Mount Rennie rape case
1886 Australian legal case
The Mount Rennie rape case is the only gang rape in Sydney, Australia, in the 1880s that led to a full conviction of at least some of the participants involved in the crime—young larrikins of the "Waterloo Push". The attack is sometimes referred to as the "Mount Rennie Outrage" or the "Waterloo Outrage". The crime was a pivotal point in New South Wales history, coming after a history of failure of other gang-rape trials in that time period.
Crime
The gang rape occurred on 9 September 1886. Sixteen-year-old Mary Jane Hicks had been educated at the Bathurst convent school, then worked as a domestic servant at Katoomba, and at a hotel and private houses in Sydney. While walking to a city employment registry, she was offered a lift by Charles Sweetman, the driver of a hansom cab, who instead drove her in his cab to what is now the Moore Park area, then an isolated piece of bushland in the suburb of Waterloo and called Mount Rennie. He attempted to molest her in the cab but she screamed for help. Two young men approached and took her out of the cab, purporting to save her from disgrace. At this point, Sweetman departed with his cab.
The young men walked Hicks to a different isolated location, where they were joined by several others, some of whom began to take turns in raping her.
“Mount Rennie rape case” enters the record as 1886 Australian legal case. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mount, Rennie and rape can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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