Post-war Sydney was in the grip of a housing crisis. Industry was struggling to reach pre-war production rates and the baby boom meant there were many recently formed families desperate to find a home of their own. Newly arrived immigrants were often appalled by the standard of accommodation on offer in the inner city. Ruth Park, an author who wrote about the inner-city ‘slum’ suburb of Surry Hills, could ‘hardly believe that such conditions could exist in a civilized country’ [SMH, 5 March 1947] . Many of the houses were damp, dirty and infested by vermin. A rat plague swept the city and housewives were encouraged to block up holes in their crumbling houses, remove food sources and use rat poison liberally in order to rid Sydney of these vermin.

Kitchen interior of residence on Great Buckingham Street, Redfern. 18 May 1953. (FP09_0071_005)

This image is one of a series of crime scene photographs taken of a kitchen in Redfern in 1953. The space is dark, cramped and decaying. The home belonged to one of the victims of Mrs Caroline Grills, a grandmotherly serial killer who used Thallium based rat poison to dispatch her victims.

Hand signals for motorists. Photographer and location unknown, c1923. (FP08_0014_005)

This quirky photograph has been inscribed with the words “Traffic signals vehicle or car 472”. In 1921 the need to regulate traffic saw the introduction of hand signals for motorists when stopping or turning. By 1924 the use of these hand signals had became compulsory. Presumably police used this image for demonstrations or when instructing drivers.

These photographs show New South Wales first radar set sitting conspicuously in the rear of a police car during testing at Sydney University. Prior to radar technology exact speeds of travel could not be measured and speeding drivers, known as ‘scorchers’, were charged with ‘furious driving’.

The newspapers of the day published a number of articles about the introduction of the radar set. My favourite headline reads “Motorist laughed at radar: booked’. When the offending driver was waved to stop he laughed and continued driving. The newspaper failed to mention if his speeding ticket eventually arrived in the mail.

Another series of photographs dated 25 November 1954 show motoring officials – including the police commissioner and then premier, Mr. Cahill – attending a demonstration at Moore Park. The police intended to reduce the road toll by using radar technology as a deterrent to speeding motorists.

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.

This exhibition presents previously unseen traffic accident photographs taken by police between 1920 and 1964. Recent research on the archive reveals that after the mid-1940s the police approach to photographing accident sites becomes more comprehensive – expanding from one or two shots to a whole series of images. The resulting photographs helped investigators establish the cause of an incident and, if required, were presented in court.

One gallery wall also shows the ways police have been involved in traffic regulation and road safety. The photographs illustrate a range of police activity, from directing traffic at a bustling intersection to teaching children safe road skills. Also included in this selection is the demonstration of New South Wales first radar set, or speed camera, that operated in Sydney from November 1954.

The exhibition opens on Saturday 19 March 2011. Visit the Archive Gallery page for more details.

Caleb Williams, Walter Tuchin and Holly Schulte in the Archive Gallery

Arianne: This exhibition is the first time the museum has focused on the work of a single crime scene photographer, as opposed to a group of them. How did it come about?

Caleb: Holly and I met and conducted a filmed interview with Wal, a still spritely 86 year-old, about 12 months ago, and suggested the idea of an exhibition to him then …  Wal, is one of the few still-living photographers from that era. His insights and stories are invaluable to us, in terms of conveying how this work was done, and the photographs he took are, as you can see, completely remarkable. So the exhibition became an opportunity to explore Wal’s practice as a police photographer and various crime scenes, car crashes and investigations he documented.

Holly: There is something very distinctive about Wal’s photography. His images are well balanced and technically strong, haunting and surreal. When you look at the photographs it is often difficult to see immediately how they relate to crime but that is part of their mystery.

Tuchin's images: Taxi cab damaged after collision with a motor lorry, Parramatta Road, Croydon, 11 Decmber 1954 / Man charged with 12 counts of stealing, Studio, Scientific Investigation Bureau, Sydney, 24 September 1955 / Hands of a strangler, Coogee, 4 November 1953

Arianne: There are 34 photographs in the exhibition …  there are photos of domestic interiors, stolen goods, the aftermaths of fires, and of course bodies in situ. It seems that Wal’s work (as a police photographer) could be both varied and challenging, was that the case?

