12. Taking on Sydney’s Razor Gangs
Two female crime bosses, who hated each other, ran Sydney’s biggest gangs. One was Kate Leigh, AKA the Sly-Grog (unlicensed bar) Queen. The other was Tilly Devine, AKA the Queen of Woolloomooloo. The crime queens fought each other with all available tools. Their goons slashed each other in the streets. Each one snitched on her rival to the police. They even conducted public relations campaigns in the press by bribing journalists to portray them in the best light possible, while vilifying their foe. The heroic Lillian Armfield took on and wrecked both.
Tilly Devine, the Queen of Woolloomooloo, used to be a London prostitute before she emigrated to Australia. There, she continued her career as a sex worker, and added to her repertoire a series of violent assaults – often with razors – that earned her a reputation as “The Worst Woman in Sydney“. She racked up 79 convictions in just five years, none of which carried serious penalties. That eventually changed, when she got two years in the State Reformatory for bloody assault.