Infamous Sydney crime figure, Tilley Devine, portrayed in the TV series Underbelly, had a link to Kalgoorlie Boulder after being arrested and jailed on the Goldfields.
Matilda ‘Tilley” Devine, was born in England in 1900 and became a prominent crime syndicate figure involved in sly grog dealing and razor gangs, but most notably as a madam. She was born Matilda Mary TWISS and was born into a criminal family in London. By 1915 she was working as a prostitute and at 16 she married an Australian soldier, James ‘Jim’ Edward DEVINE. They had a son born in 1919.
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James ‘Big Jim’ Devine
She arrived in Sydney on January 13 1920 after leaving her son with her parents in London. Both Tilley and Jim Devine became prominent illegal narcotics dealers, brothel owners, and crime gang members in Sydney. Tilley became infamous as a prostitute and then as a brothel owner and an organised crime entrepreneur. Her wealth was legendary across Sydney and she owned a huge portfolio of real estate, luxury cars, gold, and diamond jewelry and she always travelled first class.
Her wealth paid bribes to police as well as numerous court fines over a criminal career which was to last 50 years. She was convicted 204 times and served several jail sentences. She was known to always carry a gun. Her husband was a violent man and a convicted thief, pimp, and drug dealer. He was known to have committed several high-profile murders in Sydney between 1929 and 1931. Although charged several times, he was always acquitted. The Devine’s marriage was marred by domestic violence and in 1931, Jim was charged with the attempted murder of his wife after firing shots at her during an argument. He was acquitted after Tilley refused to testify.
On July 5th, 1934 the Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper reported that Tilley Devine had been arrested and charged as being an idle and disorderly person. The heading ran ‘Underworld Character – Conviction at Kalgoorlie’.
Tilley Divine
The story read; “amid an outburst of weeping and cries that she would leave the town, Matilda Devine (34), who was yesterday identified as Tilley Devine, a notorious underworld character was today convicted on a charge of vagrancy in the Kalgoorlie police court and sentenced by Magistrate E McGinn to six months imprisonment.
The accused arrived in western Australia a month prior in company with her husband, Jim Devine. Jim Devine has not been heard of since but is believed to be in the Kalgoorlie area. The accused was arrested in a house of ill-fame by Detectives Trait and Smith. She had been disorderly while there and was suspected of being involved in a robbery. The Magistrate said she was an undesirable person and a menace to society.
Tilley Devine in 1929
Solicitor, Mr. F J O’Dea, who appeared for the accused, claimed Devine was being convicted solely on her past record and asked that a suspended sentence be made and she would undertake to leave town. The Magistrate said that he would not pass on his responsibility to another and said with 66 convictions behind her she had exceeded the bounds of toleration. The accused was taken from the court sobbing loudly.
The Devine’s were to separate in the early 1940s and they divorced in 1944. In 1945 Tilley married an ex-serviceman, Eric John PARSONS. Tilley famously shot Parsons in the leg during an argument shortly before they married. They were to remain married for 13 years until he died of cancer in 1958. Tilley lived in a house in Maroubra for 30 years, it is where a number of murders were committed. In 1955 the taxation Dept ordered Tilley to pay £20,000 in unpaid taxes which sent her close to bankruptcy. In 1953 she was known to have claimed ‘I’m a lucky lucky girl, I have more diamonds than the Queen of England, and better ones too”.
She sold her last brothel in 1968 and died in 1970.
REF:- The Kalgoorlie Miner Newspaper
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