She was known for her continuing feud with fellow vice-regal underworld figure Tilly Devine, a madam based at Woolloomooloo, as well as her acts of generosity for the unemployed during a repressive era, and her wartime patriotism. Suzanne was born a month premature, in less than a year of the couple's marriage. The Worst Woman in Sydney: The Life and Crimes of Kate Leigh. Nothing she did improved the status of women; indeed, it could be argued that she made the lives of many worse. 267 0 obj Moreover, she is the eldest daughter of the family and has two younger siblings; a sister and a brother. 'For she deals in a commodity that means the warping of the moral outlook, the damning of the eternal soul. Izzy Stevens as Eileen Leigh, daughter of Kate Leigh Jamie Kristian as Albert Duke, Englishman and husband of Eileen Leigh Troy Planet as George "The Midnight Raper" Wallace, violent member of Bruhn's gang Jake Ryan as Constable Ray "The Blizzard" Blissett, crusading policeman Felix Jozeps as Ernest Wilson, Phil Jeffs' driver and gangster The structure is ordered thematically instead of chronologically, and this works well, each theme adding successively to the readers familiarity with the subject. In 1923 Lowe was finally convicted of breaking into a house at Enfield and stealing money and jewellery worth 40 pounds. 440 0 obj She swept into the building. She anglicised her name to Leigh and by 1922 she was married to sly grog dealer Teddy Barry. It is a tragic but terribly true thing a great percentage of fallen women who walk the pavements of Sydney are drug-takers.'. 459 0 obj The NSW Police Gazette of 30 January 1924 mentions Eileen May Burt, 18, being sentenced to seven days hard labour for stealing, but released under the first offender provisions of the Crimes Act, and charged to be of good behaviour for 12 months. It was her final marriage and it lasted six months. Tv Actors. 480 0 obj endobj 1 likes, 1 comments - Kasey Leigh (@kasey._._.leigh) on Instagram: " It's cover reveal day for BETWEEN NEVER AND FOREVER by @britbensonwritesbooks releasing June . <>/Metadata 2 0 R/Outlines 5 0 R/Pages 3 0 R/StructTreeRoot 6 0 R/Type/Catalog/ViewerPreferences<>>> This photograph was taken after she was arrested for defrauding one Henry Placings in Sydney of 106 pounds, by borrowing against a forged cheque, for which she received a years imprisonment. endobj endobj By endobj The home at 212 Devonshire Street - one of 20 properties she operated as sly grog shops, including three on the same Surry Hills street was purchased during an auction on Saturday afternoon for more than the initial asking price of around $1 million. You need to login before you can save preferences. <>]/P 632 0 R/Pg 628 0 R/S/Link>> Dubbo . endobj <>]/P 684 0 R/Pg 677 0 R/S/Link>> <>]/P 668 0 R/Pg 664 0 R/S/Link>> The family was poor, as many were at that time, and like most kids in poor neighbourhoods, urban or rural, Kate spent her days playing in the street and looking after her two younger brothers. | ISSN 1837-0497, Sara Ahmeds celebration of the feminist killjoy continues, Australias impassioned worries about China are in tension with better relations in the Pacific. <>]/P 500 0 R/Pg 493 0 R/S/Link>> In 1936, newly appointed Sydney Police Commissioner MacKay warned them both to tone down the violence or else risk serious imprisonment. <>]/P 593 0 R/Pg 592 0 R/S/Link>> Join Facebook to connect with Eileen Leigh and others you may know. Inside the dilapidated Victorian terrace in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Surry Hills, Kate Leigh sold drugs and illegal alcohol to society's upper classes, businessmen as well as thieves and prostitutes. endobj She was best know for her sly grog shops, which thrived when Sydney's pubs were closed down after 6pm following a riot, The cafe called 'Sly' has leased the bottom floor of the three-floor terrace until July. More Genealogy Tools. <>]/P 635 0 R/Pg 628 0 R/S/Link>> Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr W. R. Lawrence, will attend the funeral of former Sydney underworld identity Mrs Kathleen Ryan, also known as Kate Leigh. The Hooper brothers received gaol sentences of 12 and 18 months hard labour respectively. <>stream But we need to be super sure you aren't a robot. <>]/P 615 