Holly: Yes, definitely! We tried to highlight the scenes and circumstances Wal would have been confronted with in the course of an average day. He told us of the need to have a loaded camera at the ready, day and night. There was no way to foresee what sort of assignments would come his way. He had to live with unpredictability, each day was a venture into the unknown.

Arianne: I noticed some of the photographs depict very serious subject matter and some are, well, almost ordinary and undramatic and without knowing the full story, you’d be hard pressed to say how they were connected to crime … ?

Caleb: That’s true. Wal was the consummate professional when it came to the craft of photography. Some images seem are grave and tragic, while others are almost humourous, or simply odd.  There are also images that, despite their police context, have the appearance of fine-art photos … We wanted to bring out some of these conjunctions,  particularly in that powerful grouping  of 10 framed photos, against the deep blue wall …

The Tuchin exhibition in the Archive Gallery

Arianne: Ah, yes, I really liked the use of colour in the room …

Caleb: Wall’s approach was pragmatic.  His work was to document ‘evidence’. Whether he was photographing stolen goods dumped on a footpath or the hands of a strangler who’d just confessed to killing his wife, the same careful sense of composition, framing and lighting is applied. Wal cared about the plight of victims. He is a very compassionate man. But for the purposes of collecting evidence for court use, the foulest murder and least important theft seem to be documented and presented with same precision and seriousness.  This accounts for that sometimes surreal quality Holly mentioned earlier, when the images are seen together.

Arianne: It’s a fascinating selection you’ve come up with for this exhibition. Was it hard to connect the stories that lay behind these crime scenes to the photographs you wanted to use in the display?

Holly: It’s always a challenge. But the research part of what we do is fascinating! Our process involved scouring the archive to find every photo Wal  took between 1952-1957. We examined the envelopes these negatives were stored in for notes about each investigation. These notes sometimes lead us on to information in Police Gazettes or to a newspaper article. Occasionally, such as in the case of the Joey Manners shooting (Manners was a well known stand-over man, underworld player and thug) we located a thick murder file that held details of witness statements and the trial proceedings. It usually came down to the type of crime that was photographed, if the perpetrator was caught, and how deeply the press covered the case.

Arianne: It’s a great exhibition, well done guys! One last question: has Wal been in to see it yet?

Caleb: Yes, he dropped in a couple of weeks ago and was both overwhelmed and delighted. He had no idea that when he created these images half a century ago – for a short term functional purpose of documenting crimes and accidents – that they would wind up in the gallery of a public museum.

Holly: Working with Wal to do this show was a wonderful experience for both of us. It gave us both a deeper insight into the human and professional qualities required by those who do this important but difficult work on behalf of the community.

Walter Tuchin in the Archive Gallery

Walter Tuchin in the Archive Gallery

The exhibition will be on display at the museum’s Archive Gallery until 13 Mach 2011.

Storage envelope no. 55/2987 containing 6 cellulose negatives

Ross Gibson’s Crime Scene opened at the museum in late 1999 and was the first exhibition to focus on the archive. Gibson limited his research to negatives dated from the post war period. By this time the New South Wales Police Department had established a special bureau responsible for investigative photography. From the late forties police negatives also became more organised: stored in small brown envelopes, usually noting details of the crime and photographer. Using the envelope names Gibson managed to track down retired members of the Scientific Investigation Bureau and interview them about their working life. During the interviews these ‘scientific men’ spoke about the technical equipment, examination practices and experiences they had in the forties and fifties, a time when forensic investigation was a newly emerging field for the police. This was also the museum’s first encounter with Walter Tuchin.

