Quong Tart – The Scottish Mandarin of Sydney – Braidwood, the Tea Rooms and the QVB – 1850 to 1903

Quong Tart came to the Braidwood goldfields as a nine-year-old Chinese boy and ended up one of the best-known men in Sydney. He picked up a Scottish accent, wore a kilt, recited Burns, made money from gold claims, and then opened tea rooms that gave Sydney something it hadn't really had before: a decent, affordable place to sit down for tea and a meal. He fought the opium trade, stood up for Chinese people at a time when the colony was openly hostile to them, was made a mandarin by the Chinese Emperor, and was given a funeral fit for a governor. Not bad for a lad who arrived with an uncle and a shipload of miners.

Portrait of Mei Quong Tart, about 1885, oil on canvas, State Library of New South Wales. Unknown artist, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From Taishan to Bell's Creek

Who he was

The Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) says he was born in 1850 at Hsinning (Sun-ning) in Canton Province, the son of a dealer in ornamental wares. That district is today's Taishan in Guangdong. His full name was Moy (or Mei) Quong Tart. Moy was the family name, and in Chinese the surname comes first, so all those Sydneysiders calling him "Mr Quong Tart" were really using his given name. The Daily Telegraph pointed this out with some amusement in 1888, telling its lady readers they had "for all these years" been calling "the admirable Quong Tart by his Christian name". "Mei" is the modern Mandarin spelling of Moy, and that's why you'll see him called Mei Quong Tart today.

The boy on the goldfields

At nine he came out to New South Wales with an uncle, who was in charge of a shipload of Chinese labourers bound for the Braidwood goldfields. He lived in Thomas Forsyth's store at Bell's Creek. Forsyth was a storekeeper from Argyllshire, and the Sydney Morning Herald and the Chinese Museum's biography both say the boy picked up his Scottish accent and his love of Robert Burns there.

Before long he was taken in by Robert Percy Simpson and his wife Alice (née Want). The ADB says Alice taught him English and converted him to Christianity. He became an Anglican, and he stayed a keen one for the rest of his life. The Simpsons got him buying shares in gold claims, and by 18 he was a wealthy young man.

An old hotel building in Braidwood, the goldfields town where Quong Tart grew up. Photo by Sheba_Also, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A local identity

He stayed on at Bell's Creek after the Simpsons moved to Sydney and built himself a cottage there. Around Braidwood and Araluen he was everywhere: captain of the local cricket team, founder of a football team and a horse-racing man. The ADB says he ran a series of popular Chinese horse races at Jembaicumbene. He also worked as an interpreter for the Chinese miners. The South Coast History Society says his standing in the district helped keep out the kind of racism found on other goldfields.

He was naturalised on 11 July 1871 and joined a lodge of Oddfellows. In 1877 he went on the board of the Bell's Creek public school, and in 1885 he became a Freemason.

The Scottish Chinaman

This is the bit everyone remembers. At social functions Quong Tart turned up either in mandarin robes or in a kilt and sporran, according to the State Library of NSW. He told jokes, recited Burns and sang Scottish ballads. The South Coast History Society adds that he played the bagpipes. The Herald described him as having a "thick Scottish brogue". He got the nicknames "Quong Tartan" and "Quong MacTartan". The ADB says his "Scottish songs and recitations mingled with quaint wit" were a guaranteed crowd-puller, and he was in constant demand as a speaker at charity and social events.

Mei Quong Tart. Society of Australian Genealogists (PR 6/25/1), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Tea for Sydney

The first tea shop

In 1881 he went home to China to see his family. The Herald says his mother had picked out a Chinese bride for him, but he went back mainly to tell them his future was in Australia. When he came back he opened a tea and silk store in Sydney, then a tea shop where customers could sample his China tea. It went over so well that he opened a whole chain of them. According to the Herald, the first was in King Street, where he put chairs and tables out so people could try the tea. Curator Jennifer O'Callaghan told the paper that in the Sydney of the day there were really only taverns for men or expensive restaurants, and "no cafes or tea shops selling inexpensive food".

His rooms ended up in the Sydney Arcade, the Royal Arcade and King Street, plus George Street, Moore Park Zoo and the Haymarket theatre district.

The Royal Arcade, Sydney, in 1892. Quong Tart had tea rooms in the arcade. New South Wales Government Printing Office, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Loong Shan Tea House, King Street

In December 1889 he opened his grandest place yet, the Loong Shan Tea House at 137 King Street. It had marble fountains and ponds of golden carp. The tea and grill rooms were on the ground floor and a reading room was upstairs. Governors and premiers ate there, and the Herald calls it one of the most important political meeting places in town. The State Library says Louisa Lawson, Henry Lawson's mother, drank her tea in the Loong Shan while she organised the campaign for women's votes. Wikipedia calls his rooms the site of Sydney's first suffragette meetings. The site is now part of the Glasshouse on King Street, home of the Tea Centre.

The corner of King and Elizabeth Streets in 1890, a year after the Loong Shan opened further down King Street. Arthur K. Syer, State Library of New South Wales collection, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The Elite Hall at the Queen Victoria Markets

When the Queen Victoria Markets building (today's QVB) went up in 1898, Quong Tart took space in it. The ADB dates the opening of his dining hall there to December 1898. The tea rooms were on the ground floor, near the middle of the building on the George Street side. A carpeted staircase led up to the Elite Hall, which held nearly 500 people and had a stage with a carved proscenium. At the other end was the Elite Dining Saloon.

The State Library puts his success down to good food at fair prices, the quality of the tea and the décor: fountains, ferneries and fishponds, reading rooms and non-smoking rooms for ladies. A place where a woman could comfortably sit down in town on her own was a big thing in those days. He also hung local painters' work on his walls and promoted concerts.

Invitation card to the ball for the opening of the Queen Victoria Market Building, 21 July 1898. Unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Queen Victoria Building today. Quong Tart's Elite Hall was inside, and so was the office where he was attacked. Photo by Bernard Spragg, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

A fair boss

Most of his staff were European women working as waitresses. He gave them time off to go shopping and paid them when they were sick, which the ADB calls an "enlightened policy". The State Library adds reasonable hours for the day, meals in the restaurant and free time for reading and needlework. In April 1894, before one of his trips, his employees wrote him a bon voyage letter, and it still survives.

