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.

Razorhurst, Gunhurst, Bottlehurst, Dopehurst – it used to be Darlinghurst, one of the finest quarters of a rich and beautiful city; to-day it is a plague-spot, where the sporn 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 property, decency & virtue, & to fight one another for division of spoils. (Truth, 23 September 1928)

In preparation for my talk, Blood on the streets, I’ve been taking a closer look at the dangerous razor era gangsters who ruled Sydney’s inner east during the 1920s and 30s.

In the 1920s drug and prostitution trades increased, criminals sold alcohol illegally and carried razors for protection and intimidation. At this time the Darlinghurst area was home to thieves, prostitutes, cocaine merchants, sly groggers and murderers. Vice trades were lucrative and often exploited legislation of the day. The newspapers reported sensational articles about the underworld of ‘Razorhurst’ and the limited police force of the day were all but powerless to stifle the gangland activities. ‘Snow Queen’ Kate Leigh and brothel madam Matilda ‘Tilly’ Divine headed the most notorious gangs and were each served by a team of loyal thugs who protected their turf with violence. The introduction of the consorting laws and creation of specialist investigative units finally gave police the upper hand and led to the gradual recoil of violent criminals and a lulling of vice activity on the streets of East Sydney. The Justice and Police Museum’s photography archive has proved a rich source for exploring the criminals and places of the period. These photographs read in conjunction with police records, newspaper reports and other references build a compelling account of this unique and confronting period in Sydney’s past.

I have uncovered never before seen mug shot photographs of prominent razor ear criminals Frank ‘The Little Gunman’ Green and James ‘Big Jim’ Devine. As a brazen gangster and violent husband (respectively), both men were an integral part of the brothel empire built and operated by madam Matilda ‘Tilly’ Devine. Frank Green and ‘Jim’ Devine were often involved in shoot-outs, vicious assaults and altercations with the police, subsequently appearing in court and serving time in gaol. The portraits were taken prior to 1927 – before the height of the razor wars – giving us an insight into the early criminal careers of these tough gangsters.