Morton met author Peter Doyle at the museum this week and the two traded tales of con men and card sharps. Doyle relayed tricks on the Sydney scene while Morton brought the international perspective on Australian confidence men and women who operated in Europe in the 20th century.

One such criminal character was Sidney “Pretty Sid” Grant (above), who was photographed by Sydney police in 1921. Grant’s New South Wales Police Gazette entry from 1923 is captioned “Confidence man (notes for gold)”. He mastered the con trick known as “the hot-seat” during his travels in Europe.

From the late 19th century, Australia exported a series of high-class con men and card sharps who for the next 50 years swindled the gullible English, French and Germans with their tales of infallible betting systems, unbeatable horses, sudden inheritances and lost lucky rosaries. By their sleight of hand, and aided and abetted by their womenfolk – who posed as their sisters, daughters and wives – they extracted fortunes from foolish poker players and over-amorous gentlemen. By the end of World War II, Scotland Yard believed that, of the 216 international confidence men working the European capitals, 58 were Australian born. In the 1960s there was a new invasion. In place of the confidence men came teams of high-class thieves known collectively as the Kangaroo Gang, who stole to order anything from jewellery to a baby chimpanzee from a zoo.

Saturday’s talk will explore these enthralling stories that also feature in Morton’s latest book Kings Of Stings: The Greatest Swindles From Down Under. Visit the HHT Online Shop to get your copy

To win tickets for this event visit the Historic Houses Trust Facebook page

Speaker: James Morton
James Morton is a former defence lawyer in England and is one of Britain’s leading expert on crimes and the author of the Gangland Series.

Matilda Devine aka Tilly DevinePhotographed 27 May 1925 at the State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay

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 order to survive on the brutal streets of the metropolis. During the First World War she met an Australian soldier, James ‘Big Jim’ Devine, and they married. She arrived in Sydney on a war bride ship in 1920 and began working as a prostitute immediately.

Tilly had an entrepreneurial streak and worked her way up to owning a string of brothels in East Sydney. She defended her turf with razor, knife and colourful language and was know for her short temper and fast hands. She was a complex character who was happy to sit in the gutter and drink from a bottle with her ‘girls’ but upon returning to her marital home in Maroubra insisted on sipping from the finest crystal. Her home life was marred by incidents of domestic violence and she eventually divorced ‘Big Jim’ and married a sailor, Eric Parsons.

She often appeared before the courts and her criminal record reveals convictions for consorting, malicious wounding, indecent language, vagrancy, assault and soliciting. She vigorously defended all charges and was suspected of intimidating witnesses who chose to give evidence against her.

The photograph was taken after her arrest for slashing a man with a razor as he sat in a barber’s shop on Crown Street, Surry Hills. The events leading up to the attack are disputed but what isn’t is that Tilly used a razor to punish a man she felt hadn’t shown her enough respect. It is interesting that although she had a tall, well built and violent husband who was her ‘protector’ she chose to deal with the victim herself.

Jean McDonald, 26 June 1924, Central Police Station, Sydney. FP07_0104_004.

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 up the narrative ante she started killing off the fictitious children (and asking the benefactress for funeral expenses). When eventaully hauled before the court, she claimed that her larcenous industry was conducted, at least in part, to support a layabout ex-policeman de facto husband, Sylvester Feld. Because she had acted “under the influence of a man” the judge suspended her twelve month sentence and put her instead on a good behaviour bond. Within a year though McDonald was arrested for swindling a suburban grocer, which triggered her call-up on the earlier conviction. She failed to show up for sentencing, at which point she drops out of the records. At least, that’s how I report it in Crooks like us, (pages 26-29). I based that claim on a fruitless search for her in the Police Gazette for the subsequent five years.

Photo Supplement to the Victoria Police Gazette, Thursday May 4, 1933, p5. Courtesy of the Victoria Police Historical Services.

Recently I came across Jean McDonald in the Victorian Police Gazette Photo Supplement of 1933 — she had apparently skipped out to Melbourne, where she continued her trickery. Listed there among her aliases is “Jean Doyle”. I’d turned up an archive mug shot of a “Jean Doyle” years ago, but never made the connection with Jean McDonald.

'Jean Doyle', 30 April 1930, Central Police Station, Sydney. FP07_0137_005.

