The Worst Woman in Sydney
Page 20
NSW Parliament
Legislative Assembly, ‘Select Committee into the condition of the working classes of the metropolis’, Votes and Proceedings, 1854–60, vol. 4, p. 68
Legislative Council, Standing Committee on Social Issues, ‘Report on the Inebriates Act 1912’, Report No. 33, August 2004, Sydney, pp. 15–21
National Archives of Australia
First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers 1914–1920, ‘Devine, J E’, Statement of service record,
Interviews and transcripts
Some of the content of this book has been informed by my conversations over the years with locals in Darlinghurst, Surry Hills and Fremantle. Individuals interviewed below have been named and quoted in the text.
Baker, Hal, interview with the author, 16 August 2013
Baker, Jeannine, interview with her grandmother, Mary Baker, 18 April 1998, transcript given to the author
Baker, Jeannine, interview with her uncle, Hal Baker, 2 May 1998, transcript given to the author
Beahan, Mark, several conversations with the author, June–December 2015
City of Sydney Oral History Project, interview with Richard Mewjork, 12 September 2011, Oral Histories,
Throsby, Margaret, interview with Chow Hayes, 1990, ABC radio,
Wilson, Wendy, interview with the author, 10 September 2015
Books
Adams, Simon, The Unforgiving Rope: Murder and Hanging on Australia’s Western Frontier, UWA Publishing, Perth, 2009
Allen, Judith A, Sex and Secrets: Crimes Involving Australian Women since 1880, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1990
Anderson, Hugh, The Rise and Fall of Squizzy Taylor: A Larrikin Crook, 2nd edn, Pier 9, Sydney, 2009 (first published Jacaranda Press, Brisbane, 1971)
Anleu, Sharyn L Roach, Deviance, Conformity and Control, Pearson Longman, Sydney, 2005
Beier, AL & Paul Ocobock (eds), Cast Out: Vagrancy and Homelessness in Global and Historical Perspective, Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio, 2008
Bellanta, Melissa, Larrikins: A History, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 2012
Blaikie, George, Wild Women of Sydney, Rigby, Adelaide, 1980
Caine, Barbara & Rosemary Pringle (eds), Transitions: New Australian Feminisms, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1995
Carrabine, Eamonn, Pamela Cox, Maggy Lee, Ken Plummer & Nigel South, Criminology: A Sociological Introduction, Routledge, London, 2009
Crotty, Martin, Making the Australian Male: Middle-class Masculinity 1870–1920, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2001
—— & David Andrew Roberts (eds), Turning Points in Australian History, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2009
Daniels, Kay, Convict Women, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1998
Davidson, Ron, High Jinks at the Hot Pool: The Mirror Reflects the Life of a City, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, 1994
Davies, Pamela, Peter Francis & Victor Jupp (ed.), Doing Criminological Research, Sage, London and Singapore, 2011
D’Cruze, Shani & Louisa A Jackson (eds), Women, Crime and Justice in England since 1660, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2009
Djurie, Bonney, Abandon All Hope: A History of Parramatta Girls Industrial School, Chargan My Book Publisher, Perth, 2011
Dugan, Darcy with Michael Tatlow, Bloodhouse, HarperCollins, Sydney, 2012
Emsley, Clive, Crime and Society in England, 1750–1900, Pearson Longman, London, 1987
——, Crime and Society in Twentieth-Century England, Pearson Longman, London, 2011
Fitzgerald, Ross & Trevor L Jordan, Under the Influence: A History of Alcohol in Australia, ABC Books, Sydney, 2009
Frances, Raelene, Selling Sex: A Hidden History of Prostitution, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2007
Godfrey, Barry, Paul Lawrence & Chris A Williams, History and Crime, Sage Publications, London, 2008
Grabosky, Peter N, Sydney in Ferment: Crime, Dissent and Official Reaction 1788–1973, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1976
Grimshaw, Patricia, Marilyn Lake, Ann McGrath & Marian Quartly, Creating a Nation 1788–1990, McPhee Gribble, Melbourne, 1994
Hartman, Mary S, Victorian Murderesses: A True History of Thirteen Respectable French and English Women Accused of Unspeakable Crimes, Robson Books, London, 1985
Jenkings, Bill, As Crime Goes by …: The Life and Times of ‘Bondi’ Bill Jenkings, Ironbark Press, Sydney, 1992
Jensen, Vicki (ed.), Women Criminals: An Encyclopedia of People and Issues, vol. 1, ‘Issues related to women and crime’, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, California, 2012
Keating, Christopher, Surry Hills: The City’s Backyard, 2nd edn, Halstead Press, Sydney, 2008
Kelly, Vince, Rugged Angel: The Amazing Career of Policewoman Lillian Armfield, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1961
——, The Shadow: The Amazing Exploits of Frank Fahy, Angus & Robertson, London, 1955
Kilday, A & D Nash (ed.), Histories of Crime: Britain 1600–2000, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2010
Knightley, Phillip, Australia: Biography of a Nation, Jonathan Cape, London, 2000
Lake, Marilyn, Getting Equal: The History of Australian Feminism, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1999
McCoy, Alfred W, Drug Traffic: Narcotics and Organised Crime in Australia, Harper & Row, Sydney, 1980
MacDonald, Robert (ed.), Youth, the ‘Underclass’ and Social Exclusion, Routledge, London, 1997
McHugh, Paul, Prostitution and Victorian Social Reform, Croom Helm, London, 1980
