Squizzy Taylor

Squizzy Taylor

Squizzy Taylor born as Joseph Theodore Patrick Leslie Taylor, was born on the 29/6/1888 and was the second youngest son of Benjamin Isaiah Taylor, coachmaker, and Rosina Taylor (née Jones). Taylor was born at Brighton, Victoria however moved to the slums of Richmond after the family coach making business was sold to creditors in 1893. With the death of his father in 1901, Taylor began working in the stables of a horse trainer and then tried to pursue a career as a jockey on Melbourne's inner-city pony circuit. Even through adolescent, he had bad blood with the authorities, rattling up a string of minor convictions and his first arrest was in 1906.

Squizzy became a petty criminal and joined a gang known as the “Bourke Street Rats”. Though in 1912, squizzy moved beyond petty crimes and attempted blackmailing. Between 1913 and 1916, Squizzy’s crimes escalated as he was linked to many more violent crimes including the murder and robbery of Arthur Trotter, a commercial traveller, the burglary of the Melbourne Trades Hall, in which a police constable was killed, and the murder of William Patrick Haines, a driver who refused to participate in the hold-up of a bank manager at Bulleen. Taylor was tried for the murder of Haines and found not guilty. During the times of the 1920s, he was rarely convicted of serious offences due to a combination of schemes, using stooges to take the risks, expensive legal representation, witness intimidation and jury fixing. His associates, Paddy Boardman and Henry Stokes, are also thought to have operated a lucrative jury fixing business. Despite rarely getting convictions after 1917, Taylor remained a key figure in the flourishing realm of the underworld.

Squizzy’s crimes ranged from pickpocketing, assault and shop breaking to armed robbery and murder. He also obtained income from sly-grog selling, two-up schools, illegal bookmaking, blackmailing, prostitution as well as from race-fixing and protection rackets.

Squizzy was involved in many gangland shootings and one in particular, erupted in the 'Fitzroy Vendetta' of 1919, where two rivals lashed out. One gang, from Richmond, was headed by Taylor and the "two-up king" Henry Stokes, while the other gang was based in Fitzroy and included Edward "Ted" Whiting, Henry "Long Harry" Slater and Frederick Thorpe. The two gangs assisted one another in a jewelry heist but after three members from the Fitzroy gang were arrested and trialed, the Fitzroy gang become suspicious that someone from the Richmond gang had tipped off the police. This was later followed other incidents which added to the tension. This feud lasted a few months and many shots were fired. A Richmond gang member was shot seven times, a man was brutally beaten by members of the Fitzroy gang, and shots were again fired at Whiting and into the house of another Fitzroy gang member. It was the late 1919 when the vendetta has died down and Whiting was in prison serving a nine-month sentence for occupying a house frequented