33. Tilly Devine - Underworld Queen

Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley

Lucy Worsley investigates the career of one of Sydney’s most notorious gangsters, Tilly Devine. Draped in furs and encrusted in jewels, she’s the madam of one of the most lucrative brothel networks the city’s ever seen.

What brings Tilly from south London to Sydney? How does she rise to the top of the city’s ruthless, gritty 1920s gangster crime scene? To track Tilly’s story, Lucy is joined by historian Leigh Straw and Guest Detective Christine Nixon, the first female chief commissioner in an Australian state police force.

Together the team trace Tilly’s crossing from London to Sydney as a ‘War Bride’ and her ruthless ambition to make it in a man’s world. Young Tilly joins a criminal underworld lit up by all night parties, soaked in illicit liquor, and menaced by dangerous brawls. Her ruthless rise to riches doesn’t go unchecked, hot on her heels is police officer Lillian Armfield, specially chosen to join New South Wales’s first female police force. Will the police and the long arm of the law prevail over the Queen of Vice? Will the vicious Razor Wars and Tilly’s bitter feud with her nemesis, female gangland crime boss Kate Leigh, be her undoing?

Lucy and her team of all female detectives find out.

Producer: Emily Hughes Readers: Clare Corbett, Jonathan Keeble and Guy Dow-Sainter.  Sound Design: Chris Maclean Executive Producer: Kirsty Hunter

A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4.

If you're in the UK, listen to the newest episodes of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/3M2pT0K