The Greenock Ripper!

Late on the 7^th of March in 1903, a Saturday night, a woman made her way to Greenock Police Office in Dalrymple Street.  She was bleeding heavily and reported that she had been stabbed by a man while in a close in Dalrymple Street near an empty building.  Her name was Elizabeth (Lowden) O’Neill, forty-one years old and known to the police as a woman who frequented the shebeens and closes of that part of Greenock.  Her injuries, which the local press delicately described as being “to the lower part of her body” were severe, and she was rushed to Greenock Infirmary. 

Just an hour and a half later, at 1am, Bridget (Gordon) Baker appeared at the Police Office bleeding profusely, to report that she had been stabbed by a man in a close at 20 Vennel, just across from the side entrance of the public library.  She was 52 years old and also well known to the local police.  She had a seven-inch gash in her hip and had been cut by a knife.  She was also immediately rushed to the Infirmary to have her wound treated.

1. Dalrymple Street   2. Vennel   3. Public Library    4. Police Office

Both women described their attacker as between twenty and thirty years of age, tall and “respectably dressed”.  Needless to say, the attacks caused some commotion in the town with the attacks being likened to those attributed to “Jack the Ripper” in Whitechapel, London in the previous decade.  Just as in that case, no arrests were ever made in the “Greenock Ripper” case. 

Greenock Infirmary, Duncan Street

The women were discharged from the Infirmary a couple of weeks later having been successfully treated for their injuries.  One of the victims Bridget (Gordon) Baker was quite a character.  She had frequently been in trouble with the police and in 1877 had even been charged with theft of a petticoat from the local prison!  She died in the poorhouse at Smithston in 1911.  Elizabeth (Lowden) O’Neill was from Glasgow and seems to have left the town shortly after the assault. 

Greenock’s closes, or narrow lanes, which led down to the quays and harbours had a bad reputation and despite the recent improvements, there were still areas of the town that were known to be the haunt of prostitutes and crooks.  (Read more about Greenock's closes here.)  

@Greenock Burns Club

Interesting that the offences were carried out by someone described as "well dressed" and that they took place not in the heart of the Vennel, but on the edges, like Dalrymple Street and near the library (at Wallace Place).  Perhaps the perpetrator would have looked out of place in the deeper heart of the closes.  The young man could have been just passing through and perhaps left the town on one of the many ships that sailed the next morning.  Many places in Britain and abroad reported “copycat” assaults and murders in the wake of the sensational Whitechapel Murders.  Greenock was no exception!

Listen to the Greenock Ripper Podcast by the Greenockian.

Greenock Library, Wallace Place