mary became a known and respected figure — even by the authorities who chose to turn a blind eye to the fact she was a woman in a man’s role.

And then would-be journalist Harriett, a recent arrival from England with her two over-protective brothers, whose investigative journalism ambitions were dismissed as an unsuitable occupation for a woman. Her reporting was therefore limited to writing puff pieces for the newspaper’s social pages.

But despite their different backgrounds and social status, the murders linked each of them together as they joined forces and used their skills, abilities and intellect to work out the killer’s identity.

Each woman symbolised the butterfly persona – an emblem popular at the time – that Cleary uses to represent the lives of all women who struggled to overcome the social conventions of the time and escape the restrictions that were imposed upon them by men.

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For lovers of historical crime, set in Melbourne’s early colonial days, this is an engaging and satisfying read. As the body count rises, so does the pace and the tension. For the sharp-eyed, there are clues along the way to identify the murderer, but I found the social aspects of life in a still-emerging city that was also finding its own identity, just as interesting as discovering who did it.

In the 1860s, many people left Ireland, Scotland and England for good, and perhaps not so good, and even nefarious reasons. For better or worse, they likely all arrived with hopes for a better life in Australia, but whatever their social status was or had been most faced a precarious hand-to-mouth existence. They were all just trying to survive, but the camaraderie and sense of community were strong, and never more so than among the women.

Those who lived in Little Lon were a close-knit community where the women looked out for and supported each other. And between them, they also caught the killer who was determined to silence them.

The Butterfly Women by Madeleine Cleary is published by Simon and Schuster.

This book was reviewed by an IA Book Club member. If you would like to receive free high-quality books and have your review published on IA, subscribe to receive your complimentary IA Book Club membership.