The Roaring Twenties was a golden era for criminals when rapid societal change led to the opening up of new illicit markets for entrepreneurial felons. Fast times bred new crimes creating policing challenges ranging from reckless joyriders to the emergence of the Mafia and razor gangs.
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| Hampton Hirscham, Cornellius Joseph Keevil, William Thomas O’Brien & James O’Brien, 1921 |
New South Wales Police Department photographers captured the zeitgeist of the era in these unexpectedly candid mug shots of cocaine sellers and addicts, sly-grog purveyors and small-time criminals, who frequented the cells of the Central Police Station in Sydney.
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| Herbert Ellis, 1920 |
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| William Frederick Long, circa 1920 |
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| Eugenia Falleni, 1920 |
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| Gilbert Cochrane Burleigh & Joseph Delaney, 1920 |
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| “Silent Tom” Richards and T Ross, 1920 |
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| Augustine ‘Gus’ Gracey & Edgar ‘Eddie’ Dalton, 1920 |
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| Thomas William Gunn, William Carl Neilson & Albert Alfred Beck, circa 1921 |
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| Frederick Edward Davies, 1921 |
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| John Walter Ford and Oswald Clive Nash, 1921 |
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| Clara Brooks, 1922 |
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| Ernest Joseph Coffey, 1922 |
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| Patrick Riley, 1922 |
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| George ‘the Midnight Raper’ Wallace, 1922 |
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| Henry Marchant, 1922 |
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| John Daniel ‘Snowy’ Cutmore, 1922 |
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| Joseph Messenger, 1922 |
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| Cameron McIntosh Bean, 1922 |
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| William Cahill, 1923 |
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| Alex Westland Robertson, 1923 |
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| Sydney Skukerman, or Skukarman, 1924 |
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| Nancy Cowman, 1924 |
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| Eileen May Burt, 1924 |
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| Guiseppe Fiori, 1924 |
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| Sidney ‘Kicker’ Kelly, 1924 |
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| Antonius Jacobus Francisco Zetto, circa 1924 |
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| Jean Dawson, 1926 |
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| William Stanley Moore, 1926 |
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| Fay Watson, 1928 |
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| Thomas Craig, Raymond Neil, William Thompson and FW Wilson, 1928 |
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| Olga Anderson, 1929 |
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| Frank Murray, 1929 |
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| Edna May Lindsay, 1929 |
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| Athol Smith, 1929 |
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| Alison McCann, 1929 |
(via Sydney Living Museums)