James Robert Walker’s life story, smuggled out of Pentridge Jail just before his suicide, was sensationally serialized in the Argus in September 1954 to October 1954. If you want to read it, I edited it into a single downloadable file here. I found it of particular interest because in the early 1940s Walker ran his own small Melbourne baccarat school.
Walker referred to many of the people involved by their real names, or by their nicknames (such as James Coates, widely known as “The Mark Foy”).
But who were the prominent underworld people Walker used coded names for? I’m thinking specifically of:
- “The Brain”
- “Darkie”
- “The Gambler”
- “The Thing”
- “The Fix”
I decided to go looking…
Not Much Luck So Far..
In my initial mooch around the interwebs, I found very little indeed. 🙁
One of the only hints was in Robert Chuter’s “Funny People of Fitzroy Street“:
A few months ago [written in 2020] there died a man, ex-pug, ex-bookmaker, and ex-school principal who had been a habitue of Fitzroy Street for many years. Drink hastened his end. He was discovered dead sitting upon a cafe toilet, trousers around his ankles. Police knew him as “The Thing” mentioned in the Robert Walker story, published in The Argus after Walker’s suicide in Pentridge Gaol.
I’ve therefore asked Robert if he knows The Thing’s actual name, and will update this page when I hear back. But as to the other code names, I have still basically got nowhere. 🙁
As an aside, Walker’s story mentions “The Brain”‘s (claimed) remorse over the death of Taylor and ‘Snowy’ Cutmore in 1927. Given that Taylor was (according to Gangland Melbourne) connected to Harry Stokes, you might wonder whether Stokes was The Brain. