Stories from the Justice and Police Museum
A dubious defence
On 19 October 1921 Herbert Burridge, cook, 28 years of age, 5 feet 8½ inches tall, fair complexion, light brown hair and blue eyes, was listed in the New South Wales Police Gazette as a deserter from HMAS Cerberus.
A Life In Crime
Curator Nerida Campbell has got the dream job – rummaging through the grit and grime of Sydney’s criminal past to help us to come to terms with the city’s dark side.
Big Bill MacKay
William John MacKay (1885–1948), known as Bill, was a Scottish-born police officer who played a major role in policing Sydney’s underworld during the 1920s. Affectionately known as ‘Big Bill’, he was 6 feet (183 centimetres) tall and weighed almost 100 kilograms.
Crooks like us
Crooks Like Us presents more than 200 stunningly reproduced images in delicate balance with their stories, creating a captivating relay between image and narrative, narrative and image. Look at the picture, read the story, then look at the picture again and see it anew.
Fallen hero of Flanders
In March 1922, Victorian-born petty criminal Arthur Ernest Noonan was arrested by Sydney police, charged on a provisional warrant and remanded to Melbourne to face charges of conspiracy to defraud. Found guilty, he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. It was not his first conviction and certainly not his last.
Femme Fatale
The female criminal has always intrigued human society. The femme fatale usually possesses an irresistible sexual allure and leads an enthralling life unpunished by the law. Scrutinised closely, the reality for most women turns out to be a hard, dysfunctional and violent life – brutalised and degraded further by stints in prison.
Finishing the interiors at Justice & Police Museum
As part of Sydney Living Museums' ongoing program of maintenance, we were delighted to renew the interior finishes at the Justice & Police Museum.
George Freeman
A charismatic and persuasive man, Freeman rose to become one of Sydney’s leading figures of organised crime, in particular dominating the racing and illegal gambling industries. In this video former colleagues, journalists and police discuss the role he played in organised crime.
Gritty business
Immerse yourself in Sydney's chilling criminal past in this unique water-front museum of policing, law and disorder - with its grizzly collection of underworld weapons along with tales of mayhem and lawlessness, aptly described as an educational resource befitting a 'professor in crime'.
If these walls could talk: Justice & Police Museum
The Justice & Police Museum houses the Water Police Station, Water Police Court and Police Court that once made up one of the city’s busiest legal hubs. Crooks and cops, thugs and judges, locals and drifters – the guilty and the innocent have all left their stories here.
Lenny McPherson as informer
Video of former Assistant Police Commissioner Geoff Schuberg discussing raiding Lenny McPherson's home and recruiting him as an informer.
Returned from active service
In July 1921 James Arthur Banfield was arrested by Sydney police, photographed and charged on three counts of larceny. He had stolen a horse, a set of harness and a lorry from Wilson’s Steam Laundry in Surry Hills.
Sensational car chase
John Talbot Wright, aged 32, a motor mechanic and former chauffeur, was arrested on 11 September 1920 by Constable Cecil Elliott after a sensational car chase through city streets.
Sydney’s Pubs: liquor, larrikins & the law
Sydney’s Pubs: liquor, larrikins & the law (also an exhibition at the Justice & Police Museum in 2008) explores the colourful and complex history of the city's watering holes.
The 1910 Collection
Beating steadily at the heart of the Justice & Police Museum is the so-called 1910 Collection. Read about the many items and the stories that lay lurking in its shadows.
The archive’s negatives
The New South Wales Police Forensic Photography Archive contains photographic negatives in several formats and sizes created between around 1910 and 1964. These negatives are both a record of how New South Wales Police used photography and a reflection of how photographic technology changed during these decades.
The Collection: New South Wales Police Forensic Photography Archive
Nestled between Sydney Harbour and the city skyscrapers is a squat cluster of sandstone buildings known today as the Justice & Police Museum. Occupying what was once one of the colony’s busiest legal complexes, the museum cares for an eclectic collection of material relating to Sydney’s criminal and policing history. This includes the remarkable New South Wales Police Forensic Photography Archive.
The photographer’s bag
The images captured on the glass-plate negatives were intended to be printed as closely cropped identification mugshots showing the suspect’s face and build. Knowing this, the police photographer often did not bother to move his bag and occasionally his hat out of the frame.
The Shadow Outwits Savvy Safebreakers
A routine stocktake leads to a new display that shines a light on the battle between NSW Police and the safebreaking fraternity.
When masks were compulsory
In a year when COVID-19 devastates the world, it’s timely to reflect on an earlier pandemic that affected every aspect of life, including at our properties.
WW1: stories from our museums
Often poignant and sometimes heartbreaking, the stories reveal combatants, pacifists, patriotic fundraisers and anti-war activists, explore broader narratives of patriotism and expressions of jingoism, and touch on the aftermath of war and the memorialisation of those who enlisted.