Bon voyage letter to Quong Tart from his employees, 20 April 1894. Unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A Quong Tart's Tea House sign, now held at the Chinese Museum in Melbourne. Photo by Joyofmuseums, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Margaret Scarlett

On 30 August 1886 he married Margaret Scarlett, a young Englishwoman who was a schoolteacher. Her family didn't approve. O'Callaghan told the Herald that her father, a business associate of Quong Tart's, stayed away from the wedding, and that "inter-racial marriage was considered shocking". They had two sons and four daughters. He had each child baptised in a different Christian denomination so nobody could accuse him of favouring one church. The family lived at Gallop House in Ashfield, and the girls went to Presbyterian Ladies' College at Croydon, the first Asian students at the school. The South Coast History Society also notes that he appears to have been supporting a wife and children in China at the same time.

After he died, Margaret published his story in 1911 as Quong Tart, or How a Foreigner Succeeded in a British Community.

The Fight Against Opium

In 1883 he went with Sub-Inspector Martin Brennan to look into the Chinese camps of southern New South Wales. Their report showed opium addiction was everywhere. On 24 April 1884 he handed the Colonial Secretary, Alexander Stuart, a petition calling for a ban on opium imports. That June he took the campaign to Melbourne and Ballarat. In 1887 he tried again with a second petition to parliament and a pamphlet, A Plea for the Abolition of the Importation of Opium. The State Library notes that the clergy were on his side, but politicians and businessmen argued that opium wasn't addictive and the colony needed the import revenue. He never lived to see the imports stopped.

Speaking Up for the Chinese

He did all this while anti-Chinese feeling in the colony was at its worst. In 1887 it flared badly, and the ADB says he spent a great deal of time defending his countrymen and interpreting for them. In 1888 the ship Afghan arrived in Sydney with a large number of Chinese passengers and was held in quarantine, and the State Library says Quong Tart helped mediate between the passengers and the government. He was one of the founders of the Lin Yik Tong, the first Chinese merchants' association in Sydney, and he sat on the 1891–92 Royal Commission on Alleged Chinese Gambling and Immorality. He co-signed a petition in 1888 asking China to open a consulate in Australia, then sent one in his own name in 1889. The Herald says he acted for years as an unofficial Chinese consul.

The ADB adds a fair caution. It says the wider community saw him as a Chinese leader, but the Chinese community itself didn't necessarily see him that way. It was split into factions and separated from him by "a wide social and cultural gap".

The China Trips and the Mandarin's Robes

His work was recognised in Peking. The ADB says he was made a mandarin of the fifth degree in January 1888 and went back to China that year. Wikipedia says he and Margaret went with their daughter, and that in Canton he met the viceroy Zhang Zhidong and told him about anti-Chinese feeling in Australia. On his third trip, in 1894, he was raised to a mandarin of the fourth degree, the Mandarin of the Blue Button. The Herald says that was roughly like a British earldom.

Quong Tart, photographed by Tesla Studios, Sydney, around 1900. Tesla Studios, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A Big Heart

Between 1885 and 1888 he put on a series of free feasts for the inmates of the destitute asylums. He also gave dinners for the Benevolent Society home at Liverpool and for the newsboys of Ashfield, Summer Hill, Croydon and Burwood. The State Library says he once invited all the city's newsboys to a banquet and another time hosted local Aboriginal people, and that he helped clothe and feed the children of the Waterloo Ragged School. From 1887 well into the 1920s, racehorses were even named after him.

The Attack at the Markets

On 19 August 1902 an intruder savagely assaulted him in his office in the Queen Victoria Markets. The Herald says he was beaten with an iron bar and the attacker got away with just a few pounds. Frederick Duggan was jailed for 12 years. The police saw it as a robbery gone wrong, but not everyone agreed. Letters from his Chinese friends, which the State Library translated for its 2003 centenary display, show some suspected "the Western people" and others blamed Chinese businessmen whose interests his campaigns had hurt.

He partly recovered, but never got back to his old self. He died of pleurisy at Gallop House, Ashfield, on 26 July 1903, about eleven months after the attack. He was around 53.

The Funeral

His biographer Robert Travers, quoted in the Herald, said he was "carried to the grave with all the pomp and ceremony befitting a state governor or a great statesman". Two hundred men escorted the coffin from his Ashfield home to a train that took the funeral party to Rookwood Cemetery. Thousands were waiting there. He was laid out in his mandarin's robes of the Blue Button, with his Masonic apron over the top.

The old Chinese section at Rookwood Cemetery, where Quong Tart was buried in 1903. Photo by Vincent Öhlander Rice, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Remembering Him

In 1998 a statue of him went up in Ashfield, and his bust stands near Ashfield railway station. For the centenary of his death, Sydney held a year of events. These included an evening at the State Library, the exhibition No Ordinary Man. Sydney's Quong Tart: citizen, merchant & philanthropist in the QVB in July and August 2004, and a Powerhouse Museum conference, "Quong Tart and his time, 1850–1903". The QVB Tea Room and the Tea Centre in King Street even served "quong tarts" in his honour. His descendants kept Quong Tart as the family surname. The actor Josh Quong Tart is his great-grandson.

The bust of Quong Tart near Ashfield railway station. Photo by Marc Pasquin, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Ashfield railway station, close to his memorial. Gallop House, his home, was in Ashfield. Photo by JustARandomEditor123, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• 1850 – Born at Hsinning (Taishan), Canton Province, China.
• 1859 – Arrives on the Braidwood goldfields with his uncle, aged nine.
• c.1868 – Wealthy from gold claims by 18.
• 11 July 1871 – Naturalised.
• 1877 – Joins the board of Bell's Creek public school.
• 1881 – Visits China, then opens a tea and silk business in Sydney.
• 1883 – Tours the southern Chinese camps with Sub-Inspector Brennan.
• 24 April 1884 – Presents his anti-opium petition to Alexander Stuart.
• 1885 – Becomes a Freemason.
• 1885–88 – Puts on free feasts for destitute asylum inmates.
• 30 August 1886 – Marries Margaret Scarlett.
• 1887 – Second opium petition and his Plea pamphlet.
• January 1888 – Made a mandarin of the fifth degree (ADB) and visits China.
• December 1889 – Opens the Loong Shan Tea House, 137 King Street.
• 1891–92 – Sits on the Royal Commission on Chinese gambling.
• 1894 – Raised to mandarin of the fourth degree (Blue Button).
• December 1898 – Opens the Elite Hall in the Queen Victoria Markets.
• 19 August 1902 – Assaulted in his QVM office.
• 26 July 1903 – Dies of pleurisy at Gallop House, Ashfield.
• 1911 – Margaret publishes his life story.
• 1998 – Statue unveiled at Ashfield.
• 2003–04 – Centenary year of events.

