A Haunting at the Railway Hotel Peterborough
The Railway Hotel is located at 221 Main Street Peterborough,
South Australia. It is the third hotel built in the town, opening on 24
December 1891.[1]
The first publican was W. Britten.[2]
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| Railway Hotel 2017 - Source: Bahnfrend CC: |
Sister Beth Ashley was a much-respected nurse. She had worked at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and at St Margaret’s Rehabilitation Hospital at Semaphore. It was while at St. Margaret’s that Ashley met an orderly named William Hyson. Hyson had come to South Australia from Tamworth, New South Wales. Ashley and Hyson had started dating, but after a short while, Ashley called off their relationship.[3]
Ashley had become a nursing sister at the Peterborough Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital in South Australia’s mid-north. On March 21, 1949, Ashley received a phone call from Hyson telling her he was coming to Peterborough to visit her. Ashley became upset and told him not to come or she would tell the police he was harassing her.
The following day, March 22, at about
11:25am, Violet Revell, a housemaid at the Railway Hotel, heard two gunshots
about 30 seconds apart. Revell reported to her boss, publican Sydney Coombe at
about 11:50pm that a woman in an upstairs room was calling out for help. Coombe
investigated room 5 and called out to the woman to open the door. She said, “I
can’t open the door. I am shot.’ Coombe asked if anyone was with her, to which
the woman replied, “Bill.”
Coombe called out for Bill to open the
door, to which the woman replied, “He can’t!”
Coombe phoned the police.
Mounted Constable E.H. Thom was first on the scene. He opened
the door expecting to see evidence of a struggle, but there was none. Sister
Ashley, lying on the bed, opened her eyes, and said to Thom, “I was here only
two or three minutes when Bill shot me!”.
Dr A.M. Myers was
called. He found Hyson and Ashley both alive and had them rushed to the
hospital. Hyson had taken a .22 pistol and shot Ashley, then turned the gun on
himself. Hyson died of a self-inflicted wound at 2:15pm that day.[4]
Ashley was still conscious when the doctor
found her. She had a small wound in front of her right ear. Dr Myers decided to
operate when her condition improved, however, her bleeding was not under control,
and she died at 5:40pm.[5]
The coroner, Mr J.S. Bennett ruled at an inquest into the
deaths, that it was a murder-suicide by shooting.
It is alleged, ever since this terrible tragedy, that the
Railway Hotel is haunted. Witnesses claim that sometimes a ghostly silhouette of
a person is seen in the upper windows of the hotel. Some people claim that they
can feel a person sitting on them. Oddly, this happens in room 3, not room 5
where nurse Ashley was shot.[6]
Another ghost reported haunting this hotel is a child who
plays in the kitchen.
It is said of the ghost in room 3, that some truckies have
rented the room, and have left to sleep in the truck rather than wake up to the
ghostly figure sharing the bed with them!
Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2020
[1] ‘About the Railway’, Railway Hotel Motel Peterborough, (2020), https://railwayhotelpeterborough.com.au/.
[2] Hoad, J. L., Hotels and publicans in South Australia 1836-1984, (Adelaide, 1984), p. 490.
[3] 'COUPLE DIE IN HOTEL', The West Australian, (23 March 1949), p. 6., http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47652985.
[4] Nurse Died After Call For Aid, Brisbane Telegraph, (April 9, 1949), p. 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article216575186.
[5] 'Murder And Suicide Finding At Peterborough Inquest', Chronicle, (14 April 1949), p. 8. , http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article93334089.
[6] Marshall, Gordon de L & Shar, Richard, Ghosts and hauntings of South Australia, (Jannali, N.S.W., 2012), p. 251.
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