Kate Leigh & Tilly Devine – Sydney's Razor Gang Queens – Surry Hills, Darlinghurst & Woolloomooloo

If you grew up in Sydney you've probably heard the names Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine. They ran the inner east between the wars. Kate was the sly-grog and cocaine queen of Surry Hills, and Tilly was the brothel madam of Darlinghurst and Woolloomooloo. Their gangs fought each other with cut-throat razors through the late 1920s. Neither woman was a 19th-century figure. Kate was born in Dubbo in 1881 and Tilly in London in 1900, and their real reign ran from about 1919 until the mid-1950s. What gave them their start was a handful of laws passed between 1905 and 1927. In this post I've tried to set out who they were, how they made their money, the gang battles, how the police and parliament finally clipped their wings, and how they both ended up.

Kate Leigh, photographed on 21 April 1915, the year she was gaoled for perjury over the Eveleigh payroll robbery alibi. Long Bay Women's Reformatory, NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Kate Leigh – From Dubbo to Surry Hills

Kathleen Mary Josephine Beahan was born on 10 March 1881 at Dubbo. She was the eighth child of Timothy Beahan, a bootmaker, and his wife Charlotte, née Smith. The Australian Dictionary of Biography says she was reputedly neglected as a child, and at 12 she was put into the Parramatta Industrial School for Girls. She came to Sydney at 18 and, in the ADB's words, soon "got into trouble". Her daughter Eileen was born in 1900.

On 2 May 1902 she married James Lee, whom the police described as an illegal bookmaker and petty criminal. She spelt the name Leigh and kept it for the rest of her life, whoever she married. In 1905 Lee was gaoled for assaulting and robbing their Glebe landlord, with Kate's help. She then tried to clear him in court and got a perjury conviction for her trouble.

Her next man, Samuel "Jewey" Freeman, connected her with the wider underworld. On 18 June 1914 Freeman and Ernest "Shiner" Ryan robbed the payroll of the Eveleigh railway workshops. The ADB says they were reputedly the first armed robbers in Australia to use a getaway car. Kate tried to give Freeman an alibi, and early in 1915 she got five years for perjury again. The police only ever recorded thirteen minor convictions against her in those years, mostly to do with prostitution, although she later denied she'd ever been a prostitute. The police also noted that she was often the one who put up bail and alibis for gangsters.

Tilly Devine – From Camberwell to the 'Loo

Matilda Mary Twiss was born on 8 September 1900 at Camberwell in London. Her father, Edward Twiss, was a bricklayer, and her mother was Alice, née Tubb(s). Wikipedia says she was working the Strand in London as a teenage prostitute and was in and out of Bow Street court between 1915 and 1919. In 1917, at the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Camberwell, she married James Edward Joseph Devine, an Australian digger and former shearer. Jim went home in 1919. Tilly followed on the bride ship Waimana and reached Sydney on 13 January 1920.

Larry Writer says William Street was where she first worked when she arrived. Jim became a hire-car proprietor and acted as her minder, driver and getaway man. The ADB says that let her work independently of both the police and the underworld, although she was arrested a great deal. Between 18 June 1921 and May 1925 she racked up seventy-nine convictions on prostitution-related charges such as offensive behaviour and indecent language. Then in May 1925 she walked into a barber's shop, slashed a man with a razor and got two years for malicious wounding. The press called her the "Worst Woman in Sydney" and "The Queen of the Night", and the public gallery was always packed when she was in court.

Tilly Devine, photographed on 27 May 1925, the month she was gaoled for slashing a man with a razor in a barber's shop. State Reformatory NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Laws That Made Them Rich

Larry Writer argues that both women's careers were "spawned by a series of well-intended but wrong-headed laws". Each law shut down a legal trade and handed it to the underworld.

Six O'Clock Closing, 1916

NSW voters were asked about pub closing hours at a referendum on 10 June 1916. Wikipedia says the vote was influenced by a drunken riot of soldiers that February, which ended with a soldier shot dead at Central station. Six o'clock closing was meant to be a wartime measure, but in 1923 the government made it permanent without another vote. It led to the "six o'clock swill" and it left a city full of thirsty people after 6pm. The ADB says sly grog was Kate Leigh's main business from 1919 to 1955, "induced by six o'clock closing". Wikipedia says she ran at least twenty outlets at her peak. Writer is quoted as putting it at more than thirty. Wikipedia also says she never drank or smoked herself.