Where the Sources Disagree

• Date of the attack: The ADB gives 19 August 1902, and the Herald says August 1902. Wikipedia's Death section dates the attack to 26 July 1903, which is actually the day he died. The ADB date fits the "11 months" everyone agrees on.
• When he became a mandarin: The ADB says January 1888. Wikipedia says 1887 and links the honour to the 1887 Chinese mission. The Herald mentions only the 1894 Blue Button.
• Where the Scottish streak came from: The Herald and the Chinese Museum credit storekeeper Thomas Forsyth of Argyllshire. The State Library credits his time with the Simpsons.
• Wealth and the cottage: The ADB, the Herald and the State Library say he was wealthy at 18. Wikipedia has him building the Bell's Creek cottage "aged just 21".
• Freemasonry: The ADB dates it to 1885 in Sydney. The Herald seems to place it in his Braidwood years.
• Federation Convention dinner: Wikipedia says delegates to the 1891 Federation Convention dined at the Elite Hall. The ADB dates the Elite Hall to 1898, so if they dined with him in 1891, it was probably somewhere else.
• Margaret Scarlett: The ADB calls her "a young Englishwoman". The South Coast History Society calls her a Braidwood schoolteacher.

My Earlier Posts

• Photographs 1879–1892 (includes the Royal Arcade with Quong Tart's premises)
• The Queen Victoria Building – George Street – Sydney
• Queen Victoria Building – George Street, York Street, Market Street
• George Street 1890 Sydney heritage walk
• Glentworth – Ashfield

Sources

• E. J. Lea-Scarlett, "Moy Quong Tart (1850–1903)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 5, 1974: adb.anu.edu.au/biography/moy-quong-tart-4181
• State Library of NSW, "Significant individuals: Quong Tart": sl.nsw.gov.au
• Steve Meacham, "The man who brought cafe society to town", Sydney Morning Herald, 18 July 2003: smh.com.au
• South Coast History Society, "Mei Quong Tart": southcoasthistory.org.au
• Chinese Museum, Chinese-Australian Historical Images in Australia, "Tart, Quong": chia.chinesemuseum.com.au
• National Portrait Gallery, "Finest quality", Portrait magazine 37: portrait.gov.au
• Wikipedia, "Mei Quong Tart": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mei_Quong_Tart (including its citations of the Evening News, 23 December 1889, and the Daily Telegraph, 12 May 1888)
• Margaret Tart, Quong Tart, or How a Foreigner Succeeded in a British Community, Sydney, 1911.
• Robert Travers, Australian Mandarin: The Life and Times of Quong Tart, Kangaroo Press, 1981.
• Images: Wikimedia Commons, with credits as shown under each image.

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).

Arthur Stace – Mr Eternity – The Man Who Chalked One Word Across Sydney – 1885 to 1967

For more than thirty years, Sydney woke up to find one word chalked on its footpaths in beautiful copperplate: Eternity. Nobody saw who wrote it, and for years nobody knew. The writer turned out to be Arthur Malcolm Stace, a small, quiet man from Redfern who had grown up in poverty, drunk his way through his young years, served in France in the Great War, and then found God at a church tea meeting in Broadway in 1930. By the time he died in 1967 the word had been chalked, by the usual estimate, about half a million times, and it has since been lit up across the Harbour Bridge and set into the pavement of Sydney Square.

The Eternity inscription in the paving near the Sydney Square waterfall, beside the Town Hall. Photo by Sardaka, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A Hard Start in Redfern

Arthur was born on 9 February 1885 at Redfern, the fifth child of William Wood Stace, a labourer from Mauritius, and his Australian-born wife Laura, née Lewis. The Dictionary of Sydney says both his parents were alcoholics. The family was poor, and Wikipedia records that young Arthur stole bread and milk and went through bins for scraps to get by.

By Stace's own later account, given in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, he became a ward of the state at 12, worked two years in a south-coast coal mine, was gaoled for drunkenness, lost job after job and turned to thieving. He said his two sisters were prostitutes and his two brothers died "derelict drunkards". He had very little schooling and, says the Dictionary of Sydney, was already a heavy drinker by the time he started his first job at 14.

Grog, Two-Up and the Underworld

His early years were spent in and out of gaol and hospital, including a stay at Broughton Hall psychiatric clinic at Callan Park. He worked briefly for Sydney City Council, but mostly he lived off the underworld, working as a "cockatoo" (a lookout) for illegal establishments and carrying sly grog to brothels, including one in Surry Hills run by his sister. In his own words, quoted by the ADB: "Off and on I worked as a grog-runner from a hotel in Surry Hills to two-up schools and houses of ill-fame."

The Great War

Stace enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 18 March 1916. His papers describe a labourer 5 ft 3 in (160 cm) tall, with grey eyes and dark brown hair. Wikipedia gives his service number as 5934, with the 16th Reinforcements of the 19th Battalion, 5th Brigade. He served as a private with the 19th Battalion in France, the ADB says probably as a drummer and stretcher-bearer, and later at AIF headquarters in England. He came home in February 1919, and the Dictionary of Sydney notes he returned partially blind in one eye. He suffered bouts of bronchitis and pleurisy, and was discharged medically unfit in 1919.

Home again, he fell straight back into his old ways. The Dictionary of Sydney describes years of depression and drinking, "with the bottle dominating his days and the courts regularly hauling him in".

A Cup of Tea and the Rock of Ages – 1930

On 6 August 1930 Stace went along to a "tea and rock bun" meeting at St Barnabas' Church on Broadway, where Archdeacon R. B. S. Hammond drew big, hungry crowds of down-and-outs. Stace was converted on the spot and gave up the grog. He liked to say afterwards: "I went in to get a cup of tea and a rock cake but I met the Rock of Ages."

