Lost Australian history: oops, I married an axe murderer

Lost Australian History – 18-24 September

By Michael Adams, creator of the Forgotten Australia podcast

Meet Annie May Summerbelle, she didn't mean to marry an axe murderer

In the early hours of Sunday 24 September 1893, Annie May Summerbelle lay asleep in her room at Sydney’s Hotel Metropole. She had everything going for her. Known as May, she was 25, strikingly beautiful, recently married and expecting her first child. At a time when few women had careers, May was an up-and-coming musical performer and composer, having trained under Alice Charbonnet Kellerman, mother of our future swimming and cinematic superstar, Annette Kellerman.

Little did May know it, but as she slept her life was about to come crashing down.

Two hundred and fifty kilometres west, her young husband Edwin Hubert Glasson had broken into the City Bank building in the little village of Carcoar. Bertie, as he was known, was the black sheep of a sheep-farming family in the district. He’d gotten himself into financial troubles that he now hoped to solve by raiding the bank’s safe. To protect his identity, he wore a crude mask. To protest his person, he carried an axe.

The City Bank’s manager, John Phillips, lived on the premises with his wife Anne and their daughters, Gladys, who was 2, and Dorothy, just a few months old. They were upstairs asleep in their bedroom, along with Annie’s sister Susan Stoddart and a visiting friend Fanny Cavanagh. These guests had only arrived last night – timing their visit so they could keep Anne company because John was moving to his new managerial posting in Young on Monday. Anne, the kids and the sister and friend would follow in a few weeks.

Around 2:30am, John and Anne heard noises downstairs. He grabbed his revolver. She lit a candle. They went downstairs to investigate and saw the terrifying masked home invader.

May's husband wore a mask and attacked with an axe

Bertie Glasson attacked in frenzy. John was felled with an axe blow, Anne falling with him. She screamed for her husband to shoot. But he couldn’t as he succumbed to a fury of fatal axe blows. In the confused frenzy, Anne managed to attack their attacker and rip off his mask. She saw it was Bertie Glasson – a man she knew.

Anne ran upstairs to save her little children. Bertie ran after her. On the landing of the darkened stairs, he saw a woman trying to call for help from a window. He swung his axe and hit her in the throat. She was killed instantly. But it wasn’t Anne. It was Fanny Cavanagh, who having heard the murderous attack, had been trying to carry baby Dorothy to safety. One of the little girl’s fingers were severed by the blade and she’d be found unconscious with the bloody body of the brave family friend.

Bertie stormed on into Anne’s bedroom. As Anne whirled, he put an axe through her face. Anne’s sister Susan, who’d hidden little Gladys, ran in and pleaded for their lives.

Bertie demanded money from the badly wounded Anne, the terrified Susan and a bewildered servant girl named Agnes who’d come up from her quarters into this carnage. Bertie wanted the keys to the safe. But John had no longer had them – he’d already done handover to the incoming manager. After terrifying minutes, Bertie fled with a little cash that John had in one of his trouser pockets.  

Bertie stole a horse and escaped. Reaching Cowra, he changed his clothes, took a hotel room and tried to act natural, going so far as to have breakfast with a policeman and offering his help in the hunt for the savage killer whose crime had shocked Australia. But the survivors could identify him. Once this news reached Cowra by telegraph, Bertie was arrested and charged with the double axe murders.

Anne, Susan and Agnes bravely testified about the trauma they’d suffered and identified Bertie at his trial. He pleaded not guilty by virtue of insanity.

May testified about her husband's money problems and mental woes

Bertie’s wife May Summerbelle testified on his behalf about the mental woes he’d suffered on account of his money problems. Bertie might’ve been disturbed but he’d planned his crime and his escape. He’d known what he was doing – and that it was wrong. Bertie was found guilty and sentenced to death.

Steadfast May petitioned the NSW government for mercy. But it wasn’t to be. Bertie was hanged on 29 November 1893 in Bathurst. May gave birth to their daughter, Noela 4 weeks later – on Christmas Day.

Given that even a whiff of scandal could be social death in the Victorian era, it was testament to May’s remarkable resilience that she didn’t let her husband’s horrible crimes define her. Far from it.

In 1895 May relaunched her music career with a new composition that was well received by critics and the public, who’d buy the sheet music so they could play it at home.

Professionally, May would go from strength to strength. Personally, she would suffer more martial woes when he second husband left her with twin sons, fled to South Africa and faked his own death before returning to Australia in 1911 and begging her to take him back. May divorced the cad.

May composed music for the Anzacs and more

On the outbreak of the First World War, May’s fame became fused with her patriotism.

Her song ‘So Long’ was written for the men who’d volunteered to fight, and it was played as they marched to the ships that would take them to Gallipoli. Some 2000 copies of ‘So Long’ were distributed among Australian soldiers, so it could be played and sung wherever they went. One of May’s subsequent songs, ‘Wanted for the Fighting Line’, would be widely used on the home front for recruiting.  

While May was a single mother-of-three and a prolific musical composer and performer, she somehow also found time to be a pioneering Australian newspaperwoman.