Max Dupain's barmaid at Petty's Hotel, Sydney, at 6pm in 1941. Six o'clock closing is what made Kate Leigh rich. Max Dupain, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Vagrancy Act and the Brothel Loophole

The Vagrancy Act 1905 targeted street prostitution, and the law also said any man caught running prostitutes would be gaoled. Writer points out that it said nothing about women: "surely, the lawmakers thought, no woman would be capable of such a thing! They didn't know Tilly Devine." By the mid-1920s Tilly was running women out of her own brothels, centred on Palmer Street.

Cocaine and the 1927 Drug Law

Cocaine had been sold over the counter at chemists as a nerve tonic. Once a 1927 law banned that, users had to go to the drug rings, which sold it cut and at high prices. Wikipedia names the law as the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Act 1927. The ADB says Kate was dealing cocaine "from the mid-1920s", and Wikipedia says her supply came from a corrupt network of doctors, dentists, chemists and sailors. Police reckoned there were about five thousand drug customers in Darlinghurst, Kings Cross and Woolloomooloo.

The Pistol Licensing Act 1927 and the Razor

The Pistol Licensing Act of 1927 brought in prison terms for carrying an unlicensed gun, so the gangs switched to the cut-throat razor. Writer says you could buy one for a few pence at any grocer or chemist, and if a copper stopped you, you could say you were "just going home for a shave". The gangster's trademark was an L-shaped slash down the left cheek and across the mouth. He counts more than 500 recorded razor attacks in inner Sydney between 1927 and 1930 alone. Because nobody informed on anyone, he thinks the real number was far higher and that the hospital records are a better guide. Wikipedia says Sydney Hospital and St Vincent's patched up many of the victims.

Part of a City of Sydney map of about 1927 (SR Map 6235), marked up by State Archives NSW to show the streets where the razor gangs ran and fought. State Archives and Records NSW, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Bruhn's Mob and the First Razor Gang

The first razor gang wasn't Kate's or Tilly's. Writer gives that title to Norman Bruhn, a Melbourne standover man, whose mob included the aptly named Snowy Cutmore. Wikipedia says Bruhn had been pushed out of Melbourne by Squizzy Taylor in late 1926. In Sydney he went after the cocaine runners who carried the drug from inner-city safe houses to the dealers, and that put him up against Leigh, Devine and Phil Jeffs. Writer says that within weeks, Tilly's, Kate's and Jeffs's people were carrying razors too.

Norman Bruhn in October 1921, from Victoria's Central Register of Male Prisoners, a few years before he brought his razor mob to Sydney. Unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

John Daniel 'Snowy' Cutmore, NSW Police Special Photograph no. 842, 5 July 1922. He was one of Bruhn's mob. NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive (Sydney Living Museums), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

On 22 June 1927 Bruhn was shot twice in the stomach outside Mac's sly-grog shop in Charlotte Lane, Darlinghurst, and he died early the next morning. The Nellie Cameron article on Wikipedia says the shooters were sent by either Devine or Leigh. Nobody was ever convicted. The suspects police put in line-ups included Frank Green, Tilly's enforcer known as "the Little Gunman", and George Gaffney, who worked for Kate.

Charlotte Lane, Darlinghurst, where Norman Bruhn was shot, as printed in The Sun on 23 June 1927. Unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Sun's plan of the spot in Charlotte Lane where Bruhn was shot (23 June 1927, page 13). Unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Razor Wars, 1929

The Battle of Blood Alley – 7 May 1929

I've written a separate post on this one, so here's just the short version. Rival drug and standover gangs clashed in Eaton Avenue, Kings Cross, on 7 May 1929, and Phil Jeffs was shot. Writer says Jeffs had been cutting the cocaine he sold, and Wikipedia says he was adulterating it with boracic acid. Jeffs ran the 50-50 Club on the fourth floor of the Chard Building in William Street, where, Writer says, "Tilly Devine supplied the prostitutes, Kate Leigh the booze and cocaine". He later retired to Ettalong and died there a wealthy man in 1945. Writer thinks the bullet wounds probably contributed to his death, and says he was the only one of the 1920s–30s bosses to die with his fortune intact.