Mahood, Linda, Policing Gender, Class and Family: Britain 1850–1940, UCL Press, London, 1995
Manderson, Desmond, From Mr Sin to Mr Big: A History of Australian Drug Laws, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1993
Matthews, Jill Julius, Good and Mad Women: The Historical Construction of Femininity in Twentieth-Century Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1992 (first published 1984)
Morton, James & Susanna Lobez, Gangland Australia: Colonial Criminals to the Carlton Crew, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2007
Nowra, Louis, Kings Cross: A Biography, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2013
O’Brien, Anne, Poverty’s Prison: The Poor in New South Wales 1880–1918, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1988
O’Farrell, Patrick, The Irish in Australia: 1788 to the Present, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2000
Pacione, Michael, Urban Geography: A Global Perspective, Routledge, London, 2005
Park, Ruth, The Harp in the South, Penguin Books, Melbourne, 2009 (first published Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1948)
Pearson, Geoffrey, Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1983
Penfold-Mounce, Ruth, Celebrity, Culture and Crime: The Joy of Transgression, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2010
Pierce, Peter, The Country of Lost Children: An Australian Anxiety, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1999
Robinson, Russell, Khaki Crims and Desperadoes, Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 2014
Ryan, Michael, Prostitution in London, with a Comparative View of that of Paris and New York, H Baillière, London, 1839
Saunders, Kay, Notorious Australian Women: The Sensational Lives and Exploits of Some of Australia’s Most Notorious Women, ABC Books, 2013
Schreuder, Deryck M & Stuart Ward, Australia’s Empire, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009 (first published 2008)
Seal, Graham, The Outlaw Legend: A Cultural Tradition in Britain, America and Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996
Sharpe, James, Dick Turpin: The Myth of the English Highwayman, Profile Books, London, 2004
Spraggs, Gillian, Outlaws and Highwaymen: The Cult of the Robber in England from the Middle Ages to the 19th Century, Pimlico, London, 2001
Sturma
, Michael, Vice in a Vicious Society: Crime and Convicts in Midnineteenth Century New South Wales, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1983
Swain, Shurlee (with Renata Howe), Single Mothers and Their Children: Disposal, Punishment and Survival in Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995
Valverde, Mariana, Diseases of the Will: Alcohol and the Dilemmas of Freedom, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998
Vicinus, Martha (ed.), Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1973
Walkowitz, Judith, Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class and the State, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001 (first published 1980)
Ward, Russel, The Australian Legend, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1958
Welshman, John, Underclass, Hambledon Continuum, London, 2006
Wright, Alan, Organised Crime, Routledge, London and New York, 2011 (first published 2006)
Wright, Clare, Beyond the Ladies Lounge: Australia’s Female Publicans, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2003
Writer, Larry, Razor: Tilly Devine, Kate Leigh and the Razor Gangs, Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 2009 (first published 2001)
Journal articles
Bellanta, Melissa, ‘The larrikin girl’, Journal of Australian Studies, vol. 34, no. 4, 2010, pp. 499–512
Bland, Lucy, ‘“Purifying”’ the public world: feminist vigilantes in late Victorian England’, Women’s History Review, vol. 1, no. 3, 1992, pp. 397–412
Bodington, GF, ‘On the control and restraint of habitual drunkards’, British Medical Journal, vol. 2, no. 765, 1875, pp. 255–56
Franklin, James, ‘Convent slave laundries? Magdalen asylums in Australia’, Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society, vol. 34, 2013, pp. 70–90
Luckins, Tanja, ‘ “Satan finds some mischief”?: drinkers’ responses to the six o’clock closing of pubs in Australia, 1910s–1930s’, Journal of Australian Studies, vol. 32, no. 3, 2008, pp. 295–307
——, ‘Pigs, hogs and Aussie blokes: the emergence of the term “six o’clock swill” ’, History Australia, vol. 4, no. 1, 2007, pp. 1–17
Phillips, Walter, ‘ “Six o’clock swill”: the introduction of early closing of hotel bars in Australia’, Historical Studies, vol. 19, no. 75, 1980, p. 261
Piper, Alana, ‘ “A growing vice”: the Truth about Brisbane girls and drunkenness in the early twentieth century,” Journal of Australian Studies, vol. 34, no. 4, 2010, pp. 485–97
Tennant, Margaret, ‘ “Magdalens and moral imbeciles”: women’s homes in nineteenth-century New Zealand’, Women’s Studies International Forum, vol. 9, nos 5–6, 1986, pp. 491–502
Williams, Marise, ‘The gender politics of Underbelly Razor’, Southerly, vol. 72, no. 2, 2012, pp. 9–22
Unpublished theses
Beresford, Quentin, ‘Drinkers and the anti-drink movement in Sydney, 1870–1930’, PhD thesis, Australian National University, Canberra, 1984
Davidson, Raelene, ‘Prostitution in Perth and Fremantle and on the eastern goldfields, 1895 – September 1939’, MA thesis, University of Western Australia, Perth, 1980