It’s obviously the same woman (and I kick myself for not having spotted it). She’s put on a little heft, but the same flat, despairing look is there. This second portrait is dated 30 April 1930 and, like the 1924 one, was taken in the gloomy muster room at Central Police Station. We don’t know what led to her arrest then, as no new charges are recorded against her. My guess is that she had been busted running yet another scam, but police chose not to waste resources prosecuting, since she was up for automatic gaoling anyway over the 1924 business. A week later she was sent away to do her twelve months sentence. Her release is noted a year later, on 7 May 1931. No remission was granted.

Sydney clearly wasn’t working out for her. So on to Melbourne. A little over a year later, the Victorian Gazette records, she was convicted of fraud and sent to gaol for three months. What became of her after that, we don’t know.

You’ve got to wonder about crims like Jean: she was easily smart enough to charm the money out of a mug’s pocket, but not, apparently, able to elude police and the courts. How unspeakably tedious each arrest, trial and inevitable gaoling must have been. You can see it there in her portrait. My guess: Jean McDonald loved the very early stages of the scam — making up the story, improvising, embellishing, winning the mark’s sympathy, making a new friend. The golden period during which the inevitable consequences can be ignored. Like a drunk who’s fallen off the wagon, relishing those first few delicious, uncomplicated sips.

Assistant Curator Nerida Campbell’s current research centers on retelling the stories surrounding women convicted on a range of offences who served time at the State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay.

The Long Bay negatives, as with much of the archive, are found stacked in the original film manufacturers packaging. Photographers of the time chose to reuse these perfect sized boxes for storage of the exposed negatives. They also added their own numbering system to the boxes. The bold ‘LB’ prefix stamped on the cardboard end indicates the prison of origin, in this case Long Bay, and the digits indicate identification numbers for the prisoners within.

Some plates were not in original boxes but the women can easily be identified as Long Bay inmates by the ‘LB’ prefix inscribed onto the emulsion. This inscription usually also includes the name and date details vital for retracing the criminal history of the sitter.

The 434 individual Long Bay negatives created between 1915 and 1930 were used to record the inmate’s identity on each prison record sheet. Between some of the oldest glass plate negatives we were fortunate enough to find corresponding contact prints. In total 48 photographic prints, often discoloured, folded or faded, were found. These photographs are printed to a scale that is just big enough to frame the sitters face, 9 x 5.5 cm or less. Contact prints are made by placing the negative directly over the photographic paper prior to exposure resulting in a 1:1 positive print after processing.

The working context for the negatives was highlighted further when we also discovered charge sheets, complete with prisoner details, in the State Records Authority of New South Wales holdings. In the case of May Brown we are able to view the two full frame negatives, contact prints and then selected prints affixed to the criminal record sheet. A lovely insight into how the Department of Prisons actually used the photographic medium and how different the final, functional form of the portrait appears from the negative version.

To find out more about May Brown and those who shared the cells at Long Bay keep an eye on Nerida’s posts or visit the current exhibition on at the Justice and Police Museum, Femme Fatale: the female criminal.

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 police into believing she was a novice criminal. In fact she was a career criminal who specialized in theft from houses and shoplifting. Her many aliases created confusion amongst police and she made multiple appearances in the New South Wales Police Gazette under different names. She was a convincing actress and when interrogated by police would strongly protest her innocence and say she was going to consult her solicitor.

The Police Modus Operandi (MO) branch published an internal document, the New South Wales Police Criminal Register, containing details about criminals and the pattern of their criminal behaviour. A 1934 report on Harris states that she waited until householders left before forcing a window or breaking a leadlight door. In one case she was convicted because her fingerprints were found on leadlight glass. Harris chose to steal from ‘the homes of those in superior circumstances’ or worked with a gang of shoplifters in order to steal valuable silks and furs from Department stores. She would disguise herself by wearing a wig, changing her hair colour or by wearing glasses. According to the police MO report she had a ‘Sullen disposition and dresses well’. The Justice & Police Museum collection has another image of Holland in the special photographs collection in which she is identified as Emma Rolfe:
http://collection.hht.net.au/firsthhtpictures/fullRecordPicture.jsp?recnoListAttr=recnoList&recno=31177

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 Police Gazette were dedicated to tracing the parents of abandoned children. A typical example being:

A woman who can only be described as of medium height and build, and fair complexion, called on Bella Leek, residing at 182 Underwood-street, Paddington, and asked her to hold her male infant, about 2 months old, for a few minutes, but failed to return. The child has since been admitted to the Scarba Home for Infants, Bondi.
New South Wales Police Gazette, 19 December 1923, p.659

