On a Tuesday night in May 1929, a little lane behind Bayswater Road at the top of William Street turned into a battlefield. Eaton Avenue ran between blocks of flats, just round the corner from where the Kings Cross neon sits today. On the night of 7 May 1929 a gang of men laid into a young woman's escort, then into the neighbours who came out to help. It ended when somebody pushed a shotgun into the hands of a block-of-flats manager and he fired it. One gangster went to St Vincent's with his leg shattered. A few hours later one of the best-known men in the Sydney underworld, Phillip Jeffs, "Phil the Jew", was shot twice at his home and left near death.
Later writers named it the Battle of Blood Alley, one of the famous set pieces of the razor gang years. I've gone back to the 1929 newspapers to see what was actually reported, who was charged and how it ended, and set that beside the version in the books. They don't always line up, and I've shown where they part company.
Where Was Blood Alley?
Blood Alley was Eaton Avenue. The 1929 papers put it in Darlinghurst; most of us would say Kings Cross. Larry Writer, whose book Razor (2001) made the story famous, describes an ill-lit lane off Bayswater Road that locals called "Blood Alley" because of all the muggings there.
The Sydney Morning Herald pins the spot down a bit more, although it doesn't agree with itself. On the morning after, 8 May 1929, it said the affray happened "at the corner of Eaton Avenue and Kellett Street". By 11 May it had moved it to "the corner of Roslyn-street and Eaton-avenue". At the Quarter Sessions in September the flats manager gave evidence that the men were "in the avenue at the intersection of Roslyn-street", so I'd lean towards Roslyn Street.
The lane was lined with flats. The man at the centre of the night, Charles Henry Sorlie, told the Central Police Court he was manager of "a block of 125 flats in Eaton-avenue". At the Quarter Sessions he named it as Garden Vale Flats. The people who got hurt that night weren't gangsters at all. They were residents who came out when they heard a woman scream.
So what's there now? According to Larry Writer, Eaton Avenue is no longer a street. It survives as an enclosed courtyard between blocks of flats off Bayswater Road.
One thing caught my eye. In my earlier post on the Original Villas Of Darlinghurst, there's a house called "Eaton" near Upper William Street North (the old name for Bayswater Road), lived in by Edward Knox, Captain Martindale and later Edward Fosbery, the Inspector-General of Police. I haven't found anything saying the lane was named after it, so I can't claim it was. But it's a funny thought.
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Razorhurst in 1929
Six o'clock closing had been the law since 1916, which made sly grog big business, and cocaine was sold all through Darlinghurst, Surry Hills and Woolloomooloo. Brothels, grog shops and dealers were all fair game for standover men. The historian Alfred McCoy, in Drug Traffic, argued the razor gang wars were really a fight over cocaine.
The Pistol Licensing Act 1927 made carrying a pistol without a licence an offence. A cut-throat razor cost a few pence at a barber's and folded into a pocket. McCoy says that in three months of late 1927, police took 66 razors off people searched for unrelated offences.
Four names come up again and again:
- Kate Leigh: sly grog, cocaine and brothels, run from Surry Hills and East Sydney.
- Tilly Devine: brothel keeper, and Kate's great rival, with her husband Jim Devine as the muscle.
- Norman Bruhn: a Melbourne standover man who was shot dead in Charlotte Lane, East Sydney, on 22 June 1927.
- Phil Jeffs: cocaine dealer, sly grog man and later nightclub owner. He's the one who matters most for Blood Alley.
McCoy writes that after Bruhn's death things were fairly quiet until mid-1929, and calls Blood Alley "the first battle in this new round". The Herald of 9 May 1929 called it "a recrudescence of the razor-slashings of last year".
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Who Was Phil the Jew?
Phillip Jeffs, also known as Phillip Davies (or Davis), was born in Riga, Latvia, in about 1896 or 1897. McCoy says he grew up in London, went to sea and jumped ship in Sydney in 1912. He later ran the 50-50 Club in William Street and the 400 Club, and McCoy calls him "one of the toughest razor-men on the streets" of the 1920s and a major cocaine dealer.
He was no stranger to the dock. He was gaoled for larceny in 1922, acquitted of shooting at a man in 1927, and in 1928 was one of five men found not guilty of rape. In May 1929 he was 32, "known to the police as 'Phil the Jew'", and gave his trade as "pastrycook".
The Night of Tuesday 7 May 1929: What the Papers Said
This comes from the Sydney Morning Herald of 8 to 11 May 1929 and the evidence given in July and September. Almost every account comes from the people on the receiving end. Apart from denials, none of the gangsters ever told their side.
A Scream in Eaton Avenue
Sorlie said it was shortly before 9.30 p.m. Residents of the flats heard two men arguing with a young woman in the street, and then she called out, "Oh, Mr Sorley, come quickly." (The Herald spelled him Sorley that first morning.)
The first to get there was Frederick Johns, a sales agent from Arthur Street, Randwick. He later called himself "an old-time wrestler". He told the men to stop and was hit hard on the forehead with what he believed was a knuckle-duster. He fought the two of them until six more men joined in.
The Herald of 9 May said that after the first blows, "as though at a given signal, other men emerged from hiding-places and set upon the woman's companion", who was being "kicked into insensibility".
Mr Sorlie Comes Down
Charles Henry Sorlie, 38, was on the top floor of Garden Vale Flats when he heard the scream. He came down and asked a man with his coat off what the trouble was. According to Johns, Jeffs asked Sorlie if he was looking for a fight. A few seconds later Jeffs said "Take that, you ——" and swung his boot at Sorlie, who grabbed his foot.
That was the start of what Sorlie called a "battle-royal". He went down on the road and was kicked in the forehead. He told the court that Jeffs, Archer and four other men all joined in kicking him while he lay there. Other residents who stepped in were attacked too, and so was a young man named George Henry Siddle (Siddell in a later report), who Johns said Archer went for.
Sorlie said "at least 15 men" took part, and that "for nearly 20 minutes the fight was fast and furious". Johns said there were more than 50 people watching, and only one of them offered to help.
The Shotgun
Then somebody put a shotgun in Sorlie's hands: "a woman", according to the Herald of 8 May, or "a man named Larke", according to Sorlie's own evidence in July. His lawyer, Mr Parker, told the court Sorlie warned them, "If you persist, I will shoot." They didn't stop, so he fired.
The shot hit William Archer, a man in his mid-thirties from Crown Street (Surry Hills in one report, East Sydney in another), later described as a "baths proprietor". Sorlie said Archer was trying to kick him when he fired. The gang scattered to a motor car waiting in Roslyn Street. Archer ran off down the street and later turned up at St Vincent's Hospital with a gunshot wound in the leg.
Phil Jeffs Walks into the Police Station
Sorlie, Johns and Siddle, all well knocked about, went to Darlinghurst Police Station to make statements. And the police charged Sorlie with shooting at William Archer with intent to do grievous bodily harm.
Then came the cheek. While Sorlie was being charged, Phil Jeffs walked into the same police station "unconcernedly", the Herald said, and announced he'd come to bail Archer out. The police told him Archer was in hospital, then put Jeffs in the dock and charged him with assaulting Sorlie and Johns. Sergeant Lynch later told the court that when Jeffs was charged he said: "Sorlie ought to be arrested for attempted murder; he shot Archer to-night in cold blood."
Before Dawn: Jeffs Is Shot
Jeffs was bailed from the Darlinghurst lock-up just before 4 a.m. on Wednesday 8 May, the Herald said, and went home. The Herald of 9 to 11 May put his house in Rainbow Street, South Randwick, but in June Jeffs himself said Todman Avenue, Kensington, and the prosecutor also said "at Kensington".
His own story changed too. On 9 May he told police men battered in his front door while he pulled on boots and trousers over his pyjamas; a man burst in and shot him in the shoulder, he jumped through a window and ran, and a second shot brought him down with a bullet in the stomach. The gunman swore, jumped into a waiting car and was driven off.
In June he said he'd got home "shortly before 3.30 a.m." and gone to bed. "Some time afterwards I saw a man standing over my bed. Two shots were fired at me. I rolled out of bed. The man who had fired then jumped through the window."
Either way, a milkman found him lying in the road and heard him calling feebly. The Herald of 9 May records what he said: "Milko, take me to hospital."
While detectives were at the house, "a handsome young woman, fashionably dressed, sprang out of a taxicab and hurried into the house". She wouldn't give her name, and the papers never told us who she was.
