Thomas John Ley

Thomas John Ley, politician in Australia, murderer in England.

Born on 28 October 1880, in Bath, England, Thomas died in the Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane, England, on 29 July 1947

He is described in the Australian Dictionary of Biography as a 'politician and murderer'

Ley came to Australia from England, aged 6, with his mother and 3 siblings in 1886. He married Emily Louisa (‘Lewie’) Vernon in 1898, the year she came to Australia from England. Both were active in politics, she in the international suffrage movement, and he was a successful state (New South Wales) and federal politician from 1917 to 1928.

Contents

1 State Politics 2 Federal Politician 3 Return to England 4 The Chalk Pit Murder

State Politics

Thomas Ley was a prominent and vocal advocate of proportional representation, which New South Wales adopted in 1919. As a teetotaller, his nickname was Lemonade Ley, but the Temperance Movement accused him of betrayal when he supported the alcohol lobby, and the Amending Liquor Act, of 1923. It later became evident that he was being paid by the brewery lobby.

He was appointed Minister for Justice in New South Wales from 1922 to 1925, and gained a reputation for his harsh decisions.

Federal Politician

Thomas Ley was elected the member for Barton in the federal House of Representatives in 1925. Ley’s fellow-conservatives began to have doubts about him after the election campaign, and despite having held a senior State portfolio, he was never appointed to the federal ministry.

During the 1925 campaign Ley had tried to bribe his Labour Party opponent, Fred McDonald. McDonald went public, and alleged Ley offered him a £2000 share in a Kings Cross property in return for withdrawing from the ballot. Ley won the election, and McDonald appealed to the Courts, but disappeared in mysterious circumstances and the case collapsed for lack of evidence when he failed to show up.

McDonald’s disappearance may have been a coincidence. But in 1927 Hyman Goldstein MLA, another of Ley’s public critics, was found dead after apparently falling from ‘Suicide Point’ on the Coogee cliffs.

Then a group of businessmen concerned at Ley's reputation for dubious business dealings (SOS Prickly Pear Poisons Ltd being one of the more infamous) appointed Keith Greedor, an opponent but one-time associate of Ley’s to investigate. Travelling to Newcastle by boat Greedor fell overboard and drowned.

Return to England

After his defeat in the 1928 elections, Ley returned to England with Maggie Brooke, his mistress of several years, leaving his wife in Australia.

Although little is recorded of Ley's life during the 1930s, he seems to have used his move to England to start afresh in dubious business ventures, and during World War II he was arrested and convicted for black marketeering.

The Chalk Pit Murder

In 1946 his mistress, Brooke, was living in Wimbledon and Ley had his house at 5 Beaufort Gardens, London, converted into flats. Ley imagined Brooke and a barman called John McBain Mudie were lovers. Ley persuaded two of his labourers that Mudie was a blackmailer, and together they tortured and killed him. The case became known as The Chalkpit Murder because Mudie’s body was dumped in a Surrey chalkpit.

With Lawrence John Smith, Ley was tried at the Old Bailey, and both were sentenced to death in March 1947. However, both Smith and Ley escaped the noose; Smith’s sentence was commuted to life, and Ley was declared insane and sent to Broadmoor. He died soon after entering the asylum.

Ley's wife ‘Lewie’ Vernon had followed him to England in 1942. From Broadmoor Ley wrote letters and poems and protested his innocence to his children and wife. Lewie returned to Australia after his death. She died at Bowral in 1956.