Other women, like Sarah Boyd, went further and killed their baby. In November 1923 a group of children visiting the seaside discovered a suitcase containing the remains of a baby girl, who had been strangled. Police investigations led back to 39-year-old Boyd who had been seduced and abandoned by her lover. Boyd had a young son from a previous relationship and, due to ill health, she was unable to maintain steady employment. She was struggling financially and her situation became dire in the months leading up to the birth of her daughter. In her statement to police she said “I was desperate – I strangled it…I had no money and I had not got any word from its father”. Boyd then asked a friend, Jean Olliver, to help dispose of the body. They wrapped it, placed it in a suitcase and threw it from a Harbour ferry. The court found both women guilty and sentenced Olliver to 12 months gaol and Boyd to death with a recommendation of mercy. In 1927, after many sympathetic public petitions, Boyd was released from prison and reunited with her son.

Photographed 3 June 1927 at the State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay, NSW

The care and management of young offenders has always presented difficulties for the police and courts. Authorities are reluctant to send teenagers to prison and seek to give them an opportunity to turn their lives around. During the 1920s the courts would often place juvenile offenders in the care of church and charitable institutions if the parents were deemed unfit to care for them. Attempts would be made to remove female offenders from their friends by sending them to convents and homes in rural areas. This strategy was rarely successful and police records detail numerous ‘missing friends [persons]’ who had fled charitable homes in order to return to their criminal associates in the city.

Eileen O’Connor’s story is an old yet familiar one. It would appear that she came to the authorities’ attention as an ‘uncontrollable child’, a term often used by the courts to describe runaway children or those frequenting unsavoury places such as sly grog shops. O’Connor was placed in the care of the Salvation Army but soon fled and was reported missing by the Matron. Soon after, the seventeen year old began to make appearances in the New South Wales Police Gazette as a wanted person. She stole a wallet from a man, possibly as part of a prostitution scam, and a warrant for her arrest was issued. Within a month she was apprehended and sentenced to nine months hard labour at Long Bay.

The other day I was alerted to a batch of extraordinary photographs from the 1920s by a member of staff at the museum, named Gareth Malone. It was explained to me that these images had been damaged… all of them suffered from chipped corners, hairline fractures and surface abrasions. When I viewed these offender photographs on my PC screen however, this damage was easy to ignore and other qualities – intimate, non-coercive, jovial and disarmingly relaxed – became apparent.

The portly and self-possessed individual named ‘Saddler’ (shown above) best captures the self-confident, defiant unflappability I discerned in some of these photographs. His ‘body language’ reminded me of that of H. Ellis who graced the cover of the museum’s 2005 book, City of Shadows. The homburg hat, elegant wool-knit tie, cuffed suit pants and brightly polished 10-hole leather boots, suggested a certain amount of slick and knowing (and possibly ill-gotten) affluence. And the facial expression – detached, mildly amused – made light of a dark situation (the middle of an arrest scenario) …

Photographed just left of centre, and framed in a perfect square, Saddler’s chunky proportions dominate this image. Rain has just fallen and the floor of the muster yard where Saddler sits is still wet. The faintly shimmering reflection of the legs of his chair can just be made out. Light flows down from above, and is also fielded up from the wet floor, suffusing the image with a diaphanous softness. The wall’s scratched, flaked, mottled quality adds to the visual interest, making the polished smoothness of Saddler all the more pronounced against the distressed patina of his setting.

Sometimes when looking at one of the many intriguing mug-shot photographs in the museum’s forensic photography collection, it is a detail off to the left or right of the main subject, an accidental or spontaneous happening that has unexpectedly entered the frame which grabs your attention. In Camera Lucida cultural theorist Roland Barthes named this phenomenon the ‘punctum’ … a part of the image that is not the intended focus but which nonetheless ‘impacts on’, ‘reverberates with’, ‘pierces’ or ‘wounds’ the viewer. In this photograph it is the casual stance of the detective who has strayed unaware into the focal plane of the camera.

The detective hovers, head bowed, absorbed in the act of winding his fob watch, a step or two distant from the middle-aged offender. The detective’s overt concern with the small ticking mechanism in his hand has a serendipitous, fateful symbolism. Photography is all about ‘time capture’, and being arrested and charged for a crime, leads to ‘doing time’. For M.E. Baker, the photo’s intended subject, physical liberty is perhaps about to be exchanged for the ‘slowed time’ of the prison cell. The casual watch-winding presence of the detective, guardian of law, calibrator of time, suggests all that now hangs in the balance for the rather wan, and weary looking M.E. Baker.