John Lynch was an Irish convict who was convicted at the Berrima Court House, in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, on March 21, 1842, of the murder of Kearns Landregan. He was hanged at Berrima Gaol later in 1842. The Berrima District Historical and Family History Society, which has done the most public work on the case in recent years, counts ten people as his victims in all, killed in a series of robberies on the roads between Sydney and Berrima, and it describes the killings as premeditated: by the Society's account he gained his victims' trust before he killed them.
Only one of those deaths was the subject of his conviction. An earlier death, of a fellow servant named Thomas Smith, led to a murder charge against Lynch and two other men, and all three were acquitted. The rest were never tried.
Lynch was born in 1813, according to the Society, and he came from Ireland. He was convicted at Cavan of obtaining goods by false pretences and sentenced to transportation for life, according to the transportation data published by Convict Records of Australia. That database lists him as a ploughman and records that he sailed on the Dunvegan Castle, which left on July 1, 1832, and reached New South Wales on October 16, 1832. The Society says he arrived in 1832 aged 19.
He was an assigned servant at Oldbury, at Sutton Forest, according to the Society. Oldbury was a 1,500-acre grant in the Bong Bong district made in 1822 to James Atkinson, a former clerk in the colonial secretary's office who had named it after his father's estate in England, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Atkinson died at Oldbury on April 30, 1834, leaving his widow, Charlotte, to run the property. The historian Patricia Clarke, writing in the same dictionary, says Charlotte Atkinson had to control convict labor in a district beset by bushranging gangs. On March 3, 1836, she married George Bruce Barton at the All Saints chapel at Sutton Forest, and Barton became superintendent at Oldbury. Clarke describes him as violent, unpredictable, a drunkard and mentally disturbed, and says Charlotte fled from him with her children in 1839. Australian Geographic, in a 2024 profile of the Atkinson family, says bushrangers ambushed Charlotte and Barton in 1836 and whipped Barton, a month before the wedding. No report connects Lynch with that attack.
The first death linked to Lynch was that of Thomas Smith, a laborer at Oldbury. The Society's 2019 newsletter says Lynch and two other men were charged with Smith's murder in 1835 and were acquitted. Nothing more about Smith himself, his age, his origins or his life on the farm, was reported. Because Lynch was acquitted, the law treats him as not having committed that killing, although the Society counts Smith among his victims and marked Smith's grave in 2019.
After the Smith case, the Society says, Lynch carried out a series of robberies and premeditated killings between Sydney and Berrima. The Society's 2019 account puts his victims at ten in all. Its 2016 newsletter gave the number as eleven, and an article by the Society's Linda Emery in the Southern Highlands magazine Highlife in 2026 says "at least 10". None of these deaths except Landregan's was tried, so they remain attributed, not proven.
The victims named in the Society's publications are these.
John and Bridget Mulligan lived at Wombat Brush, near Berrima. Wombat Brush is the old name of the area south of Berrima, on the western side of what is now the Hume Highway, that was renamed Canyonleigh in 1970. It took its name from an 1834 map by the Surveyor General, Major Mitchell, and in the 1830s its stands of timber drew fellers and their families, according to a local history series the Society published in the Southern Highland News in 2013. A cart road had been made through the district in 1820 and had become a main route for travelers and bullock wagons.
Bridget had two children, John, who was 18, and Mary, who was 13. The Society names both among the six victims commemorated at Sutton Forest. How long the family had been on the farm, and how they lived there, was not reported.
William Fraser and his son, also named William, are buried at All Saints, Sutton Forest. The Society's August 2019 newsletter describes their graves as lying beside the graves it was about to mark, and says the elder Fraser's grave already had an ornate headstone.
Kearns Landregan, whose first name the Society spells both Kearns and Kerns, was murdered at Mittagong, according to the Society. Nothing more about his life appeared in the sources that could be read. His was the death for which Lynch was tried and convicted.
The Society's count of ten implies two more victims than the eight it names. Later accounts mention two carriers killed on the road to Sydney, but their names were not reported.
The reports do not say how the victims died. The nickname attached to the case in later writing, the axe murderer of Berrima, is used for example in the headline of a 2021 column in the Cavan newspaper The Anglo-Celt.
The Berrima Courthouse, now a museum, says the building served as a Court of Assizes presided over by a judge of the Supreme Court from 1839 to 1846, and was used for court sittings, on and off, until 1884. Linda Emery's 2026 history of Berrima Gaol in Highlife says the gaol was completed in 1839 and for almost a decade was used mainly to hold prisoners appearing before the Assizes and Quarter Sessions. In the 1840s, Emery writes, the gaol was where some of the most widely known murderers of the day were executed. Emery says the first man hanged there was the bushranger Paddy Curran, sentenced to death in 1841 by the Chief Justice, Sir James Dowling. Lucretia Dunkley and Martin Beech, convicted of the murder of her husband, Henry Dunkley, were hanged at Berrima on October 16, 1843, according to the courthouse museum, and Emery records Henry Atkins as the last man hanged there, in 1844.
Dowling had become the second chief justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales after Francis Forbes resigned in 1837, and he was knighted in 1838, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography. The reports do not say whether Dowling presided at Lynch's trial.
Lynch was convicted at the Berrima Court House on March 21, 1842, of the murder of Kearns Landregan, according to the Society's 2019 account. The arrest, the charge, the witnesses, the evidence and the length of the trial were not reported. The sentence was death.