St Barnabas' Church, Broadway, in an old Government Printing Office photograph. This is where Stace was converted in 1930. Charles Percy Pickering, Government Printing Office, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

His life turned right around. He spent his spare hours helping men who were as far down as he had been. He worked at Hammond's hostels, led open-air meetings, and visited the Francis Street Methodist hostel, Callan Park mental hospital and the Lazaret. For more than 20 years he led open-air meetings on the corner of George and Bathurst Streets. For a time he worked at one of the Hammond Hotels in a converted factory in Buckland Street, Chippendale, where unemployed men were fed, shaved and tidied up to help them find work.

The NSW Government blue plaque to Arthur Stace at St Barnabas' Church, Broadway, installed in 2025. Photo by ColonelLight, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

"Eternity, Eternity" – John Ridley at Burton Street

Stace took a job as janitor at the Burton Street Baptist Tabernacle in Darlinghurst and joined its congregation. It was there, the Dictionary of Sydney says in November 1932, that he heard the evangelist John G. Ridley MC preach. Wikipedia names the sermon "The Echoes of Eternity", taken from Isaiah 57:15: "For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth Eternity, whose name is Holy …"

Ridley cried out: "Eternity, Eternity, I wish I could sound or shout ETERNITY through the streets of Sydney … You've got to meet it, where will you spend Eternity?" Stace remembered: "I felt a powerful call from the Lord to write 'Eternity'. I had a piece of chalk in my pocket, and I bent down right there and wrote it."

He could not explain the beautiful handwriting. "The funny thing is that before I wrote it I could hardly have spelt my own name. I have no schooling and I couldn't have spelt Eternity for a hundred quid. But it came out smoothly in beautiful copperplate script. I couldn't understand it."

The old Burton Street Tabernacle in Darlinghurst, where Stace was janitor and heard John Ridley preach. Photo by Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Thirty-Five Years of Chalk

Wikipedia says Stace would get up at 4 am several mornings a week and head out before dawn, often to a different suburb each day, chalking the word on footpaths, doorsteps and railway station entrances. Workers coming into town would find it freshly written, but never saw the writer. The ADB has him saying he wrote it "at least 50 times a day".

He used yellow waterproof chalk, and the Dictionary of Sydney says he later moved to longer-lasting crayon. The word turned up from Martin Place to Parramatta, though he had a soft spot for the dark pavements of Kings Cross. "Some of them concrete paths won't take it," he complained. "Too light to show up." When he was "running hot" it cost him "six bob a day in chalk". A single inscription could last three to six months, and he was told one in Surry Hills lasted twelve.

For a while he tried other words, such as "Obey God", but in his words "it wasn't as good. Eternity makes 'em think." Wikipedia adds that someone used to follow him around turning his Eternity into "maternity", so he began giving it a big, ornate capital E. Pavement-chalking broke a City Council rule, and Stace said he was very nearly arrested many times, telling police he "had permission from a higher source".

Marriage and Pyrmont

On 22 January 1942 Stace married Ellen Esther ("Pearl") Dawson at St Barnabas' Church, giving his occupation as "missioner". Wikipedia says Pearl proposed to him. They lived for many years in Bulwara Road, Pyrmont, and the ADB pictures him then as "a birdlike little man with wispy white hair".

Mr Eternity Unmasked – 1956

For years the "Eternity man" was one of Sydney's great mysteries. Newspaper writers speculated, and every so often a false confession kept the puzzle going. In 1956 the Rev Lisle M. Thompson, minister of the Burton Street Tabernacle, caught his own janitor in the act. Thompson wrote the story up in a short tract, The Crooked Made Straight, and the Sunday Telegraph named Stace in an article by Tom Farrell on 21 June 1956.

Wikipedia says that in 1963 the photographer Trevor Dallen got Stace to pose for four photographs for The Sun. When Dallen went off for more film, Stace was gone by the time he got back. Wikipedia calls these the four known photographs of Stace, and one is held by the National Library of Australia.

The Last Years

Pearl died in 1961. Stace moved to the Hammondville homes in Sydney's south, in 1965 according to the ADB, and died there of a stroke on 30 July 1967, aged 82. He left his body to the University of Sydney medical school and his savings to Baptist missions. His remains were buried with Pearl's at Botany Cemetery, now part of Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park, in 1969.

The grave of Arthur Stace and his wife Ellen at Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park, Matraville. The word Eternity is carved on it. Photo by Sardaka, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Eternity in the GPO Bell

Of all the chalk Stace put down, only two original inscriptions are known to survive. One is a piece of blackboard-painted cardboard he chalked for a friend. The Dictionary of Sydney names her as Thelma Dodds, and it is now in the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.

The other is inside the bell of the General Post Office clock tower in Martin Place. The tower was taken down during the Second World War as a precaution against bombing and not put back until 1964. The Dictionary of Sydney says the faded word was "allegedly" found when the tower was being restored in 1997, and suggests that, if genuine, it was probably written while the bell was at ground level. Wikipedia instead says workmen noticed it when the bell came out of storage during the 1960s rebuilding.

The GPO clock tower, Martin Place. Inside its bell is said to be the only original Stace Eternity left in Sydney. Photo by SabinBandana000, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Eternity in the Pavement – Sydney Square

In 1968 Sydney City Council decided to set Eternity permanently into footpaths around the city, but the council was sacked before it happened, and the state administrators who took over weren't interested. In the end Ridley Smith, the architect of the 1977 shopping arcade below Sydney Square, had the word inscribed in wrought aluminium on the floor. The ADB describes it as unveiled in 1977 in a paving stone near the Sydney Square waterfall. In 2001 the City of Sydney was granted a trademark on the script to protect it from commercial misuse, according to Wikipedia.

An Eternity sign in Stace's script at Central railway station. Photo by Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Eternity Cafe in the old booking hall at Central station, named in his honour. Photo by MDRX, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

An Eternity sign at the corner of Weemala and Ramsay Roads, Pennant Hills. Photo by Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Across the Harbour Bridge – New Year's Eve 1999

The best-known tribute came at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve 1999, when Eternity blazed across the Sydney Harbour Bridge during the millennium fireworks. Ignatius Jones, who created the show, said: "it's incredibly Sydney. It symbolised for me the madness, mystery and magic of the city." Wikipedia adds that the word also featured in the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games opening ceremony.

