The Greer-Soudry Tragedy. The Scene in the Melbourne Opera House. Mr. Greer, Mrs. Greer, M. Soudry.

Very rare engraved supplement of the Greer-Soudry tragedy at the Melbourne Opera House, from The Illustrated Sydney News. 

On 24 July 1880, John James MacGregor Greer shot his wife, Annice and M. A. Louis Soudry, then shot himself at the Melbourne Opera House. J.J.M. Greer died, the others recovered.

The aggrieved husband John James MacGregor Greer fired at his wife and her lover, Frenchman M.A. Louis Soudry, while seated in the circle of the Melbourne Opera House. ‘Women and men hid themselves between the seats, men bolted from the circle in a mad rush, leaving their ladies and charges behind them, while women and children screamed, and calls of “murder” resounded through the theatre.’

The episode transfixed staid Victorian society as a flurry of gory details, moralising editorials and daily updates ensued. Newspapers described the episode as ‘the old-time story of a wife’s inconstancy, a lover’s perfidy and a husband’s jealousy’, and shocking details emerged of the affair beginning while the three protagonists sailed to Melbourne on board the vessel Garonne. The adulterous couple survived and Greer lingered for a week before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.