During the pre-war and war period, she was the music critic for the Sunday Times and later edited the women’s pages for the Times and the Evening News. Given these interests, May later had plenty to talk about with Noela’s husband, the journalist Kenneth Slessor, who’d become Australia’s most famous poet.

May Summerbelle died in 1948, aged 81. She'd lived an incredibly dramatic and accomplished life.

Did May predict her first husband's fate?

Perhaps strangest of all was that she may have predicted the double axe murder. That's because in December 1892, she'd been playing the part of a fortune teller at Sydney's German Fair.

One of her customers was Fanny Cavanagh. A widely circulated article in October 1892 reported: "Strange enough, she told the fortune of Miss Cavanagh, and predicted a calamity. She also read the lines on her hand, and pointed out the sign of a sudden and early death. The young lady was a good deal concerned, but Miss Sumerbelle comforted her with the information that her own hand showed similar lines and equally disastrous indications. A well-known lady journalist was present at the time, and 'chaffed' both young ladies. She said Miss Summerbelle was lucky enough to draw a young squatter out of the lottery."

May did, of course, marry squatter's son Bertie just one month later - and the rest was strange history, for her, Fanny and poor John Phillips. For this and her other achievememts, May deserves to be remembered.

Other lost Australian history moments from September 18-25

The mother of the Sydney Harbour Bridge: Kathleen Butler

On 19 September 1923, Kathleen Butler, Dr John Bradfield’s trusted project manager on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, had her critical contribution recognised when she had the honour of switching on a compressor to begin ‘the first act of physical construction’. In 1924, she’d travel to London, where she would directly supervise the project with contractors Dorman, Long and Co. When Sydney’s proudest landmark was opened in March 1932, Kathleen was there – but only as a guest of honour. In 1927, she’d had to retire because she got married – women at this time required to give up public service jobs upon becoming wives.

Fun fact: it takes 30,000 litres of paint to apply one coat to our ‘coat hanger’.

The mystery of the Garden Palace fire

In the late 19th century, Sydney’s proudest landmark was the stupendous Garden Palace. Unlike the future Sydney Harbour Bridge that’d take nearly 2 decades from conception to completion, this grand complex with its spectacular dome was designed, built and opened in just 9 months for use as the venue for 1879’s Sydney’s International Exhibition. In 1880 to 1882, the Garden Palace was used for concerts, shows and art exhibitions, with numerous government departments taking offices in the building and using the vast basement to store original documents. It was Sydney's harbour landmark long before the Opera House or bridge came along. Government critics said this was foolish: the Palace had brick foundations and galvanised iron roofing but was otherwise a vast timber tinderbox. Just before dawn on 22 September 1882, a massive inferno razed the entire complex in just over an hour. Everything was lost, including colonial art and irreplaceable census records. The burning question: accident or arson? The truth was never revealed. Fun fact: this fire disaster put pressure on the colonial government to build a permanent NSW Art Gallery that’d protect precious paintings.

Our colourful second Prime Minister

On 24 September 1903, Alfred Deakin was sworn in as Australia's second Prime Minister. He ranks as one of the world’s most curious politicians. In colonial Victoria, he’d been a séance-loving spiritualist who sought career advice from a head-reading phrenologist. As oddly, during his stints as Australia’s Prime Minister, he secretly continued to write a London newspaper column under a pseudonym – sometimes taking pot shots at himself as Australia’s leader! If Deakin’s spirit is still out there, and that of this alter ego, it’d be interesting for them to weigh in on the recent controversy that’s resulted from people rediscovering the inconvenient truth that this founding father of Federation was also the chief architect and administrator of the White Australia Policy.

Fun fact: Deakin attended Ned Kelly’s hanging in November 1880 and he was, very likely, involved in the spiritualist attempt to ‘catch’ the bushranger’s soul in a spiritualist ‘net’ thrown over Melbourne.

A Red Ban?

Deakin’s White Australian policy was still in force 50 years after federation when Australia faced a referendum on 22 September 1951. The burning question: should the Constitution be altered so the federal government could pass laws to ban Commies and the Communist Party? 2,370,009 voted ‘No’ and 2,317,927 voted ‘Yes’ – a split of 50.56% to 49.44%.

Fun fact: 1.4% of votes were blank or invalid – far more than the tiny sliver that separated the sides.

Blue Poles… and the bridge painter

On 21 September 1973, Gough Whitlam’s government – which had officially ended the White Australia Policy – divided Australian popular opinion with a different debate over colour when it bought Blue Poles for the record-setting amount of $1.3m (about $14m in 2023). Jackson Pollock’s splattery masterpiece went on display at its first home ¬– the beautiful and fire-resistant NSW Art Gallery. The most succinct critique came from Paul Hogan, who was photographed holding his nose in front of the canvas. Hoges’s qualifications? Well, he’s splashed far more paint than even Jackson Pollock, having painted the Sydney Harbour Bridge for a crust before becoming a comic superstar. Hoges might’ve been the professional funny man, but Gough got the last laugh because Blue Poles is now valued at $500m.

To hear the whole story of The City Bank Axe Murders, The Garden Palace Fire Mystery and Kathleen Butler: Mother of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, check out the Forgotten Australia podcast. Michael Adams’s books The Murder Squad and Hanging Ned Kelly are available now.