Martin Sharp and the Artists

The artist Martin Sharp did more than anyone to keep the word in front of Sydney, painting it in bright colours in many works. His 1990 screen print Eternity is in the National Gallery of Australia. His version also became the centrepiece of a panel of the Federation Tapestry by the Victorian Tapestry Workshop. Sharp said of Stace: "He never had a book published, but he self-published all over the streets and pavements of Sydney. He writes an entire novel in that word."

The poet Douglas Stewart wrote of "that shy mysterious poet Arthur Stace, whose work was just one single mighty word". Keith Dunstan put him in his 1979 book Ratbags. George Gittoes worked Stace's face into Ancient Prayer, which won the Blake Prize for religious art in 1992. The word has also turned up in a Banksy piece in New York in October 2013, which shows a worker washing an Eternity tag away.

Film, Opera and Stage

Lawrence Johnston's film Eternity came out in 1994. Jonathan Mills and Dorothy Porter's chamber opera The Eternity Man was performed at the Sydney Festival in 2005, and in 2008 Julien Temple made it into a film. Asked why Sydney is so taken with Stace, Porter said the city is "ephemeral, built from sandstone, itself almost dissolvable", with "a dreadful history of wiping out itself", so perhaps he "appeals to us as a symbol of that past, that other lost Sydney and its history".

The old Burton Street Tabernacle closed as a church in 1996. The City of Sydney restored it as a theatre, and it was named the Eternity Playhouse on 5 December 2011, with Stace's script on the marquee and through the building. The National Museum of Australia also named its Eternity gallery after his story, and the Christian newspaper Eternity, founded in 2009, took its name from the word.

The Eternity Playhouse, Burton Street, Darlinghurst. This is the old Tabernacle, renamed in Stace's honour in 2011. Photo by J Bar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

St Barnabas', Broadway, as it looked in 2014. Photo by Sardaka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• 9 February 1885 – Born at Redfern.
• About 1897 – Becomes a ward of the state at 12, by his own account.
• 18 March 1916 – Enlists in the AIF and serves with the 19th Battalion in France.
• 1919 – Returns in February and is discharged medically unfit.
• 6 August 1930 – Converted at St Barnabas', Broadway.
• November 1932 – Hears John Ridley at Burton Street Tabernacle and starts writing Eternity.
• 22 January 1942 – Marries Pearl Dawson at St Barnabas'.
• 21 June 1956 – Named as Mr Eternity in the Sunday Telegraph.
• 1961 – Pearl dies.
• 1963 – Trevor Dallen takes the only known photographs.
• 1964 – GPO clock tower rebuilt.
• 30 July 1967 – Dies at Hammondville, aged 82.
• 1969 – Buried at Botany Cemetery.
• 1977 – Eternity inscription laid at Sydney Square.
• 1994 – Lawrence Johnston's film Eternity.
• 31 December 1999 – Eternity lights up the Harbour Bridge at midnight.
• 2005 – The Eternity Man opera at the Sydney Festival.
• 5 December 2011 – Eternity Playhouse named.
• 2025 – Blue plaque at St Barnabas', Broadway.

Where the Sources Disagree

• How many times? The Dictionary of Sydney and Wikipedia both give about half a million, more than 500,000. That is an estimate, not a count. The ADB only quotes Stace himself saying "at least 50 times a day".
• The years he wrote it: the Dictionary of Sydney says 1932 to 1966, when he moved to Hammondville, while Wikipedia says 1932 until his death in 1967.
• Moving to Hammondville: the ADB and Wikipedia say 1965, and the Dictionary of Sydney says 1966.
• His conversion: the ADB says he was inspired by "a preacher at Pyrmont" in August 1930. The Dictionary of Sydney and Wikipedia place it at R. B. S. Hammond's meeting at St Barnabas', Broadway, on 6 August 1930.
• Ridley's sermon: the ADB only says "in the 1930s". The Dictionary of Sydney says November 1932, and Wikipedia gives 14 November 1932.
• Discharge date: the ADB says he was discharged on 2 May 1919, and Wikipedia says 2 April 1919.
• The GPO bell: Wikipedia says the word was found when the bell was reinstalled in the 1960s, while the Dictionary of Sydney says it was "allegedly" found during the 1997 restoration and is cautious about whether it is genuine.
• Sydney Square: the ADB calls it a brass inscription, and the Dictionary of Sydney and Wikipedia say wrought aluminium.
• Birth year: the ADB, Dictionary of Sydney and Wikipedia all say 1885, though one Wikipedia summary line and some websites give 1884.

My Earlier Posts

• St Vincent's Hospital – Victoria Street – Darlinghurst
• Hangings at Darlinghurst Gaol
• Sydney Past & Present – Chapter 8 – The Later Thirties

Sources

• Chris Cunneen, "Stace, Arthur Malcolm (1885–1967)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 12, 1990: adb.anu.edu.au
• Shirley Fitzgerald, "Stace, Arthur", Dictionary of Sydney, 2008: dictionaryofsydney.org
• Shirley Fitzgerald, "Eternity", Dictionary of Sydney, 2008: dictionaryofsydney.org
• "Arthur Stace", Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org
• "Eternity (graffito)", Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org
• Tom Farrell, Sunday Telegraph, 21 June 1956, as cited by the Dictionary of Sydney
• Lisle M. Thompson, The Crooked Made Straight, tract, as cited by the Dictionary of Sydney
• Sharon Verghis, "One word sermon we can't forget", Sydney Morning Herald, 19 January 2005, as cited by the Dictionary of Sydney
• Photographs from Wikimedia Commons, credited under each picture

Bea Miles – Sydney's Shakespeare-Reciting, Taxi-Fighting Bohemian – 1902 to 1973

If you rode a Sydney tram, bus or taxi between the 1930s and the 1960s, there was a fair chance you crossed paths with Bea Miles. Big, quick and loud, in a green tennis eyeshade, tennis shoes and a scruffy old greatcoat, she recited Shakespeare on street corners for a few coins, refused to pay her fares, wrenched doors off taxis that wouldn't take her, and racked up a court record that ran into the hundreds. She was also a wealthy North Shore businessman's daughter who matriculated with honours from Abbotsleigh, a ferocious reader and a fierce Australian patriot. This is her story, from the family home to the Little Sisters of the Poor at Randwick.

Bea Miles (right) in the early 1940s. Consolidated Press, State Library of New South Wales, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Bea or Bee?