0 R/Pg 611 0 R/S/Link>> <>]/P 354 0 R/Pg 602 0 R/S/Link>> She has been married to Vincent Panzero since 2009. Despite the concession, the venue was long the centre of Canberras lesbian subculture, especially on Friday nights. Indiana bar pleads for customers to return after telling them they were not welcome for speaking out against trans Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light partnership, Bottoms up! <> It's easy and takes two shakes of a lamb's tail! (ii) Addicted to drink, a constant companion of prostitutes, frequents houses of ill-fame, wine bars and hotels in the city and its immediate surroundings, generally Surry Hills and Darlinghurst particularly. endobj He was an illegal bookmaker and petty criminal.They separated in 1905 when he was imprisoned for assault and robbery. <>]/P 648 0 R/Pg 641 0 R/S/Link>> endobj 197 0 obj Leigh derived from her supplies from a corrupt network of doctors, dentists, chemists, and sailors, and amassed considerable wealth from the activity. Alice Joyce Hamilton. daughter. [16] Leigh was found in possession of cocaine and was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment. Paragraph operations are made directly in the full article text panel located to the left.Paragraph operations include: Zone operations are made directly in the full article text panel located to the left.Zone operations include: Please choose from the following download options: The National Library of Australia's Copies Direct service lets you purchase higher quality, larger sized Skip to content Skip to search. | books She gave birth to her only child when she was 23 years old, a daughter named Suzanne, and returned to acting afterward. 36 0 obj But despite the biographys shortcomings, she has succeeded in presenting us with a character whos more good than evil a woman who is the product of an impoverishment difficult for us to imagine, who had the grit to overcome it, and who repaid with loyalty the community that supported her. endobj <>]/P 566 0 R/Pg 565 0 R/S/Link>> Many years ago I met a woman who said she was the daughter of Vivien Leigh. Her funeral at St Peter's Catholic Church in Devonshire Street, just up the road from her home, was attended by 700 people, including the police and politicians she had known during her career. 3 0 obj Woman Discharged for Surry Hills Shooting", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kate_Leigh&oldid=1151888838, People associated with Kings Cross, New South Wales, Short description is different from Wikidata, Use Australian English from September 2013, All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English, Self-contradictory articles from November 2013, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2013, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Gangster, brothel madam, cocaine trafficker, This page was last edited on 26 April 2023, at 21:30. The doors of Tilleys Devine the cafe established by Pauline Higgisson, a single mother of two, with funds from a federal community employment scheme opened in the Canberra suburb of Lyneham in the spring of 1984. After alcohol sales in pubs were banned in 1916, drinkers would come to 212 Devonshire Street (pictured) and Leigh's fleet of illegal grog shops throughout the inner suburbs. Though long separated, he died in Kate's home at 2 Lansdowne Street, Surry Hills on 26 June 1948, and was buried at Botany Cemetery three days later. Following his trial, Kate Leigh was convicted of perjury and for being an accomplice to the assault, after being accused of lying under oath to protect her husband; her conviction was overturned on appeal. Between them, from the 1920s to the 1940s, these women controlled most of the sly grog, cocaine and prostitution rackets in Australias harbour city; in fact, given their shared history, the Canberra cafe might just as well have been named for Kate. A judge in 1933 (above, left) says that criminal Kate Leigh 'has a good side' when she appeared in court on a charge of receiving stolen goods, whereas in 1953 (above, right) a magistrate declares Leigh's Surry Hills residence' a disorderly house'. biography endobj Langby was charged with stealing watches, clothing and money from shops and with stealing a motorcycle and sidecar. endobj endobj [17][18], Through alleged personal connections throughout officialdom, she continued business throughout the 1930s and 40s despite frequent police raids and a mass of minor convictions. [3], Leigh married James Ernest (Jack) Lee (or Leigh) (18821959) on 2 May 1902. 