Mural 8: Women in Woolloomooloo

Mural key

1. Brenda Humble, artist, resident activist and compiler of the booklet Woolloomooloo, founding member of Residents of Woolloomooloo
2. Anonymous domestic worker
3. Police mug shot of gangster Tilly Devine, who ran several brothels and sly grog shops as well as her own razor gang. After working as a sex worker for 10 years, Tilly capitalised on a peculiar anomaly in the Offences (Amendment) Act 1908 that made it illegal for a male pimp or brothel-keeper to profit from the immoral earnings of sex workers but not for a woman to do so. She became a madam, using the money she had salted away to bankroll the biggest, best-organised, most lucrative brothel network Sydney has ever seen
4. Anonymous seamstress c1900
5. Dispossessed Aboriginal inhabitant of Woolloomooloo
6. Two girls outside Woolloomooloo public school c1900
7. Some of the women employed at Welby Laundry
8. Anita’s was the first barbershop run by a woman in Sydney
9. Nellie Leonard, resident activist and founding member of Woolloomooloo Resident Action Group with Roseina Ippolito
10. Honora Wilkinson, author of Watch on the ‘Loo 1920–1980, resident activist and founding member of Residents of Woolloomooloo. At the time, she explained, “I’ve flatly refused to take what seems to be a fortune for my terrace house. I feel that my soul and memories are not for sale.”
11. Denise, a young resident