Both spellings turn up everywhere. The Australian Dictionary of Biography calls her "Bea (or Bee)". Her biographer Rose Ellis, as reviewed in Inside Story, says she insisted on "Bee" and not "Bea", and John Piggott's Senior column agrees that Bee was her preferred spelling "although nearly everyone knew her as Bea". I've used Bea in the title because that's the way most Sydney people remember it, but Bee is the name she chose.

Family and Childhood

Beatrice Miles was born on 17 September 1902 at Ashfield, the third surviving of the five children of William John Miles, a Sydney-born public accountant, and his wife Maria Louisa, née Binnington, a Queenslander (ADB). Her grandmother was Ellen Cordner-Miles, a celebrated contralto in 1870s Sydney, and the family's most successful business was Peapes & Co., the men's clothing store in George Street (Inside Story). Her death notice in 1973 also remembered her as born into "a wealthy family which ran the exclusive clothing store Peapes, in George St".

Wikipedia and the Waverley Council Library both say she grew up at St Ives on the upper North Shore. Inside Story instead mentions the family home at Wahroonga, which is where she caught the train to university. Either way, it was the leafy Ku-ring-gai end of Sydney.

St Ives on the upper North Shore, where Bea is said to have grown up. Andrew Harvey, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

William Miles was a man of contradictions. He was a rationalist and free-thinker who raised his children as atheists and taught them to reject "arbitrary" authority, and during the First World War he spoke from a box in the Domain against conscription (Inside Story). People Australia describes him as a wealthy political activist with far-right views, and as abusive. His relationship with Bea was violent; the ADB says an inheritance from her paternal grandmother allowed her to escape "the violent scenes that characterized her relationship with her father". Late in life Bea said that her father loved her until she was fourteen and hated her afterwards, and she alleged that the relationship had been incestuous (Inside Story, reviewing Ellis).

Abbotsleigh

Bea was educated at Abbotsleigh (ADB). At twelve she wore a "No Conscription" badge to school during the 1916 referendum campaign (Wikipedia); Inside Story says her father told all three of his daughters to wear "No" badges, and that Bea relished the fuss while her sisters did not. She was also marked down for an essay that called Gallipoli a "strategical blunder" rather than "a wonderful war effort" (Wikipedia). Her 1973 death report says she matriculated with honours, and David Roth's People Australia entry notes that she passed the University matriculation, with results published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 13 March 1920.

Abbotsleigh School, Wahroonga, where Bea went to school. Sardaka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

University and the Sleeping Sickness

She enrolled in Arts at the University of Sydney but gave it up after a year "because they did not teach enough Australian stuff" (ADB). Wikipedia and the Waverley Council Library also say she enrolled in medicine, which was unusual for a woman then. As a young woman she was known as "mad Bee Miles" for jumping on and off moving trains on the way to university (Inside Story).

Around 1920 she caught encephalitis lethargica, the "sleeping sickness". Ellis tells how she fell asleep at a glove counter in Farmer's department store while shopping with her mother and could not be woken, and how she nearly died (Inside Story). Ellis and others believe the illness shaped the rest of her life: the sensitivity to light that had her wearing an eyeshade, the weight she put on in her forties, and her restless love of movement and attention. Not everyone agrees. David Roth, who found her Callan Park case notes in NSW State Records in 2024, says the evidence of an attack in 1920 is "inconclusive at best", and that the Callan Park doctors listed a "psychopathic constitution" as the main cause, with encephalitis secondary (People Australia).

Gladesville and Callan Park

Fights with her father went on, over her way of life and her sexual "freedom". In 1923 he had her committed to the Hospital for the Insane at Gladesville (ADB). The ADB says she stayed until publicity in Smith's Weekly led to her release in 1925. Later research tells a longer story. Roth, drawing on Ellis, says she went straight from Gladesville to Callan Park in February 1925 and spent 20 months there, apart from a spell at Kenmore in Goulburn and several escapes, one of which got her to Brisbane and Toowoomba. In Brisbane five doctors found her sane, though eccentric. She left Bayview private mental hospital in Sydney late in 1927 (People Australia). Smith's Weekly ran the headline "Madhouse Mystery of Beautiful Sydney Girl. Five Doctors Declare Her Sane" on 19 March 1927. Inside Story dates her first notoriety to a "sensational escape" in February 1927, and says that afterwards her father paid her a weekly allowance to keep her away from the family.

Gladesville Hospital, the old Hospital for the Insane where Bea was committed in 1923. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

She went back into institutions for short periods during the 1930s, and was admitted to Callan Park again in 1959, for two months (People Australia). Roth found her own accounts of chaos and cruelty in the hospitals exaggerated in places, while Ellis argues that her doctors judged her "through the lens of their own morality" (People Australia; Inside Story).

A Tenant of the City

Her long relationship with Brian Harper ended when she was 38: he wanted to marry, and she despised men who married. From then on, the ADB says, she had "no fixed address". During and after the Second World War, Sydney's housing shortage left her sleeping rough. Ellis points out that "no one chooses to be homeless": her allowance meant the welfare services wouldn't help her, so she called herself a "tenant of the city" (Inside Story).

Ellis pieced together her day. Up at 5am, blankets hooked to her belt, she had steak and eggs at Mason's Café in Elizabeth Street, opposite Central, every morning for nearly twenty years, then a free bath at Dobson's Turkish Bathhouse. She dined at 5pm, always on curried tongue and peas. She slept in a cave at Rushcutters Bay, under a shed in the Domain, on the steps of St James' Church or in the bandstand in Belmore Park (Inside Story). In 1948 a Daily Telegraph journalist visited her cave near Rushcutters Bay and listed her fifteen "rules for living", including to live "toughly, dangerously, excitingly, exhilaratingly and simply".

Belmore Park near Central, one of the places Bea slept. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

St James' Church, King Street. Bea slept on its steps until one of the clergy told her to go. Henry King, Tyrrell Collection, Powerhouse Museum, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

One nurse who trained at Sydney Hospital in 1952–56 remembered Bea walking in from Martin Place and sleeping overnight in a small room at the ambulance end of casualty, drying her washing on the instrument sterilisers. The organist at St James' told the same nurse that Bea would sit up the back and shout if she didn't like his crescendos, and that once, when he tried her suggestion, it sounded better (The Senior).

