…of the Justice & Police Museum
Posted in 1920s, Femme Fatale, mug shots on Aug 25th, 2010
Tilly Devine stares out from this image taken upon her entry to gaol. She was an incredibly successful villain who, along with her nemesis Kate Leigh, ruled the inner city vice trade for almost 20 years. Tilly began her criminal career as a teenage prostitute on the streets of London. She toughened up quickly in [...]
Posted in 1920s, 1930s, Crooks like us, Negative Archive, mug shots on Mar 17th, 2010
Jean McDonald was a fraudster and confidence trickster. She looks drab and resentful here but her sob stories were ambitious, florid and well-told. Through 1923-24 she methodically extracted money and favours from a gullible Randwick benefactress with tales of heroic war service, sick children and missing husbands. When she needed to [...]
Posted in Femme Fatale, Negative Archive, mug shots on Aug 26th, 2009
Prisoner identification photographs make up many of the earliest negatives in the collection. Photographed in various institutions across New South Wales the negatives usually record a full frontal and profile view of the prisoner.
Assistant Curator Nerida Campbell’s current research centers on retelling the stories surrounding women convicted on a range of offences who served time [...]
Posted in Femme Fatale, mug shots on Jul 29th, 2009
Photographed 27 November, 1919 at the State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay . FP07_0215_005
Many criminals give false personal information to police in the hope that their previous convictions will not be discovered. Jean Harris used a large number of aliases that included the names Emma Rolfe, May Mulholland and Eileen Woods. She sometimes successfully fooled [...]
Posted in Femme Fatale, mug shots on Apr 2nd, 2009
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Photographed 10 January 1924 at the State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay, NSW
During the early 20th century many unmarried or widowed women with children lived in circumstances of abject poverty. Unable to work during a time when there were no welfare payments, they were often driven to commit desperate acts. Whole columns of the [...]