Maroubra and the Strand Hotel

On 17 July 1929 Gregory Gaffney, one of Kate's men, shot Frank Green in Woolloomooloo. Green went to the Devines' house at Maroubra to have the wound seen to. That night Gaffney and Wally Tomlinson came to finish him off, and Jim Devine shot Gaffney dead and wounded Tomlinson. On 9 November 1929, outside the Strand Hotel on the corner of William and Crown streets, Green, with Jim Devine alongside him, shot Barney Dalton dead and wounded Tomlinson again. Writer describes Tomlinson as another of Kate's lovers. Both Green and Devine got off because no witness would speak against them. In June 1931 Jim also accidentally shot dead a taxi driver, Frederick Moffitt, outside the Maroubra house. Wikipedia says he was charged with murder more than once and was always acquitted on self-defence.

'Big Jim' Devine, Tilly's first husband, from his NSW criminal record, 25 August 1939. NSW Criminal Record, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Battle of Kellett Street – 8 August 1929

Three months after Blood Alley came the big street fight between the Leigh and Devine gangs themselves, in Kellett Street near Kings Cross, on 8 August 1929. Wikipedia says a lot of bootleg grog and cocaine went down beforehand, and the fight involved thrown bottles, fists, guns and razors. Writer puts it at forty-odd men. It's often mixed up with Blood Alley, but they were separate fights.

Kate Leigh's Riley Street Shooting

Kate wasn't one to leave the fighting to her men. The ADB says she was "adept with a rifle". In March 1930 a group of gangsters broke into her house, and she shot and killed John William "Snowy" Prendergast. Wikipedia gives the date as 27 March 1930 and the house as 104 Riley Street. She was never indicted for the killing. Nor was she charged over shooting Joseph McNamara in December 1931. Later in 1930 the drug squad raided Riley Street, with the famous policewoman Lillian Armfield among them. Kate was charged with possessing cocaine and with consorting.

The Women Around Them

The razor gang years weren't only about Kate and Tilly. Nellie Cameron left a respectable North Shore family and worked the streets of William and Palmer streets. Over the years she was the lover of Norman Bruhn, Frank Green and Guido Calletti. Calletti led the "Darlinghurst Push", and they married at Fitzroy in Victoria on 20 February 1934. Calletti was shot dead on 6 August 1939 after gatecrashing a party in Brougham Street, off William Street. Writer says he announced he was taking over the Brougham Street Gang's turf. Nellie gassed herself on 8 November 1953, aged 41.

Nellie Cameron in 1930. She was Bruhn's lover, later married Guido Calletti and was close to Frank Green. State Reformatory NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Dulcie Markham was born in Surry Hills in 1914. Wikipedia says she was on the streets at 15 and ran up about 100 convictions across four states. The papers called her "The Angel of Death" because so many of her men ended up stabbed or shot, Calletti among them.

Dulcie Markham, photographed around May 1931 and reprinted in the Brisbane Truth on 26 December 1937. Photographer unknown, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Police Strike Back

Parliament fought back with two laws. The Vagrancy (Amendment) Act 1929 made it an offence for known criminals to consort with one another. The Crimes (Amendment) Act 1930 meant six months' gaol for carrying a razor without a good reason. Both cut down the violence. Kate and Tilly were both hit with consorting charges in the 1930s. The ADB says Tilly's arrests became fewer but more serious, and that she spent a year of "voluntary absence" in England.

William John MacKay, a Glasgow detective who joined the NSW Police in 1910, became Commissioner on 24 March 1935. Wikipedia says he called both women in and gave them a warning: keep the violence and cocaine down, or the new police powers would be turned on their businesses. From 1938–39 police worked the ships to cut off cocaine, and then wartime shipping restrictions did the rest.