A decade on, Tuchin’s crime scene photography has returned to the museum. Walter Tuchin: Police Photographer currently showing in the Archive Gallery, is the museum’s first display of the work of a single, still living photographer from the archive. Tuchin worked as a member of the Scientific Investigation Bureau between 1952 and 1957. In the exhibition Tuchin’s crime scene photographs are presented in two formats. Vertical hanging strips, four images apiece, showcasing a variety of investigations, with small textual summaries derived from police and newspaper reports. Ten framed works also present the diverse and unpredictable nature of Tuchin’s daily work. A personal favourite of mine concerns an attempted suicide. The photo is taken from the edge of a cliff, at The Gap in Vaucluse: a giddy, aerial perspective reveals the power of the waves crashing on the jagged rocks below. Tuchin told me he lay down on his belly, while a detective held onto his heels, to take this image. All the while his upper body snaked over the cliff edge to achieve the best angle for the shot. One of many fascinating stories Tuchin shared, not documented in the official police records or news reporting of the event.

Scene of attempted suicide, The Gap, Vaucluse, 22 November 1955.

When I explore these archival photographs I sometimes imagine myself in the photographer’s position, being called to a crime scene with limited idea of what to expect or the particulars of the location. The chance to speak with Tuchin about his work gave me a personal perspective on the images and an understanding of the resourcefulness required when confronted by the random situations that arose. Tuchin’s gentle, warm and light-hearted manner often seems at odds with the difficult nature of the work he completed in the service of the community. I am still challenged to reconcile Tuchin the genial, elderly man, and the Tuchin, whose name appears on the small brown envelopes. But the more I hear, learn and understand of his experience the more deeply I appreciate the archive… not just for the astounding quality of its images but also for the human experience that lay behind them.

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.

A window in the upstairs bedroom rattles in its frame, and the shamus knows that his enemies are coming for him. It’s a gentle but potent image, as though the house itself had taken a sharp breath. It’s from Dashiell Hammett’s story, the ‘House on Turk Street’. It replays one of the oldest riffs in crime narrative: the seeming complicity of built places in the crimes that happen within them.

Violent domestic crime explodes within and into space – emotions hitherto unspoken become suddenly manifest. Bodies move haphazardly around rooms, stumble against furniture, trip here, collapse there, come to rest awkwardly on a bed, on a floor. That hitherto sweet refuge now is part of the crime. A witness and a participant.

“MAN AND WIFE FOUND DEAD / Flat Tragedy at Waverley.” So reports the Sydney Morning Herald of Thursday, 4 May, 1944. Maurice Reuben John Anderson, a pilot officer and Alice Cabella Anderson, his wife, had been found the night before in the bedroom of their Birrell Street flat, dead from gunshot wounds.

Lights had burned all through the previous day, and a radio had continued to play. Early in the evening a neighbour peeked through a window and saw that things were wrong. He phoned the police. The report goes on:

Four detectives went to the flat, climbed in a window and found the bodies lying on the bedroom floor.

Investigations led the police to form the opinion that while Mrs Anderson was seated on a chair in the lounge she was shot.

A trail of blood indicated that as she jumped up from the chair she knocked it over and then staggered towards the door.

The detectives think that Anderson caught hold of her, knocking the wireless set against a sideboard. He then dragged her into the bedroom and as she slumped dead on the floor he shot himself. He fell across his wife’s body and the revolver was found under him.

With the discovery not happening until Wednesday evening, the Herald reporter would have been hard pressed to make the deadline for Thursday’s paper – traditionally on the streets at midnight. Yet the description he got from the police accords perfectly with the photographic evidence: the sprays and smears of blood, the wireless knocked against the sideboard. The bodies in the bedroom too are arranged exactly the way the police had described; the barrel of Anderson’s pistol can be seen poking out from under his right trouser cuff.

The Andersons, who had moved in only a week before, had been in buoyant spirits earlier that day. They had hung out the washing together. We can see from the photos that the table has been modestly laid for bread and tea. There’s an untouched slice of (apple?) pie, a tobacco tin and a spent match on a plate. There are framed portraits of the Andersons on the mantel shelf. At some point things had gone badly wrong. These photos appeared in City of Shadows, listed as “no details known”. Only much later did we turn up a reference in the NSW Police Gazette, which lists the killings as the murder of Alice, by Maurice, followed by the latter’s suicide. In the absence of any hard information, the most common interpretation that readers of City of Shadows gave the pictures was indeed a crime of passion murder-suicide.  An accusation or admission of infidelity perhaps, followed by the killings.