"I'm Not Going to Die"
Jeffs and Archer lay in St Vincent's under police guard, Jeffs listed as critical for days. On 9 May he refused to make dying depositions: "I'm not going to die," he told police. Nor would he name the man who shot him. The Herald called it "a conspiracy of silence".
Archer's leg went septic. Bullet fragments were removed, the bone below the knee was found shattered, and the Herald thought "he may die". He didn't. On the innocent side, Johns was still in hospital in late June.
Why Did It Happen?
The 1929 version. On 10 May the Herald said police had pieced together that it all came from "a quarrel concerning a young girl and a large sum of money". The trouble over the young woman was "settled" in Eaton Avenue; separately, two men claimed money from Jeffs over "a profitable illicit deal", he didn't pay, and he was shot.
The later version. McCoy and Larry Writer both put it down to cocaine. Jeffs had been cutting his cocaine with boracic acid and charging full price. Writer says a Woolloomooloo gang challenged him to fight it out, and the two armed mobs met soon after 10 p.m. for "a hair-raising thirty minutes" of guns, razors, clubs and boots until police arrived in force. McCoy describes "a half-hour brawl" of about twenty men, says Jeffs dragged a wounded rival off a taxi's running board and kicked him in the face, and says Jeffs was chased home to Kensington and shot four times.
I can't settle that one. The 1929 Herald reports I've read say nothing of boracic acid. They talk about a girl and a debt, residents beaten, and one shotgun blast rather than a running gun battle. The gangsters weren't talking, so the reporters may never have heard the real reason, and the books may draw on other papers such as Truth. The shootout version comes from the books; the sworn evidence of 1929 tells a messier, sadder story.
Into the Courts
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Sorlie in the Dock
On Wednesday 8 May, Charles Sorlie, "manager", appeared at the Central Police Court charged with maliciously shooting at William Archer. His lawyer called him "a very reputable citizen", and Sergeant Napper, the police prosecutor, agreed the facts matched what police had been told. Sorlie got £10 bail and was still on remand in July. I haven't found a report of how his charge ended.
James Taylor, Shearer
On 28 May, police brought James Ernest Taylor, aged 28 and described as a shearer, before the Central Police Court on a charge of shooting Jeffs with intent to murder. By then Jeffs had been let out of hospital, "although one of the bullets was still in his body".
The case collapsed on 7 June 1929. Detective-Sergeant Keogh said he'd told Taylor that Jeffs had informed Detective-Sergeant Miller at St Vincent's that Taylor and "Bill Clarke" forced his door demanding money, and that Taylor fired the revolver. Taylor said his solicitor had told him to say nothing, but on the way to the station he said: "Did Jeffs tell you that the door was forced in? He is a liar. It was kicked in."
Then Jeffs went into the witness box. Asked if Taylor was the man who shot him, he said: "No; the man was tall and thin. I know Taylor; he was nowhere near me when I was shot." The magistrate, Mr Gates, found there was no prima facie case and discharged Taylor. Nobody else was ever convicted of shooting Phil Jeffs, as far as I can find.
Jeffs and Archer Committed for Trial
On 18 July 1929 Jeffs and Archer were committed for trial for maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm on Sorlie and Johns.
Under cross-examination Johns admitted something lovely. He'd later run into Jeffs in Doncaster Avenue and shaken hands. "Look here, Jeffs, I have nothing against you," he told him. "It was a scrap and I held my own while it lasted. I am an old-time wrestler. As far as I am concerned it is over and done with." Both men told the court, "I am innocent of this charge," and each got £80 bail.
Acquitted
At the Quarter Sessions before Judge Cohen, reported on 6 September 1929, the charge was assaulting Sorlie occasioning actual bodily harm. Jeffs and Archer made statements from the dock denying it, and both were acquitted. They were remanded on a similar charge over Johns, and I haven't found the result of that one.
So the gangsters walked free, and nobody was ever convicted of shooting Jeffs.
The Neighbours Fight Back
The people of Eaton Avenue had had enough. The Herald reported on 11 May that residents were getting together to ask the Chief Secretary for more police protection, "so as to prevent undesirables from again making it their rendezvous". They pointed out that the gangsters didn't even live there. They'd come in "from their haunts in Woolloomooloo, Surry Hills, Redfern, and other places".