2021-10-05T08:39:08-07:00 [20] This house was also used by Leigh as her main illegal hotel or Sly-grog shop during this time and was known in Sydney as the Lansdowne Hotel, not to be confused with the legal 'Lansdowne Hotel' in City Road, Broadway. <>]/P 645 0 R/Pg 641 0 R/S/Link>> Her childhood and teenage years included childhood neglect, time in a girls' home at age 12, and an out-of-wedlock pregnancy; her daughter Eileen May Beahan was born in 1900. endobj father. <>]/P 618 0 R/Pg 611 0 R/S/Link>> View the profiles of people named Eileen Leigh. Eventually they were allowed to come on their own. 9. 490 0 obj Emma Kate Walton was born on Nov. 27, 1962, in London, England. Smith was fined 20 pounds; Jones was sentenced to 18 months hard labour. endobj <>]/P 514 0 R/Pg 513 0 R/S/Link>> Thomas Sutherland Jones and William Smith, 15 July 1921. 292 0 obj 35 0 obj endobj Kate Leigh is a brand that celebrates women and girls, but also especially mothers and daughters. Later that year a warrant was issued for her having breached those conditions and a further entry in October lists her as having been arrested and charged, but then released with a caution. endobj The defence, on the other hand, described a quiet party, a few drinks, some singing violently interrupted by a squad of hostile, brawling police (Truth, 29 January 1928). Prince 12.5 (www.princexml.com) At the time, she was still studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Kate Leigh's residence (pictured, centre) sits on a trendy Sydney street and has operated as a flower shop and now a cafe called Sly, which nods to Leigh's illegal groggery, but the interior of the residence is run-down, MsLeigh's house was sold on Saturday for $700,000 more than the initial $1 million price, If walls could talk: In the kitchen of 212 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills, where Kate Leigh ran a drug den, sly grog empire and standover operation for three decades, Kate Leigh, or Kathleen Barry as she was known during her marriage to small time crim and sly grog dealer Teddy Barry, sold cocaine, other opiates and operated a brothel. C. Colette Bradley. <> Occasionally she was arrested for robbery, theft or, like in 1943 when police found 1,001 bottles of beer, 84 bottles of whisky and one bottle of gin underneath the floorboards of her Surry Hills house. <>]/P 586 0 R/Pg 582 0 R/S/Link>> endobj 370 0 obj 696 0 obj Barry (43) the daughter of Kate was shot through the right arm in her home in O'Sullivan Street, Surry Hills . Alfred Ladewig, also known as Wallace, John Walker, Atkins; charged on provisional warrant with stealing by trick the sum of 204AUD, at Brisbane, the property of Alfred Walter Thomlinson. Valerie Lowe and Joseph Messenger were were charged with breaking and entering a dwelling in 1922. Crichton was bound over to appear for sentence if called upon within three years.. Even Eileen Leigh, daughter of notorious sly-grog queen and crime boss Kate Leigh, couldn't escape being fined 1 (or seven days' imprisonment) for being on a tram without a mask. Protected by a team of bashers and gunmen, and her own fearsome reputation, Leigh was a flamboyant and sometimes vicious character who by the mid 1920s was being called 'the most evil woman in Sydney'. 1894 - 1954), Sun 26 Mar 1933, Page 11 - EILEEN LEIGH STILL HERE. Draped in furs and dripping with diamonds, she willingly used the feminine wiles that we feminists emphatically rejected. 'No more remarkable woman ever strode upon the stage of Sydney's nightlife than this middle-aged, matronly dame,' the extract says. Her father Jack was a boot- and shoemaker, her mother Charlotte worked at home (and with a family of ten to look after, worked very hard). Kate Leigh photographed by police in 1930 (detail). endobj Page 11 - EILEEN LEIGH STILL HERE. Such a nice, agreeable dame! An earlier mug shot of Brosnan shows him to be not the man on the right in this group of three, as inscribed, but rather the offhand individual in the centre, here identified as A Wyatt. We all . 