Our eyes are drawn as much to the objects and the setting as they are to the shocking subject at the centre. Every humdrum item and piece of bric a brac is given equal value in the composition, and so invested with a charged, but unspecified importance. Figure and ground are in near equilibrium. The traces of everyday domestic routine and the petty emblems of marital life present an obvious, mocking counterpoint to the corpses. A movie art director would probably consider it way too heavy handed. Yet there it is.

One last thing: the photographs highlight the claustrophobic dimensions of the domestic space.  There was an acute wartime housing shortage in Sydney at the time, and many perfectly respectable couples were forced to squat in derelict houses, or camp out in Moore Park, or sleep rough elsewhere. We might wonder how much the space itself contributed to the events. Dashiell Hammett’s gumshoe is at first baffled by the House on Turk Street, where nothing is what it first seems. In the end though the house itself comes to his aid, and warns him of the mortal danger. Not so the house on Birrell Street: it seems to have had it in for the Andersons.

Throughout the tour the museum’s negative archive was employed to great advantage allowing participants a face-to-face encounter with the criminals and streetscapes of the past. The revealing portraits and street views photographed by police in the 1920s and 30s document the troubled area and its tough inhabitants. The tour draws on a variety of records, including news stories, documents and published histories, and presents a gripping yet informative view of Razorhurst’s underworld.

The razor became the weapon of choice for intimidation, and if necessary enforcement, after the enactment of The Pistol Licencing Act (1927) made it illegal to carry a firearm without a license. The razor was a persuasive ally and if used to full effect would leave the victim with a deep and recognizable scar, as this image of Edward Dalton testifies.

Prior to its recent incarnation as a jazz venue, serving tapas with a trendy roof top bar the Tradesman’s Arms Hotel was a popular meeting place for many members of Sydney’s underworld. The hotel was commonly known as the “Bloodhouse” due to the countless scenes of violence that played out within its walls. Tilly Devine along with Nellie Cameron and Guido Caletti frequented the establishment and no doubt brought with them a swathe of associates and enemies. Devine’s main brothel was located just across the way at 253 Liverpool Street. Cameron was often referred to as Sydney’s most desirable prostitute who spent much of her working life at Tilly’s address. Meanwhile, across the street, her beau (thug and leader of the Darlinghurst Push), Calleti may have waited for his moll with a Tooths Ale in hand and a concealed razor.

The Tradesman’s Arms Hotel has since been renamed the East Village Hotel and is a popular pub and restaurant in East Sydney. There is little evidence left in the slick interiors to indicate its notorious and bloody history. Yet for all this, the building still proudly boasts “Tradesman’s Arms Hotel” and “1918” on its facade.

The Walk the razor’s edge tour reveals many signs of the past and the subtle remnants of the raging days of Razorhurst are bought to the fore. The unsavory, seductive and criminal history of this area is distilled and its essence presented from the safe distance of 50 years. In a final note I would like to share an extract published in Truth newspaper during September 1928. The passage conjures up vivid description of Darlinghurst during the razor gangs rule:

“Razorhurst, Gunhurst, Bottlehurst, Dopehurst – it used to be Darlinghurst, one of the finest quarters of a rich and beautiful city; today it is a plague spot where the spawn of the gutter grow and fatten on official apathy. By day it shelters in its alleys, in its dens, the Underworld people. At night it looses them to prey on prosperity, decency and virtue, and to fight one another for the division of the spoils……Recall the human beasts that, lurking cheek by jowl with decent people, live with no aim, purpose or occupation but crime – bottle men, dope pedlars, razor slashers, sneak thieves, confidence men, women of ill repute, pickpockets, burglars, spielers, gunmen and every brand of racecourse parasite.” Truth, September 1928