These Mugshots From 1920s Australia Are Significantly Cooler Than Mugshots From Today_Au Memories

Dressed in their finest suits and ties with their top hats cocked towards the camera, these men and women seem to be posing for expensive portraits. But behind their tidy appearances are guilty eyes that hide some of the most sinister crimes policeman of the day had dealt with. These are mugshots of Australian convicts who were dealt with by police for chilling murders, robberies burglaries and other crimes from the 1920s.

Sydney Living Museums via the Historic Houses Trust that contain a plethora of mugshots from the 1920s. And the photos themselves were not only kept in impeccable condition but they also have details such as the person’s name, the crime they committed and more.
On the website’s blog, they talk about the over 2,500 glass plate negatives and some cellulose negatives. The photographer perhaps asked the folks to pose themselves. More of the images are after the jump.

Doris Winifred Poole, criminal record number 639LB, 31 July 1924. State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay, NSW. Doris Poole appeared before the Newtown Police Court charged with stealing jewellery and clothing. She had previously been convicted on a similar charge in North Sydney and so received a six-month sentence with light labour. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Emily Gertrude Hemsworth, criminal record number 657LB, 14 May 1925. State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay, NSW. Emily Hemsworth killed her three-week-old son but could not remember any details of the murder. She was found not guilty due to insanity. Hemsworth was to be detained in custody until judged fit to return to society – it is unknown if she was ever released. Aged 24. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Jean Wilson, criminal record number 644LB, 25 September 1924. State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay, NSW. Jean Wilson had numerous convictions for housebreaking and theft. She preferred stealing jewellery as it could be easily pawned for money. She also robbed her employer. Wilson was charged with larceny, for which she served a 12-month sentence. Aged: 23. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Kathleen Ward, criminal record number 658LB, 14 May 1925. State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay. Kathleen Ward had convictions for drunkenness, indecent language and theft. She obviously enjoyed thumbing her nose at the authorities, as can be seen in this image where she appears to have deliberately fluttered her eyes in order to ruin the long-exposure photograph. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Matilda Devine, criminal record number 659LB, 27 May 1925. State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay, NSW. Matilda “Tilly” Devine used a razor to slash a man's face in a barber's shop and was sentenced to two years gaol. She was Sydney's best-known brothel madam and her public quarrels with sly-grog queen Kate Leigh provided the media with an abundance of material. Aged 25. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Nellie Cameron, criminal record number 792LB, 29 July 1930. State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay, NSW. Nellie Cameron was one of Sydney's best-known, and most desired, prostitutes. Lillian Armfield, Australia's first policewoman, said Cameron had an “assured poise that set her apart from all the other women of the Australian underworld”. Aged 21. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Phyllis Carmier, alias Hume, criminal record number 515LB, 1 April 1921. State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay, NSW. British-born Carmier was known as “Yankee” Phyllis because of her peculiar accent. She stabbed her “bludger”, or pimp, to death during a violent altercation in Crazy Cottage, a sly-grog shop in Surry Hills. Carmier attracted much sympathy in the media, who labelled her crime a justifiable homicide. Aged 32. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Eddie McMillan, John Frederick “Chow” Hayes, Thomas Esmond Bollard, Special Photograph number 2057, 6 November 1930, Central Police Station, Sydney. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of William Cahill, 30 July 1923, Central Police Station, Sydney. Details unknown. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of Hampton Hirscham, Cornellius Joseph Keevil, William Thomas O'Brien and James O'Brien, 20 July 1921, Central Police Station, Sydney. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of Harold Price, 13 August 1923, Central Police Station, Sydney. Harold Price was a thief and gunman. This photograph was taken after he was was arrested and charged with committing robbery under arms at a house in Randwick, Sydney, for which he was sentenced to two years hard labour. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of Harris Hunter, 17 September 1924, Central Police Station, Sydney. Hunter is listed in the NSW Police Gazette, 1924 as charged, along with William Munro, with receiving stolen goods to the value of 536 pounds 4 shillings and 1 penny, the property of Snow's department store. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of John Walter Ford and Oswald Clive Nash, June 1921, possibly North Sydney Police Station, Sydney. A week after the photograph was taken the pair, both aged 16, appeared in North Sydney Police Court on break, enter and steal charges, for which they were put on bonds to be of good behaviour for twelve months. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of Sidney Kelly, 25 June 1924, Central Police Station, Sydney. Details surrounding this particular photograph are unknown, but Sidney Kelly was arrested many times and much written about in newspapers during the 1920s, 30s and 40s. He was charged with numerous offences including shooting, and assault, and in the 1940s was a pioneer of illegal baccarat gaming in Sydney. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of Thomas Sutherland Jones and William Smith, 15 July 1921, Central Police Station, Sydney. Smith and Jones are listed in the NSW Police Gazette as charged with stealing seven packages of twine (value 14 pounds). Jones was further charged with stealing thirty horse rugs (value 15 pounds) and two bales of kapok (value 20 pounds). Smith was fined 20 pounds; Jones was sentenced to 18 months hard labour, suspended. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of William Stanley Moore, 1 May 1925, Central Police Station, Sydney. This picture appears in the Photo Supplement to the NSW Police Gazette, 28 July, 1926 captioned: “Opium dealer. Operates with large quantities of faked opium and cocaine. A wharf labourer; associates with water front thieves and drug traders”. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of Alfred John (or Francis) West, 7 April 1922, Central Police Station, Sydney. He was kept under observation however and was caught in the act of attempting to rob a man, being then accompanied by Phillip Noonan, alias Allan Noonan, alias Peter Newman, a spieler operating in the country. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of B. Moody, Newtown Court, around 1919. Details unknown. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of Ellen Kreigher, 13 July 1923, Central Police Station, Sydney. Ellen (“Nellie”) Kreigher was one of four people arrested and charged over the murder of Gertrude Mabel Heaydon. In October the previous year Gertrude Heaydon had been taken to the Coogee flat of a woman known as “Nurse Taylor” to procure an illegal abortion. She died there in the flat. Police later claimed she was murdered by Nurse Taylor, at the behest of Heaydon's husband, Alfred. A team of low-lifes was eventaully assembled by Taylor's husband Frank to remove the putrefying remains in a horse and cart, and their somewhat farcical progress across Sydney was later recounted by numerous witnesses. Police became involved the following year after Gertrude Heaydon's relatives in England became suspicious. The case became known in the press as the “Coogee Trunk Mystery” (referring to the trunk in which the corpse was allegedly removed from the flat). (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of Ernest Joseph Coffey, 2 June 1922, location unknown. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of Francis Flood, Central Police Station, ca. May 1920. An entry in the NSW Police Gazette, 5 May 1920 lists Flood as one of two men arrested over the theft of 400 blouses from a Kent Street merchant. Both were sentenced to two years hard labour. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of Frank Murray alias Harry Williams, 4 February 1929, Central Police Station, Sydney. Harry Williams was sentenced to 12 months hard labour on March 1929 for breaking, entering and stealing. Murray/Williams' entry in the NSW Criminal Register, April 30 1930 describes him as a housebreaker and thief, whose MO includes “[breaking] leadlighted door or windows or [forcing] the fanlights of dwelling houses during the absence of tenants“. He “disposes of stolen property to patrons of hotel bars or to persons in the street ... professing to be a second-hand dealer”. Although he “consorts with prostitutes” and “frequents hotels and wine bars in the vicinity of the Haymarket”, he is described as being of “quiet disposition”. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)