39 0 obj photocopies or electronic copies of newspapers pages. endobj [4] They separated in 1905 when Lee was imprisoned for assault and robbery. endobj It quoted her saying she and Ms Devine had buried their rivalry in their old age. <> ', A newspaper report from May 1943 reports that police have raided Kate Leigh's Surry Hills house, finding 1001 bottles of beer and 84 bottles of whisky under the floorboards, Underbelly Razor cast beautiful actresses in the roles of Tillt Devine (in the red hat ) and Kate Leigh (in the black) hat in a glamourised version of the razor gang era, The article said Ms Leigh's 'official' occupation was shop keeper of a mixed business from the Surry Hills house and that 'she gives money to the Salvation Army and to church charities. Kathleen Mary Josephine Leigh (ne Beahan; 10 March 1881 4 February 1964) (other names included Kathleen Barry, and Kathleen Ryan) was an Australian underworld figure who rose to prominence as a madam, illegal trader of alcohol and cocaine, and for running betting/gambling syndicates from her home in Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia during the first half of the twentieth century. Tarlington went on to become a well-known criminal and was eventually shot dead in St Peters by Myles Henry Face McKeon, who was himself later shot dead in Chippendale. In 1905, Lee was imprisoned for assault and robbery and Kate was accused of lying under oath to protect her husband and convicted of perjury and for being an accomplice to the assault. Nancy Cowman, 19, and Vera Crichton, 23, are listed in the NSW Police Gazette 24 March 1924 as charged, along with three others, with conspiring together to procure a miscarriage on a third woman. When cocaine was outlawed in 1927, Leigh sold both, at at huge profits. 372 0 obj Suzanne's birth was difficult, and the mother . ', The article described Ms Leigh - then aged 63 - as 'stooped, fat and blowsy' but with 'little piercing eyes' which 'indicate her tremendous vitality.'. Ms Leigh and Ms Devine are characters in the true crime book Razor by Larry Writer, which dramatizes the criminal gang rivalry in Sydney's inner suburbs in the early 20th century when gang members slashed their opponents with cut throat razors. It would be easy to assume that the controversy arose over the choice of name. ', The comments below have not been moderated, By endobj Greta Massey was an energetic impostor, forger and hotel barber whose aliases included the surnames Gordon, Spencer, Crawford, Robins and Simpson as well as Nurse Campbell and Nurse Nicholas. 'Kate's only income was what she could scrounge occasionally hiring out hand-carts to vegetabel and fruit hawkers for twp shilings and sixpence a day.'. <>]/P 606 0 R/Pg 602 0 R/S/Link>> On January 31, 1964, Kate Leigh suffered a stroke at 212 Devonshire Street and she was taken to St Vincents Hospital where she died on February 4, aged 82. 485 0 obj Although she couldnt wait to turn eighteen and be released, as Straw observes, It was the perfect kind of training for the life that awaited her in the working-class slums of eastern Sydney.. 1 With women like these, Im suggesting, we are entering the realm of archetypes. [26] Leigh's Statement of Affairs was given at a Bankruptcy Court hearing in Sydney on 30 September 1954 as "Assets of 1960 consisting of furniture and three properties in Devonshire Street". For all their notoriety, and the fact that their stories are strewn through a variety of sources, neither Tilly Devine nor Kate Leigh has ever been honoured with a book-length biography before, possibly because of problems Ill come to. She was one out of thirteen children. In business parlance, she had diversified, making her money now from drugs and prostitution as well as sly grog. endobj The bottom floor of the building houses a caf called 'Sly' that has leased the space until July and the remaining floors of the three-floor terrace are prime for renovation, according to the realtors First national Spencer and Servi. SIX months ago that undesirable woman, Eileen Leigh, daughter of the notorious Kate Leigh, . She married three times but, unsurprisingly, none of the marriages stuck. endobj Since you've made it this far, we want to assume you're a real, live human. For all the fascination in Leighs story, Straw has been hobbled in piecing it together. [5] The marriage only lasted for a few years, after which she reverted to using her previous surname of 'Leigh'. Leigh was also personally involved in violence, though she was never convicted of any such offense. Emma Rolfe better known as May Mulholland, also goes by the names Sybil White, Jean Harris and Eileen Mulholland, had numerous convictions in the period 1919-1920 for theft of jewellery and clothing from various houses around Kensington and Randwick, and from city shops. 