Histories of Green Square - City of Sydney

Histories of Green Square
Fig. 8.2 The Mt Rennie Area in 2004 — now Moore Park Golf Course (Photo: Scott Vance, 2004).
physique than others examined in the metropolitan area’. A
teacher described his residence ‘filled with a foul atmosphere,
traceable to...neighbouring boiling down establishments and
Chinese hovels’. 30 The depraved youths were said to have come
from a kind of miserable wasteland.
Clearly, gender was the other underlying theme of debate.
This was not only true of the Mt Rennie case, but also in
policing and crime generally and over time. There are few
records, especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, on domestic abuse for example, yet it was wellknown
that the crime did take place and was very common.
This suggests the assumptions of the exclusively male law and
order community: either domestic abuse was excusable or it
was a private matter that should not be trespassed upon.
The Bulletin championed the rapists in the Mt Rennie case,
arguing ‘she was asking for it’ and calling Mary Jane Hicks a
‘lying little street tramp’. 31 However, the horrific nature of the
crime, and the sense that there needed to be a message sent to
the youth of the colony, saw nine out of the eleven youths who
were tried sentenced to hang. The cab driver received fourteen
years hard labour with two floggings.
Five of the death sentences were commuted, so that the large
official crowd which gathered on the 7 th January 1887 saw four
youths hanged at Darlinghurst Jail. Because the youths were
so slight in physique there was a miscalculation of their drop,
and three of the four slowly strangled to death.
8.5 Early twentieth century
For the main part, however, the occurrence of crime in
the Green Square area was far less serious. The records for
November 1906 reveal a warrant was issued by the Redfern
Police Bench for the arrest of Isaac Henry, charged with wife
desertion, the complainant being from the Beaconsfield Estate
in Waterloo. A youth dressed in a blue serge suit had exposed
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himself to a nineteen-year-old girl in McEvoy Street. 32
By 1926, police presence in the area had shrunk, as No. 7 Head
Station at Turner Street, Redfern, was the only police station
that served the Green Square area, most probably because of
the impact of the motorcar. The weekly reports of crime for
the month of November that year saw little more action in
the area than in 1886 and 1906. Young people could still be
a concern. A guardian in Alexandria had issued a complaint
and a warrant was issued for the arrest of sixteen-year-old
Chrissie Cox, charged with being an uncontrollable child.
Dolores Ferraris of Rosebery reported necklets and bangles
stolen. At Cambridge Delicacies, on the corner of Bourke and
Phillip Streets, the safe had been burgled by means of explosives
and £5 was stolen. 33 This small incident illustrates the
changing landscape of the area with the growth of businesses
and shops.
More notorious instances of organised crime were occurring
just north of the Green Square area in this period, however.
Sly grog, drugs, dealing in stolen goods, gambling and prostitution
were vices and crimes controlled by four main players—
Kate Leigh, Tilly Devine, Phil Jeffs and Norman Bruhn. Each
had territories in Darlinghurst, Kings Cross, Woolloomooloo
and Surry Hills. 34 After 1927, gang wars erupted between
these crime bosses. These ‘wars’ were most noted for the gangs’
weapon of choice—the razor. Between 1927 and 1930 there
would be more than 500 recorded razor attacks. 35
8.6 Gambling in the 1930s.
During the 1930s, gambling again came to the fore as the
most noted crime. There seems little doubt that it was a widespread
practice in the community in this period—especially
on horse and pony racing. Betting was legal at the many tracks
in the area, such as Rosebery, Victoria Park, Ascot, Randwick
and Kensington, but illegal on the streets (see also Chapter 9).
© Scott Vance
The police who were responsible for enforcing this regulation
were at times ambivalent about it; at other times they were
corrupt in handling the suppression of S.P. betting. In 1936 a
Royal Commission was set up to weed out corrupt police and
reinforce and clarify the policy on policing illegal S.P. betting.
What is interesting is that Inspector Russel believed that more
than seventy-five per cent of the populace saw nothing wrong
with S.P. betting. Comments were also made of how little the
public helped the police in this matter and that most of the
population saw no disgrace in being punished for it. 36
The reasons for gambling could be varied. The most obvious is
the dream of a windfall (see also Chapter 9). The Green Square
area was a working class/industrial area, and the chance of a
big win for small outlays would have been tempting as well
as exciting. Evidence from the oral histories of the area seem
to indicate that the pastime of S.P. betting or gambling, being
an S.P. bookmaker, or working for one, was something which
defined a person as a part of the community.
8.7 The police, crime and the community: oral histories
The oral histories collected from residents are another
rich source on gambling and policing in this period. In his
youth, Howard Hastings, a resident in Zetland, assisted a S.P.
bookmaker, gathering and tracking various prices on dogs and
horses by telephone. Although they were raided frequently,
they were ‘pretty sweet with the police’. This often meant they
were forewarned of the raids. 37
There was obviously money in being the assistant to a S.P.
bookmaker or being an S.P. bookmaker yourself. Dr. Hugh
McConville recalled that the only people in Beaconsfield
who could afford cars were the S.P. bookmakers. 38 Robert
Hammond, of Alexandria, similarly, remembered Snowy
Holmes, a S.P. bookmaker who always had a motorcar. Snowy
also had a rapport with the children. When he had a winning
© Scott Vance
Chapter 8 – Green Square and the Thin Blue Line
Fig. 8.3 Brickworks off Mitchell Rd (1929) — a major two-up venue. (Source: ML ref. GPO I frame 14610, courtesy Government
Printing Office Collection, State Library of New South Wales. No reproduction without permission).
day, he would drive past in his car, ‘see us kids and he’d throw
a handful of pennies out’. Other games of chance included
two-up and cards. Robert Hammond recalls a big two-up
school at the brick pit on Mitchell Road where there could
be between sixty to eighty people betting (see Fig. 8.3). The
police often raided. ‘They’d come down in old 1927 Chevrolet
cars and all jump out’. 39
Shirley Moir’s game was cards. After leaving school early, one
of her first jobs was to provide tea and sandwiches for men
who played cards in Alexandria’s Belmont Lane. She also
became an assistant to an S.P. bookmaker and recalls that
many local women played rummy—including her mother.
She would often play on her mother’s behalf and ‘would
also sit in for other women if they were feeding their babies
or were called away’. The pastime, she says, is ‘not a game of
chance. It’s a skill’. 40
There are recollections of other crimes in the oral histories of
this period as well. One recollection is of ‘things’ going missing
down at the rail yards at Alexandria—the pilfering of goods
from some of the big rail carriages. 41 Sly grog was remembered
too. With six o’clock closing, Robert Hammond’s father would
go around to the Balaclava Hotel on the corner of Buckland
Street and Mitchell Road. There would be ‘a favourite knock
on the publican’s door’ to get a quart after closing time. 42 Betty
Moulds from Alexandria remembered ‘Nigger Fox’ a sly grog
seller who lived four or five doors down from her family. 43
Often people used to knock on Betty’s door by mistake.
As for views of the police, the recollections are not only of police
raids, or police corruption; the personalities of policemen
are also remembered—some positive, some negative. Robert
Hammond remembers a couple of policemen from Redfern,
the station that policed the Green Square area in his youth:
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