Toole, Kellie Louise, ‘Innocence and penitence hand clasped in hand: Australian Catholic refuges for penitent women, 1848–1914’, MA thesis, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, 2010
General online resources
Allen, Judith, ‘Leigh, Kathleen Mary (Kate) (1881–1964)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University,
—— & Baiba Irving, ‘Devine, Matilda Mary (Tilly) (1900–1970)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University,
Cain, Frank, ‘MacKay, William John (1885–1948)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University,
Commonwealth of Australia, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Report of Case Study No. 7: Child Sexual Abuse at the Parramatta Training School for Girls and the Institution for Girls in Hay, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2014,
Harvey, Adam, ‘US military makes its mark’, The World Today, ABC Radio, 11 November 2011,
Metropolitan Cemeteries Board, ‘Summary of Record Information – Ernest Alexander Ryan’,
Moss, Tara, ‘The lure of the bad girl’, transcript from speech at the Justice and Police Museum, 2009, see
Nixon, Christine, ‘History of women in the police force’, in Patricia Weiser Easteal & Sandra McKillop (eds), Women and the Law: Proceedings of a Conference Held 24–26 September 1991, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra, 1991,
NSW Government, ‘Eveleigh Railway Workshops’, Heritage online database,
‘Paddington gentrification’, Four Corners, ABC TV, 15 December 1962,
Perkins, Roberta, Working Girls: Prostitutes, Their Life and Social Control, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra, 1991,
‘Razor gangs revisited, cabaret-style’, City of Sydney Media Centre,
Stanton, Geoff, ‘Rogues’ Gallery Revisited | Sydney police archives 1912–1948’, From the BarrelHouse blog, 2 August 2012,
SRNSW, ‘Re:– History of Kate Lee, No. 2 Police Station, Sydney, 6th July 1914’, ‘Robbery Under Arms – The Eveleigh Heist, 1914’, NRS 880 [9/7196], online exhibition,
Sydney Living Museums, ‘Celestial city: Sydney’s Chinese story’, online exhibition,
Van Krieken, Robert, ‘State intervention, welfare and the social construction of girlhood in Australian history’, TASA Sociology Conference, Flinders University, Adelaide, 10–13 December 1992,
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Kate Leigh’s ghost has been a part of my life for many years.
When my partner, Tony, moved to Sydney, he rang to tell me everything was ready for me to leave Perth and join him over there. He had deliberately picked out a rental property in Darlinghurst that I would love: it was old, historic and a bit rough around the edges. The place had character but it also had a reputation. Just as Tony was about to move in, someone was murdered – stabbed to death – not far from the house. From the quiet comfort of what by comparison was a sleepy city, Sydney was living up to the image I had of it from years of research, reading and giving lectures about its history and criminal past.
‘Rough around the edges’ was a description that fitted the terrace house well. Someone had done a dodgy patch-up job of the electrical wiring around the front door so that every time you put the key in the lock, you got a nasty zap of electricity. The funniest moment – and
I know this is slightly unfair – was when I allowed Tony to open the door with Christmas decorations around his shoulders. The brief electrical bolt went through the aluminium decorations and made him jump back from the door.
Then there was the gas smell we could never really get rid of and that every passer-by stopped to tell us about.
It was in a house like this that Nellie Cameron was told she needed to be careful undressing in the back room because all the men in the factory nearby had a view straight into it. For us it was the toilet. You could sit there and wave to the workers in the warehouse across the lane.
And the cockroaches. We once considered taking bets on who would step on one during the night in bare feet, en route to the toilet.
Character. Lots of it.
Sitting on the balcony and looking out over Palmer Street one night, I witnessed two prostitutes fighting over their ‘patch’. A few days later, I noticed one of the women sitting outside the church on the corner and we got talking. She told me of her grandmother who had worked the same streets, and the intergenerational link she felt every day with Darlo. Then there were the other sex workers who asked me if I knew much about the history of the place. I knew about Sydney in general, but I didn’t know a great deal about Darlinghurst itself. They told me to check out Surry Hills, too.
When we moved to Esther Street, Surry Hills, and then to an apartment near Devonshire Street, that’s when locals really brought Kate Leigh to life for me. In shops, pubs and in parks, they talked about old Kate. For them, she was of a bygone era when you really looked after your own community. When quizzed about her criminal life, they depicted Kate as a tough old bird who peddled sly grog and drugs but was more of a matriarch to the local kids.
When we left Sydney and moved to Fremantle, Kate followed us too. When Fremantle locals found out I had moved back from Surry Hills they were only too happy to tell me about Kate Leigh’s marriage to Shiner Ryan in Fremantle in 1950. Kate Leigh had a wider story than I at first realised. Location, therefore, has influenced this book, along with my conversations with many anonymous locals who shared their accounts.