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Squizzy Taylor: Melbourne’s Favourite Gangster

Australia’s most celebrated gangster of the post World War I era was without doubt Melbourne’s Leslie ‘Squizzy’ Taylor.

Born in 1888, and one of five children in a desperately poor family, by the time pint-sized Squizzy – no one knows for certain how his nickname came about – was 18, he had a string of convictions which included blackmail, assault and theft.

At 25 he was suspected of murder when an armed robbery went horribly wrong and a man named Arthur Trotter was gunned down by the two would-be robbers. Witnesses told police that one of the robbers was of Taylor’s description but, suspect as they may, police never charged Taylor and nothing came of it.

In 1916 police finally had enough on Squizzy to charge him with murder. They alleged that he had killed Melbourne cab driver William Haynes after Taylor and another criminal had hired the taxi as a get-away car for a robbery. When the driver refused to take part he was shot in the back of the head by Taylor.

At the trial Taylor escaped conviction when witnesses who had earlier recollected seeing Taylor shoot the cab driver had sudden lapses of memory and could remember nothing. Taylor walked from the court a free man and the legend of Squizzy Taylor was born.

But, after his narrow escape with the noose, Taylor then stepped out of the limelight and preferred to sit in the background and mastermind crimes and set his gang to work carrying them out. He was cunning at what he did and planned their escapes like military manoeuvres. Taylor’s gang was very successful.

By 1918 Squizzy was the undisputed king of the Melbourne underworld and also answered to the name of ‘the Turk’. Challenges would come and go for his turf and his title but Squizzy warded off each challenge with a hail of bullets from the army thugs he had surrounded himself with.

In 1921 Squizzy was charged with breaking and entering, a ridiculous crime given his stature as king of the underworld, and out on bail he eluded police for a year as they tried to track him down and bring him to trial.

He eventually surrendered himself to police amid a media frenzy that he himself had organised. The public gathered in their hundreds to cheer and applaud their misplaced respect and admiration for their folk hero and to boo the police as Squizzy gave himself up.

Predictably, yet again Taylor escaped retribution when the evidence went missing and the witnesses failed to show up for court.

To celebrate his victory, Squizzy and his entourage turned up at Caulfield the following Saturday for a day at the races. They were refused entry as Squizzy was deemed an ‘undesirable’. A few days later the members stand at the Caulfield racecourse went up in flames.

The following day, Melbourne’s gentry were accommodated elsewhere as the Caulfield cup – scheduled for that day – still went ahead while their grandstand smouldered in the background.

Of course Squizzy was questioned, and there was little doubt that his fingerprints were on the charred remains of the grandstand, but no one was ever charged with arson.

But time was running out for Squizzy. And as many before him, his downfall was over a woman. In October 1927, Squizzy and the notorious Melbourne gunman ‘Snowy’ Cutmore had affections for the same woman.

In a confrontation at Cutmore’s Carlton home, a bloody gunfight erupted, and Taylor and Cutmore fired their guns at each other at precisely the same time and both slumped to the ground dead.

In the misguided belief that Squizzy Taylor was some sort of a folk hero and legend instead of a racketeer and murderer, thousands of Melbournians turned out for his funeral. They weren’t disappointed as so did all of the Melbourne underworld; it was like a scene out of a ’20s gangster movie.

And so the legend of Squizzy Taylor lives on … some of it true … some false. One urban myth is that the Sydney’s Taylor Square is named after Squizzy. It would be so much more nostalgic if it were, but that is not the case.