War, Wealth and the Long Decline

The war was good for both of them. The ADB says that by 1939 Tilly had a business of Palmer Street houses with bouncers and bodyguards. She and Kate were "excellently placed" to profit from wartime demand. Tilly was now the "Queen of the 'Loo". She threw lavish parties, gave generously to the war effort and became known for her diamond rings. Kate turned up to court in silver fox furs and big hats with diamond rings on her fingers, and the press remembered her patriotism and her kindness to the unemployed. Tilly divorced Jim in 1943 on the grounds of cruelty. On 19 May 1945, at 191 Palmer Street, she married a seaman, Eric Parsons. A few months earlier she had shot him in the leg and been acquitted.

Kate married Shiner Ryan, her old associate from the Eveleigh robbery, at Fremantle on 18 January 1950. They lasted six months. In 1954 she was declared bankrupt over unpaid tax, and in 1955 NSW moved pub closing to 10pm, which finished off the sly-grog trade. Wikipedia quotes her as saying "The bloom has gone off the grog". She spent her last years in a room above a shop at 212 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills, and died on 4 February 1964 after a stroke. More than 700 people came to her funeral at St Peter's in Devonshire Street, and she was buried at Botany as Kathleen Ryan.

Kate Leigh in September 1951, holding a press camera. By then she was living in Devonshire Street, Surry Hills. Vic Johnstone, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In 1955 Tilly had to pay more than £20,000 in tax and fines. She kept her Palmer Street brothel going until 1968, when the law changed. She'd had chronic bronchitis for twenty years and died at Concord Repatriation Hospital on 24 November 1970. She was cremated at Botany with Catholic rites under her married name, Matilda Mary Parsons. Wikipedia says the only public eulogy came from Police Commissioner Norman Allan: "She was a villain, but who am I to judge her?"

On Page and Screen

Peter Kenna based his 1973 play The Slaughter of St Teresa's Day on incidents in Tilly's life. Larry Writer's book Razor (2001) won the Ned Kelly Award for true crime in 2002. It became the basis of Channel Nine's 13-part Underbelly: Razor in 2011, with Danielle Cormack as Kate and Chelsie Preston Crayford as Tilly. Icehouse's 1990 song "Miss Divine" is about Tilly, and there's a Darlinghurst wine bar called Love, Tilly Devine.

Timeline

• 10 March 1881 – Kathleen Beahan (Kate Leigh) born at Dubbo.
• 1893 – Kate sent to Parramatta Industrial School for Girls, aged 12.
• 8 September 1900 – Matilda Twiss (Tilly Devine) born at Camberwell, London.
• 2 May 1902 – Kate marries James Lee.
• 1905 – Lee gaoled for robbing the Glebe landlord. Kate convicted of perjury.
• 18 June 1914 – Eveleigh payroll robbery by Freeman and Shiner Ryan.
• Early 1915 – Kate sentenced to five years for perjury.
• 10 June 1916 – NSW referendum brings six o'clock closing.
• 1917 – Tilly marries Jim Devine in Camberwell.
• 1919 – Kate's sly-grog era begins.
• 13 January 1920 – Tilly arrives in Sydney on the Waimana.
• 26 September 1922 – Kate marries Edward "Teddy" Barry.
• 1923 – Six o'clock closing made permanent in NSW.
• May 1925 – Tilly gaoled for two years for the barber's shop razor slashing.
• 1927 – Pistol Licensing Act. Cocaine banned from chemists.
• 22–23 June 1927 – Norman Bruhn shot in Charlotte Lane, Darlinghurst.
• 7 May 1929 – Battle of Blood Alley, Eaton Avenue. Phil Jeffs shot.
• 17 July 1929 – Jim Devine shoots George Gaffney dead at Maroubra.
• 8 August 1929 – Battle of Kellett Street.
• 9 November 1929 – Barney Dalton shot dead outside the Strand Hotel.
• 1929–1930 – Consorting law and razor law passed.
• March 1930 – Kate shoots Snowy Prendergast dead at Riley Street.
• 1930 – Kate convicted over cocaine.
• 24 March 1935 – William MacKay becomes Police Commissioner.
• 6 August 1939 – Guido Calletti shot dead in Brougham Street.
• 1943 – Tilly divorces Jim Devine.
• 19 May 1945 – Tilly marries Eric Parsons.
• 1945 – Phil Jeffs dies at Ettalong.
• 18 January 1950 – Kate marries Shiner Ryan at Fremantle.
• 1954 – Kate declared bankrupt.
• 1955 – Ten o'clock closing ends the sly-grog trade. Tilly pays more than £20,000 in tax and fines.
• 4 February 1964 – Kate Leigh dies.
• 1968 – Tilly sells her last Palmer Street brothel.
• 24 November 1970 – Tilly Devine dies at Concord.
• 2001 / 2011 – Larry Writer's Razor is published, followed by Underbelly: Razor.