What Came Next
The rest of 1929 got bloodier.
- 17 July 1929: Kate Leigh's man Gregory Gaffney and others attacked Frank Green and Sid McDonald, two of the Devine crew, in Woolloomooloo. That night at Tilly and Jim Devine's house in Maroubra, Gaffney was shot dead. Jim Devine was later found not guilty.
- 8 August 1929: the "Battle of Kellett Street". Larry Writer describes forty-odd Leigh and Devine men fighting with razors, guns, boots, bottles and rocks just round the corner from Eaton Avenue.
- Later in 1929, Barney Dalton, one of Kate Leigh's men, was shot dead in William Street. Frank Green was tried for it and in the end acquitted.
The Consorting Law
Parliament's answer was the Vagrancy (Amendment) Act 1929, with its "consorting" clause, which McCoy says was written specifically to break the razor gangs. Habitually consorting with reputed thieves, prostitutes or people with no visible lawful means of support became an offence, so known criminals could be gaoled just for being seen together. It came into force in January 1930, and Tilly Devine was arrested under it that month. None of my sources says it was passed because of Blood Alley in particular; it was the whole run of 1929 violence that Blood Alley kicked off.
What Became of Phil Jeffs
Jeffs didn't die, just as he'd said. Larry Writer describes his 50-50 Club as a "glittering vice den" on the fourth floor of the Chard Building in William Street, and in 1937 a court heard its manager had been fined 11 times under the Liquor Act. Museums of History NSW says Depression-era Sydney called a wealthy person "as rich as Phil the Jew".
He finished up in a big house at Ettalong on the Central Coast and died in November 1945. The Dictionary of Sydney says he died at Ettalong; the Morning Bulletin's obituary says "St Vincent's Hospital", where he'd been carried in 1929. Writer thinks the old bullet wounds probably played a part, and says Jeffs was the only crime boss of his era to die with his fortune intact.
How the Name Stuck, and a Mix-Up to Watch For
"Blood Alley" doesn't appear in any of the 1929 Herald reports I've read; they just say Eaton Avenue. The label comes through Larry Writer's Razor (the basis of the 2011 series Underbelly: Razor) and has spread to museum timelines, Wikipedia, walking tours and podcasts.
One mix-up to watch for: a 2011 BBC Travel / Lonely Planet walk puts "the Battle of Blood Alley" in Kellett Street as a 40-strong Devine–Leigh riot. That's really the Battle of Kellett Street of August 1929. The Dictionary of Sydney, Museums of History NSW and McCoy all keep them apart.
Timeline
- 1927: The Pistol Licensing Act comes in, and razors become the gangs' weapon of choice.
- 22 June 1927: Norman Bruhn is shot dead in Charlotte Lane, East Sydney.
- Tuesday 7 May 1929, about 9.30 p.m.: A young woman's escort is attacked in Eaton Avenue. Johns, Sorlie and Siddle are beaten, and Sorlie fires a shotgun that wounds William Archer.
- Night of 7–8 May 1929: Sorlie is charged with shooting at Archer. Jeffs comes to bail Archer and is charged with assaulting Sorlie and Johns.
- Early morning, 8 May 1929: Jeffs is bailed, then shot at his home and found in the street by a milkman.
- 8–11 May 1929: The Herald's "MAN SHOT" and "GANG WAR" reports. Jeffs won't name his attacker, and residents ask for police protection.
- 28 May 1929: James Ernest Taylor is charged with attempting to murder Jeffs.
- 7 June 1929: Taylor is discharged after Jeffs says he wasn't the gunman.
- 17–18 July 1929: Gaffney is shot dead at the Devines' house in Maroubra.
- 18 July 1929: Jeffs and Archer are committed for trial.
- 8 August 1929: The Battle of Kellett Street.
- September 1929: Jeffs and Archer are acquitted of assaulting Sorlie at the Quarter Sessions (SMH, 6 September 1929).
- January 1930: The Vagrancy (Amendment) Act 1929 and its consorting clause come into force.
- November 1945: Phil Jeffs dies.
