The Worst Woman in Sydney by Leigh Straw

Author:Leigh Straw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NewSouth Publishing

As soon as she heard of Kate’s ‘do,’ Tilly (Devine) Parsons, not to be outdone by her old rival, left her isle off Palm Beach, and descended on the Collaroy Crippled Children’s Hospital with 10/ for each of the 75 inmates, together with a magnificent and costly doll (which fell, in the draw, to a bed-ridden child who wept joyous tears over her luck), a big ‘chatterbox,’ a large toy elephant and a white rabbit for other boys and girls. Tilly played the Lady Bountiful without revealing her identity, but there was no mistaking who ‘Mother Christmas’ was. It’s a way the volatile ex-Queen of Palmer St. has.

What the two underworld leaders were effectively doing was running their own public-relations campaigns. Neither could have hoped to gain acceptance in respectable society, even if Tilly Devine aspired to it by moving out to Maroubra. Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh were notorious women, and their central involvement in the underworld wars made them household names. Neither could claim to be an upstanding member of the community. They had to settle for taking pot shots at each other and acting holier than thou. There was no prize for who had a better reputation in eastern Sydney; association already tarnished it. In sensationalising the rivalry rather than focusing on Leigh and Devine as crime bosses to be feared, the papers turned both women into celebrities. This is a lesson still to be learned by the mainstream media today.

Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine were always going to be at odds with each other. They led powerful inner-city crime empires and directly competed for control of sly grog, drugs and sex. While neither would ever have conceded any similarities, they were both ruthless, intelligent crime entrepreneurs, unwilling to settle for anything less than running Sydney’s underworld.

Something had to give. Locals tell stories of back-street meetings and murmurings that something was about to happen between the two women in the late 1940s. By that time, Tilly was middle-aged and seemed more interested in trips overseas – perhaps to avoid criminal association – than feuding with her rival. Kate Leigh was in her late sixties and was starting to lose her grip on young thugs. They weren’t taking her as seriously as the young ones had in the 1920s and 1930s. Perhaps it was time for conciliation.

Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine performed a dramatic show of support for each other for the newspapers in 1948. The photographs are clearly staged. In one, Kate leans down close to Tilly’s face, smiling and looking for a response. Tilly, meanwhile, continues to puff on her cigarette. In another, the two women attempt to embrace but the effect is awkward. Their heads are tilted, looking at each other, but the arm’s-length distance is obvious. The legacy of many years facing each other down in the street and attempting to do each other out of business is clear in the photographs. Police were always surprised they hadn’t killed each other. Truth may have

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