Ms Leigh was a flamboyant and sometimes vicious character who by the mids was dubbed 'the most evil woman in Sydney. Although she never drank alcohol or took drugs, Ms Leigh happily dealt in both and acted as a stand over merchant, sold stolen property and occasionally shoplifted. From the early s to the s, men crowded the streets outside her establishments at nightfall on Friday and Saturday nights to gain entry and purchase alcohol.
The home got its nickname 'mum's' from the pass code of calling around 'to see Mum. The outdoor toilet at the back of the property pictured where thieves and prostitutes bought illegal alcohol after it was banned, allowing a flourishing trade in sly grog.
Ms Leigh, pictured as a younger woman in her prison record when she served time at the Long Bay women's reformatory in Sydney. The kitchen inside Ms Leigh's old house has been left to fall into disrepair despite the front of the dwelling being renovated several times to house a flower shop and then a cafe.
By the s, Leigh was known as a larger than life character - wealthy, greedy, funny and generous to those she felt sorry for - whose name as a female criminal was rivalled only by another, Leigh's bitter foe, brothel queen Tilly Devine. Ms Leigh was then in her late fifties and Devonshire Street was one of her rougher establishments, while another Surry Hills house at 2 Landsowne Street was her largest grog shop.
Ms Leigh and Ms Devine are characters in the true crime book Razor by Larry Writer, which dramatizes the criminal gang rivalry in Sydney's inner suburbs in the early 20th century when gang members slashed their opponents with cut throat razors. The house known as 'Mum's' pictured has fallen into a dilapidated state. Some of its ground floor interiors resembling the original terrace which Kate Leigh inhabited until when her fortune had dwindled and she died.
Graffiti on the walls and an old poker machine in the living area at the back of Devonshire Street. A number of musicians have lived or visited the home in the decades since Ms Leigh's Ms Leigh was well-known among politicians and police officers, and well-liked by some, although she was called 'a sinister, shadowy character,' in the NSW Police Force Archives, according to an extract in Larry Writer's book.
She had originally come from the central western NSW town of Dubbo where, as Kathleen Beahan, one of eight children of a Catholic bootmaker, she had been put in a girls' home at the age of 12 and gave birth to her first child, Eileen, the following year, in By the age of 15, Kate married her first husband, Jack Lee, a half Chinese illegal bookmaker and petty criminal.
Kate Leigh, pictured at her 2 Landsdowne Street,Surry Hills house with her second husband, sly grog dealer Teddy Barry dressed as Santa Claus for one of their generous Christmas gift givings. The walls of Kate Leigh's old house have been adorned with graffiti for many years now.
Real estate agents say the house is ready for a complete renovation and is an opportunity for someone to tunr the old sly grog shop into a stunning property. In , Lee was imprisoned for assault and robbery and Kate was accused of lying under oath to protect her husband and convicted of perjury and for being an accomplice to the assault. Her conviction was overturned on appeal, but the marriage was over.
She anglicised her name to Leigh and by she was married to sly grog dealer Teddy Barry. They separated, and she lived with one of her bodyguards Wally Tomlinson, who had a reputation as a tough stand over criminal in the s, the razor war years. Ms Leigh had established her lucrative sly grog business well before then, capitalising on the edict by the then NSW Premier, who following a riot of pub crawling World War I soldiers, called a state of emergency and closed Sydney's pubs after 6pm.
Anybody thirsty after then would come to her home, and Ms Leigh's fleet of illegal grog shops throughout the inner suburbs. When cocaine was outlawed in , Ms Leigh sold both, at huge profits. Share on Email Share. Share on Print Share. Next Next post: Pole poster. Search for:.
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