My Earlier Posts You Might Like
- Original Villas Of Darlinghurst
- Darlinghurst Gaol & Darlinghurst Court – Forbes Street & Taylor Square – Darlinghurst – NSW
- Hangings at Darlinghurst Gaol – The Executions and Famous Prisoners
- The Widening Of William Street – East Sydney & Kings Cross
- Kings Cross Theatre – Junction of Darlinghurst Road & Victoria Street – Darlinghurst
- Progress Of The Suburbs – XVI – Potts Pt & Darlinghurst II – SMH – Sat 1 Nov 1913
Sources
Newspapers (via Trove, National Library of Australia)
- "MAN SHOT. Assaults at Darlinghurst. Two Men Arrested." Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 8 May 1929, p 16. https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16566882
- "GANG WAR. At Darlinghurst. Two Men Shot. Conspiracy of Silence." Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday 9 May 1929, p 11. https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28046987
- "GANG WAR. Over Girl and Money. Jeffs' Statement." Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 10 May 1929, p 11. https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16549621
- "GANG WAR. Archer in Critical Condition. Police Hunt Proceeds." Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 11 May 1929, p 17. https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16568457
- "SHOOTING OF JEFFS. Charge of Attempted Murder." Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 29 May 1929, p 12. https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28048090
- "SHOOTING OF JEFFS. Charge Dismissed." Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 8 June 1929, p 19. https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16567086
- "CHARGES AGAINST JEFFS. Further Remand Ordered." Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 21 June 1929, p 15. https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16569465
- "PHILLIP JEFFS. Charge of Wounding. Darlinghurst Affray." Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 19 July 1929, p 10. https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16559998
- "QUARTER SESSIONS. Acquitted." Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 6 September 1929, p 9. https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16581761
- "PHIL THE JEW." Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), Thursday 8 November 1945, p 8. https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article56436952
Books, articles and websites
- Larry Writer, Razor: Tilly Devine, Kate Leigh and the Razor Gangs, Pan Macmillan Australia, 2001 (second edition 2009). The Blood Alley and Kellett Street passages are adapted at Razorhurst – Tour Gangland Sydney, https://razorhurst.com.au/tour_9.html
- Larry Writer, "Following in the footsteps of the Razor Gangs – Part 2", Museums of History NSW, 2018. https://mhnsw.au/stories/underworld/following-footsteps-razor-gangs-part-2/
- Alfred W. McCoy, Drug Traffic: Narcotics and Organized Crime in Australia, Harper & Row, 1980. Extract "The 1920s: the Razor Wars", Sydney Crime Museum. https://www.sydneycrimemuseum.com/crime-stories/1920s-the-razor-wars/
- Museums of History NSW, "Tilly Devine & the Razor Gang Wars, 1927–1931". https://mhnsw.au/stories/general/tilly-devine-and-the-razor-gang-wars-1927-1931/
- Museums of History NSW, "Bosses" (Phillip 'Phil the Jew' Jeffs). https://mhnsw.au/stories/underworld/bosses/
- Mark Dunn, "Kings Cross", Dictionary of Sydney, 2011. https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/kings_cross
- "Jeffs, Phil", Dictionary of Sydney. https://dictionaryofsydney.org/person/jeffs_phil
- "Jeffs, Phillip (Phil) (1897–1945)", Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, ANU. https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/jeffs-phillip-phil-13643
- "Razor gang", Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_gang
- "A walk through Sydney's criminal shadows", BBC Travel / Lonely Planet, 23 August 2011. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20110823-a-walk-through-sydneys-criminal-shadows
- "Darlinghurst Books: Razor, by Larry Writer", My Darling Darlinghurst blog, July 2011 (Eaton Avenue now an enclosed courtyard off Bayswater Road). http://mydarlingdarlinghurst.blogspot.com/2011/07/darlinghurst-books-razor-by-larry.html
Images
- Bayswater Road, Kings Cross, 1929. City of Sydney Archives, via Wikimedia Commons. Commons file page
- "Kings Cross", c.1930. Royal Australian Historical Society, Osborne Collection, via Wikimedia Commons. Commons file page
- The Razor Gang areas of Sydney (map c.1927). State Records NSW, via Wikimedia Commons. Commons file page
- St Vincent's Hospital, Darlinghurst, 1900s. State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons. Commons file page
- Central Police Court, Sydney. State Records NSW, via Wikimedia Commons. Commons file page
- Kate Leigh, 1915, and Tilly Devine, 1925, prison photographs. NSW State Archives, via Wikimedia Commons. Kate Leigh, Tilly Devine
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