Christ Church St Laurence

In the 1950s she came to treat the rectory of Christ Church St Laurence, near Central, as home. The rector, Father John Hope, who often had to bail her out, gave her a place on the porch between the rectory dining room and the vestry. Clergy had to step over her on their way to vest for Mass. She asked for the church windows to be left open so she could hear evensong, and lectured the altar boys on rationalism. After a spell in Long Bay Gaol for wrenching a door off a taxi, she was allowed to sleep in the rectory laundry, and she stayed until Father Hope retired in 1964 (Wikipedia, citing L. C. Rodd's John Hope of Christ Church, 1972). Inside Story notes that Father Hope was the uncle of the historian Manning Clark.

Christ Church St Laurence, George Street. Bea slept in its rectory until 1964. Sardaka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Shakespeare for Sixpence

Her best-known way of earning a living was reciting Shakespeare, at prices from sixpence to three shillings (ADB). Ellis calls her a "roving reciter": she wore a sandwich board, caught a bus from Eddy Avenue to somewhere like Watsons Bay, and in the afternoons worked a regular spot such as the steps of the Mitchell Library, where the students passed by (Inside Story). Her death report remembered her recitations "at the Domain". Dorothy Hewett put her into her 1958 novel Bobbin Up as "Sydney's most famous woman", with a sign on her back reading "Shakespeare readings. Any speech on request ... 2/–" (Wikipedia).

The Library

She read voraciously, reputedly two books a day, and spent long hours in the Public Library of New South Wales until she was banned in the late 1950s (ADB; Wikipedia). Inside Story says the ban was for smoking. Later, at Randwick, she borrowed an average of 14 books a week from the branch library (Wikipedia, citing Randwick: A Social History, 1984).

The Mitchell Library in December 1923. Bea recited on its steps and read inside until she was banned. The Daily Mail, State Library of New South Wales, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Bea and the Taxi Drivers

Nothing made her more famous than her war with Sydney's cabbies. She refused to pay fares, especially in taxis, and drivers often wouldn't pick her up. In return she would leap onto their running-boards, bumper bars or bonnets, or throw herself against the side of the cab, and doors came off their hinges (ADB). Her 1973 death report said that once she was in a taxi, "demands, force and even buckets of water and hosing failed to shift her". She was assaulted several times by unpaid drivers in the 1950s (ADB), and Ellis notes that the drivers were never charged (Inside Story). Her closest friend from the 1940s was a taxi driver, John Beynon (ADB).

Yet she could pay, and handsomely. In 1955 she paid a woman taxi driver £600 to take her to Perth and back, a trip of nineteen days (ADB). A Trove report of 27 January 1955 is headlined "BEA MILES WAS HERE". On Christmas Day 1956 she interrupted a driver's Christmas dinner to be taken to Broken Hill by way of Melbourne, and paid £73 10s when they got back to Sydney (Wikipedia, citing Randwick: A Social History). Les Murray put her taxi journey into his poem "The Quality of Sprawl" (1983) as an image of Australia (Wikipedia).

Arrests and Court Cases

Police and Bea were at war for decades. She claimed she had been "falsely convicted 195 times, fairly 100 times", though the obituaries gave lower figures (ADB). Two newspaper reports on Trove give a flavour of the cases:

• August 1948, Parramatta. Beatrice Miles, 45, appealed to Judge Shortland at Parramatta Quarter Sessions against a £5 fine for offensive behaviour. She had been found guilty of trying to stop a car on the Great Western Highway by waving her hand over her head. "Everywhere you go today people are hailing cars," said the judge, upholding her appeal.
• July 1950, Central Court. Beatrice Miles, 48, "described as a student", was fined £2 with £1 costs for offensive behaviour. A Double Bay taxi driver said she jumped into his front seat in Martin Place and demanded to go to Double Bay; he refused "because of the dirty condition she was in", and she wouldn't get out, screamed and called the constable a fool.

In front of a magistrate in 1932 she shouted at her own solicitor to "shut up" when he raised the effects of her sleeping sickness (Inside Story). When she went into care in 1964, the death report said, she had more than 200 convictions, "none was for a criminal offence". "I am psychologically incapable of crime," she said.

Long Bay Gaol, about 1900. Bea served time here after pulling the door off a taxi. Unknown photographer, Randwick Library Local Studies, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Politics and Writing

Bea and her brother John joined the far-right Australia First Movement in 1941, but there is no record of her taking part in its activities and she was not among the members interned in 1942 (Wikipedia, citing Barbara Winter). She was a fervent nationalist and advocated free love (ADB).

She wrote a great deal and longed to be published. A few short travelogues appeared in country newspapers, but her accounts of her years in institutions and her big journeys to northern Australia in the 1930s never found a publisher (Inside Story). Her manuscripts are in the State Library of NSW, some in her own hand: Dictionary by a Bitch, I Go on a Wild Goose Chase, I Leave in a Hurry, For We Are Young and Free, Notes on Sydney Monuments and Advance Australia Fair. A corrected typescript of part of Advance Australia Fair is in the University of Sydney Library (Wikipedia). In August 1973 the filmmaker James Ricketson recorded an oral history interview with her, now in the State Library (Wikipedia).

Last Years at Randwick

Ill health caught up with her, and in 1964 she went into the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged at Randwick (ADB). There she is said to have told the sisters she had "no allergies that I know of, one complex, no delusions, two inhibitions, no neuroses, three phobias, no superstitions and no frustrations" (ADB). A friendly taxi driver took her to visit Father Hope (Wikipedia). One of the sisters remembered her comforting the old and sitting patiently with the dying, and even praying with them: "I don't believe in God, but she does" (Wikipedia, citing Randwick: A Social History).

Death and Burial

Bea Miles died of cancer at the home on 3 December 1973, aged 71 (ADB; 1973 death report). People Australia records it as rectal cancer. At her request, Australian wildflowers were placed on her coffin, and a jazz band played "Waltzing Matilda", "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" and "Advance Australia Fair" (ADB). The old Wilson's Almanac page adds a ribbon reading "One who loved Australia", and says she asked for lines from Measure for Measure on her monument: "Reason thus with life: If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing that none but fools would keep."

Where she lies is one of the points the sources disagree on. The ADB says she was cremated. Wikipedia says she is in the family plot at Rookwood, though that line is marked as needing a citation. The Senior published a reader's photo of "the plaque at Bee's grave, Rookwood Necropolis", and another reader remembered going to her funeral at Rookwood.