216 0 obj endobj Leigh had originally come from the central western NSW town of Dubbo where, as Kathleen Beahan, one of eight children of a Catholic bootmaker, she had been put in a girls' home at the age of 12 and gave birth to her first child, Eileen, the following year, in 1900. Before she met Olivier, the star was married to an older man, a barrister named Herbert Leigh Holman, at age nineteen. 38 0 obj <>]/P 562 0 R/Pg 555 0 R/S/Link>> Only four of those arrested were subsequently charged however. She had a daughter, Eileen, with the first guy, around 1903. Such a monster in human disguise. Kate Leigh in April, 1915. Nancy was nine-months-old when she was brought in the arms of her parents all the way from Korea. A man was not allowed on the premises unless he was accompanied by a woman. And Leigh herself remains a somewhat elusive figure (though a lot can be gained from her photos). By Leigh Straw | NewSouth | $29.99. <> Sydneys Surry Hills would be unrecognisable to Kate Leigh, were she alive today. But as long as theres a fight on our hands, we will disrupt things and be deemed ugly, even bad. The subjects are not named, but the woman on the left is believed to be Eileen Leigh or Barry (daughter of Kate Leigh). 236 0 obj The kitchen of the crime queen's old house is in dire need of renovation, but real estate agents selling the property say it is a golden opportunity for buyers to renovate the historic property, Although she never drank alcohol or took drugs, Ms Leigh (pictured) happily dealt in both, acted as a standover merchant, sold stolen property and occasionally shoplifted, Ms Leigh was a flamboyant and sometimes vicious character who by the mid-1920s was dubbed 'the most evil woman in Sydney.'. Kate Leigh was imprisoned for five years for perjury and had to place her daughter, Eileen, in a convent while she served her time.12 When Kate Leigh was released from prison in 1919, she set about running her own business through the sly-grog trade. In 1955 the NSW government changed the law to allow legal hotels to serve alcohol until 10 P.M., an act that virtually killed off the Sydney sly-grog trade and put purveyors such as Leigh out of business. Those charges were dropped but they were arrested again that same year for stealing a saddle and bridle from Rosebery Racecourse. But first, here are the bones of Kate Leighs story, as laid out in The Worst Woman in Sydney. But it also leads to repetition, some of which can seem like padding. It was Kate Leigh's final marriage and it lasted six months. [5], She lived in a terrace house at 2 Lansdowne Street, Surry Hills from 1933 until the house was demolished in 1950. Cornford was charged with stealing watches, clothing and money from a shop and with stealing two separate motorcycles and sidecars. Three months later a police witness at Sydney Licensing Court stated that the premises at 2 Lansdowne Street, Surry Hills was "a notorious sly grog shop The Worst in Sydney". endobj Two years later she appeared at Central Police Court in Sydney charged with having phenobarbitone in her possession. <>]/P 510 0 R/Pg 503 0 R/S/Link>> Robert McFarlane (the middle man in this trio) is mentioned in the Police Gazette, 7 September 1921 in connection with the theft of three clocks, two sports coats and other articles from the warehouse of Dobson Franks Ltd. Ms Leigh had established her lucrative sly grog business well before then, capitalising on the 1916 edict by the then NSW Premier, who following a riot of pub crawling World War I soldiers, called a state of emergency and closed Sydney's pubs after 6pm. townhome communities in lincoln, ne, matlab dashed line plot, tickle in throat after thyroidectomy,