Lynch was hanged at Berrima Gaol in 1842. The sources disagree on the date. The Society's September 2019 newsletter says he was hanged the day after his conviction. Convict Records of Australia gives his date of death as April 22, 1842. Linda Emery wrote in 2026 that he is said to have danced a jig on the scaffold before the trap was dropped; she gives it as a story told about him, not as an established fact.
His time in the gaol is part of how the building is now described. A Canberra Times feature in January 2023, by the columnist Tim the Yowie Man, carried a photograph of the old gaol with a caption saying it had once held Lynch, and noted that it was to become a hotel.
Several of the people the Society counts as Lynch's victims were buried in the churchyard of All Saints at Sutton Forest. In March 2016, Linda Emery raised with the Society's management committee a suggestion from a member, Ros Dale, that the victims be commemorated with a plaque at the church. Linda and Langdon Emery offered to donate a sandstone plinth, and the Society agreed to pay up to 500 dollars for the plaque, according to its April 2016 newsletter.
The plaque marks the graves of six people: Thomas Smith, the laborer at Oldbury; John and Bridget Mulligan of Wombat Brush; Bridget's children John and Mary; and Kearns Landregan. It stands beside the graves of William Fraser and his son. The Rector of All Saints, the Reverend Jeremy Tonks, blessed and unveiled it on Sunday, September 8, 2019, after the regular afternoon service, with members of the Society and of the congregation present, and the gathering ended with afternoon tea in the church hall, the Society reported.
Lynch's name has also been attached to at least one local mystery that it does not fit. Near Berrima, a rock beside the old road carries the inscription "man died here 1837". One theory held that the man was one of Lynch's victims. In the 2023 Canberra Times feature, Linda Emery of the Society said the rock formed part of a cutting almost certainly made by convict road gangs working on the new line of road, that the identity of the dead man remains a mystery, and that none of the theories, including the Lynch theory, stands up to critical examination. The columnist wrote that the Lynch story did not match the historical records.
In April 2021 The Anglo-Celt, the newspaper of County Cavan, published a column by Jonathan Smyth on Lynch, written at the suggestion of a reader, Carl Morgan, and with information supplied by Leslie McKeague. It is evidence of the interest the case still holds in the county where he was convicted.
Proven by the court: Lynch was convicted of the murder of Kearns Landregan at Berrima in March 1842 (the Society gives March 21) and was hanged at Berrima Gaol in 1842.
Tried and acquitted: the killing of Thomas Smith at Oldbury. The Society counts Smith among his victims; the court did not convict him.
Attributed, never tried: the deaths of John and Bridget Mulligan, John and Mary, William Fraser and his son, and two others whose names were not reported. The Society gives ten victims in all; its 2016 newsletter gave eleven; Linda Emery in 2026 wrote "at least 10".
Wording to treat with care: Emery's 2026 Highlife article says Lynch "was convicted in 1842 for killing at least 10 people". The Society's own 2019 account, and the legal record as far as it could be traced, show a conviction for one killing, that of Landregan.
Dates in conflict: the year of the Thomas Smith case (1835 in the Society's account); and the date of the hanging (the day after the conviction, by the Society's 2019 newsletter, or April 22, 1842, by Convict Records of Australia).
Names in conflict: Landregan's first name appears as both Kearns and Kerns in the same Society newsletter. The Society names the Wombat Brush couple as John and Bridget Mulligan and the children as Bridget's; the reports do not say whether the children bore another surname.
A story, not a fact: that Lynch danced a jig on the scaffold, which Emery gives as something said of him.
Not his: the "man died here 1837" rock near Berrima, which the Society's historian says cannot be tied to Lynch or to any of the theories offered for it.
1813: John Lynch is born in Ireland (Society).
1822: Oldbury, at Sutton Forest, is granted to James Atkinson.
July 1, 1832: the Dunvegan Castle sails for New South Wales with Lynch aboard, after his conviction at Cavan for obtaining goods by false pretences; sentence, transportation for life.
October 16, 1832: the ship reaches New South Wales; Lynch, aged 19, is assigned to Oldbury.
April 30, 1834: James Atkinson dies at Oldbury.
1835 (Society's date): Lynch and two other men are charged with the murder of Thomas Smith, a laborer at Oldbury, and are acquitted.
March 3, 1836: Charlotte Atkinson marries George Bruce Barton, who becomes superintendent at Oldbury.
1839: Berrima Gaol is completed; the courthouse sits as a Court of Assizes from 1839.
Before March 1842: the killings the Society attributes to Lynch on the roads between Sydney and Berrima and at Wombat Brush, and the killing of Kearns Landregan.
March 21, 1842: Lynch is convicted at the Berrima Court House of the murder of Kearns Landregan and is sentenced to death.
1842: Lynch is hanged at Berrima Gaol (the day after his conviction, by the Society's 2019 account; April 22, 1842, by Convict Records of Australia).
October 16, 1843: Lucretia Dunkley and Martin Beech are hanged at Berrima.
1844: Henry Atkins, the last man hanged at Berrima, is executed.
1970: Wombat Brush is officially renamed Canyonleigh.
March 2016: the Society agrees to fund a plaque for Lynch's victims at All Saints, Sutton Forest.
September 8, 2019: the plaque is blessed and unveiled by the Reverend Jeremy Tonks.
April 18, 2021: The Anglo-Celt publishes Jonathan Smyth's column on Lynch.
January 13, 2023: the Canberra Times reports Linda Emery's view that the "man died here 1837" rock cannot be tied to Lynch.
February 2026: Highlife publishes Linda Emery's history of Berrima Gaol.