Where the Sources Disagree

• Tilly's wedding date. The ADB says 12 August 1917. Wikipedia says 12 April 1917. Both give the same church.
• Tilly's age at marriage. Wikipedia says she claimed to be 21 but was really 16. Ron Saw's 1970 obituary says it the other way round: she said she was 15 and the records said 21. Her 1900 birth date backs Wikipedia.
• When Tilly arrived. The ADB and Wikipedia say 13 January 1920. Ron Saw's obituary says the Devines arrived in 1919. That's the year Jim came home.
• Tilly's divorce. The ADB says August 1943. Wikipedia says they were finally divorced in January 1944.
• Kate's 1930 cocaine sentence. The ADB says two years, with a £250 fine allowed in place of the second year. Wikipedia says 12 months.
• The McNamara shooting. The ADB says 19 December 1931. Wikipedia says 9 December 1931.
• Shiner Ryan's death. The ADB says 1957. Wikipedia says 1954.
• Where Kate died. The ADB gives Surry Hills. Wikipedia says she had the stroke at Devonshire Street and died at St Vincent's Hospital.
• Kate's tax debt. The ADB says about £6191 in tax arrears. Wikipedia gives her liabilities at the 1954 bankruptcy hearing as £7130.
• MacKay's warning. The Kate Leigh article on Wikipedia puts it in 1936, and the razor gang article puts it in 1935.
• Who Underbelly was based on. The Kate Leigh article on Wikipedia credits a book by "Chris Walker", which has no citation. The Underbelly: Razor article, the Tilly article and Museums of History NSW all say it was Larry Writer's Razor.
• The drug law. Wikipedia calls it the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Act 1927. Writer just says cocaine "was banned" from chemists. I haven't found a source here that names a "Pharmacy Act".

My Earlier Posts

• The Battle of Blood Alley – Eaton Avenue – Kings Cross – 7 May 1929
• The Sunbeam Hotel – Corner Riley & Albion Streets – Surry Hills – The 1945 Shooting
• Darlinghurst Gaol & Darlinghurst Court – Forbes Street & Taylor Square – Darlinghurst – NSW
• Original Villas Of Darlinghurst

Sources

• Judith Allen, "Leigh, Kathleen Mary (Kate) (1881–1964)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 10, 1986. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/leigh-kathleen-mary-kate-7164
• Judith Allen and Baiba Irving, "Devine, Matilda Mary (Tilly) (1900–1970)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 8, 1981. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/devine-matilda-mary-tilly-5970
• Ron Saw, "Devine, Matilda Mary (Tilly)", Obituaries Australia. https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/devine-matilda-mary-tilly-5970/text24400
• "MacKay, William John (1885–1948)", Australian Dictionary of Biography. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mackay-william-john-7381
• Larry Writer, "Following in the footsteps of the Razor Gangs", Museums of History NSW, 13 April 2018. https://mhnsw.au/stories/underworld/following-footsteps-razor-gangs/
• Larry Writer, "Following in the footsteps of the Razor Gangs – Part 2", Museums of History NSW, 4 May 2018. https://mhnsw.au/stories/underworld/following-footsteps-razor-gangs-part-2/
• Wikipedia: "Kate Leigh", "Tilly Devine", "Razor gang", "Norman Bruhn", "Nellie Cameron", "Dulcie Markham", "Six o'clock swill", "Underbelly: Razor" (all accessed October 2026).
• Larry Writer, Razor: Tilly Devine, Kate Leigh and the Razor Gangs, Pan Macmillan, 2001 (2nd ed. 2009), as cited by the sources above.
• Images: Wikimedia Commons, with credits given under each picture (State Archives and Records NSW, NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive / Sydney Living Museums, State Library of NSW).