In June 1919 279 Spring St Melbourne gained notoriety after a particularly nasty crime was committed there by James Turpenny. Nasty crimes aren't that interesting but the circumstances they reveal can be. In this case, the fact that Turpenny killed his wife Rose with a butcher's knife in the kitchen (and then pretended she'd done it to herself) meant that a whole lot of other things surrounding the Turpennys' living conditions were reported in the press. For instance, they slept on rags and had other people living with them - it was absolutely not clear how or even, really, why. 

The day had not gone well, and the press tended to depict Rose as a provocateur in her own death. Apparently in the afternoon of the 7th (a Saturday) she had asked James for money which he had refused to give to her, and in retaliation she had tried to stab him with a knife. He then went to the football (at Richmond) and on his return the argument started up again. Rose 'tore up the gaberdine coat of a girl who had been staying in her home some weeks before.' James then went outside and talked to a man in the street until 10:30 pm. A soldier also called James, James Bates, was staying with the Turpennys and when James Turpenny came back home the three of them drank six bottles of beer and 'Turpenny sang three songs'. Bates went to bed, and the couple started fighting again. Rose threw a saucer at James and he 'struck' her, whatever that actually means. Then James lay down on some clothes and old rags in the back room and Rose ran at him with a knife again (not sure if it was the same knife). He had so many clothes on the knife didn't penetrate. Soon afterwards Bates was awakened by James Turpenny who told him to fetch an ambulance: 'Rosie has done herself in'. She was sitting at the kitchen table with her head down and two knives next to her. She'd been stabbed in the heart. James changed his story the next day and confessed he had stabbed her. He got three years' hard labour for manslaughter on the understanding that he'd been provoked.   

What I found more interesting than this tragic/tawdry story was the circumstances in which the Turpennys lived and how they were described in the press. 249 Spring Street 'stands back from a dirty, disordered garden' with 'discoloured rooms' and 'a few articles of ramshackle furniture'. The Age reporter went on: 'As the detectives went in yesterday several dogs which had been sleeping in one of the front rooms slunk out at their approach while from the back of the building was heard the yelping of other dogs'. 

After James was committed for trial the Coroner 'said he felt compelled to say that the house in Spring street where the tragedy occurred was a disgrace to the city of Melbourne. It was astonishing that people should be allowed to live in such places.' According to the city health officer speaking a few days later, there had already been steps taken to condemn 249 Spring and 'the owner was now calling for tenders for removal of the tenement.' 

'Tragedy of the Slums' Melbourne Age 9 June 1919 p. 2; 'Spring-street Stabbing Case' Melbourne Age 24 June 1919 p. 6; 'City Slums' Melbourne Age 28 June 1919 p. 12 

It seems then to have become a commercial space, in the form of a reasonably welll regarded radio sales and repairs business called Kingsley Radio. It was then part of a combined site to create the Commonwealth Centre, a development I really should recall because it was definitely around in my lifetime but I absolutely cannot recall it. Here's a picture of it by Wolfgang Sievers from 1968:

Here's a picture of its interior by Lyle Fowler in 1960:

Tbh the Commonwealth Centre (a letter to the Age thirty years later refers to it as the green latrine)* gives me the heebie jeebies much more than the Turpennys' house with its rags on the floor and the singing of three songs. 

An article in the Age from 10 September 1958 (p. 16) says that the site previously had properties totalling 'more than 200 ownerships and that a number of the lots 'had only 20-foot frontages' and 'some of Melbourne’s oldest and dirtiest buildings.' The first of the new buildings had a sealed tunnel which would connect with the underground railway when it was built, only I suspect it didn't, because they changed the route. I bet this had an extra use as a fallout shelter. Its demolition was announced in October 1988 at which time it was described as 'one of Melbourne's worst eyesores'.**

*Geoff Miller, 'A chance to repay' (letter) Age 17 November 1988 p. 12

** Paul Luker, 'Hudson to build $300m city office park' Age 19 October 1988 p. 36

Back to James Turpenny, because I love a dumb thug:

Age 12 June 1922 p. 6