Rookwood Necropolis, where Bea's memorial plaque is. J Bar, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

How Sydney Remembers Her

• The Archibald: Alex Robertson's portrait of her was entered for the 1961 Archibald Prize (ADB).
• On stage: the musical comedy Better Known as Bee was performed by the Q Theatre Company at Penrith in 1984 (ADB). Vashti Hughes's one-woman show Dictionary by a Bitch was staged at the State Library, the place Bea loved to haunt (Sydney Arts Guide; Urban Village).
• Lilian's Story: Kate Grenville's 1985 novel Lilian's Story was loosely based on her life, and it became a film starring Toni Collette and Ruth Cracknell (Wikipedia).
• Books and poems: she appears in Dorothy Hewett's Bobbin Up and Les Murray's "The Quality of Sprawl". There's a likeness of her, unnamed and played by Hewett, in the 1978 film The Night the Prowler, written by Patrick White (Wikipedia). Rose Ellis's biography Bee Miles: Australia's Famous Bohemian Rebel (2023) was shortlisted for the 2024 National Biography Award (Wikipedia).
• The B Miles Women's Foundation is named after her, though it isn't funded from her estate (Waverley Council Library).

She isn't one of the writers on the Sydney Writers Walk plaques at Circular Quay. The published list of plaques doesn't include her (Monument Australia). The Sydney that remembers her best is the one in people's stories: of the woman who did the crossword in a stranger's paper on the train from Auburn and handed it back without a word, or who lectured a six-year-old on a Bondi tram about the old kings of Ireland (The Senior).

Timeline

• 17 September 1902: born at Ashfield.
• 1916: wears a "No Conscription" badge to Abbotsleigh.
• 1920: passes matriculation; starts university; falls ill with encephalitis lethargica.
• 1923: committed by her father to Gladesville Hospital for the Insane.
• February 1925: transferred to Callan Park (People Australia).
• 1927: escapes; Smith's Weekly reports five doctors found her sane; leaves Bayview late in the year.
• About 1940: her relationship with Brian Harper ends; "no fixed address" from then on.
• 1941: joins the Australia First Movement with her brother John.
• 1948: wins a Parramatta appeal against a fine for hailing a car.
• 1950: fined at Central Court after refusing to leave a taxi in Martin Place.
• 1955: pays £600 for a nineteen-day taxi trip to Perth and back.
• Christmas Day 1956: taxi to Broken Hill via Melbourne.
• Late 1950s: banned from the Public Library of NSW.
• 1959: two months in Callan Park.
• 1961: Alex Robertson's portrait of her in the Archibald Prize.
• 1964: enters the Little Sisters of the Poor home, Randwick.
• 3 December 1973: dies at Randwick, aged 71.
• 1984: Better Known as Bee staged at Penrith.
• 1985: Kate Grenville's Lilian's Story.
• 2023: Rose Ellis's biography.

Where the Sources Disagree

• How many convictions: Bea claimed 195 false and 100 fair (ADB). The 1973 death report said more than 200. Wilson's Almanac quotes her as saying "80 I deserved but 120 were unfair and malicious". The ADB says obituaries gave lower estimates than her own.
• Her studies: the ADB mentions only Arts. Wikipedia and the Waverley Council Library say she also enrolled in medicine.
• Her illness: Ellis and others put her behaviour down largely to encephalitis lethargica; Roth thinks the evidence for it is inconclusive.
• Her time in institutions: the ADB has her released from Gladesville in 1925 and says nothing more; Roth and Ellis say she went straight to Callan Park and was not finally out until late 1927.
• The family home: St Ives (Wikipedia, Waverley Council) or Wahroonga (Inside Story).
• Religion at the end: the ADB says she renounced her atheism and received Catholic rites; Wikipedia says her family do not support this.
• Burial: cremated (ADB), or the family plot at Rookwood (Wikipedia, unsourced). The Senior shows a plaque at Rookwood.
• The Perth trip: the ADB says the driver took her to Perth and back; Wilson's Almanac says she stayed three months studying wildflowers and came back by sea.
• The Lilian's Story film: Wikipedia's text gives 1995, while its IMDb reference is to the 1996 film.

My Earlier Posts

• Rookwood Cemetery & Necropolis – Lidcombe – Sydney – New South Wales

Sources

• Judith Allen, "Miles, Beatrice (Bea) (1902–1973)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 10, 1986: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/miles-beatrice-bea-7573
• David Roth, "Miles, Beatrice (Bea) (1902–1973)", People Australia, National Centre of Biography, ANU: https://peopleaustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/miles-beatrice-bea-7573
• "Bea Miles", Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bea_Miles
• Anne-Marie Condé, "Living toughly" (review of Rose Ellis, Bee Miles, 2023), Inside Story, 28 August 2023: https://insidestory.org.au/living-toughly/
• John Piggott, "Bee Miles: More memories of the famous Sydney eccentric", The Senior, 30 October 2023: https://www.thesenior.com.au/story/8400911/miles-of-yarns-about-that-great-sydney-eccentric-bee/
• "Bea Miles", Waverley Council Library: https://celebrating.waverley.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/73081
• "BEA MILES WINS, LOSES", 12 August 1948, via Trove: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/274436013
• "Bea Miles Fined", 14 July 1950, via Trove: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/27573614
• "BEA MILES WAS HERE", 27 January 1955, via Trove: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/248217374
• "Sydney's original hippy dies", 5 December 1973, via Trove: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/131696342
• "Bee Miles, one of Sydney's favourite individualists", Wilson's Almanac (archived): https://web.archive.org/web/20090103104100/http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/bee_miles.html
• "Dictionary by a Bitch: a new play about Bea Miles", Sydney Arts Guide: https://sydneyartsguide.com.au/dictionary-by-a-bitch-a-new-play-about-bea-miles/
• "Dictionary by a Bitch: The Story of Sydney's Bea Miles", Urban Village, 4 June 2021: https://urbanvillage.com.au/2021/06/04/dictionary-by-a-bitch-the-story-of-sydneys-bea-miles/
• "Sydney Writers Walk", Monument Australia: https://www.monumentaustralia.org/themes/culture/community/display/94161-sydney-writers-walk-
• Wikimedia Commons, for all photographs (credits under each picture): https://commons.wikimedia.org/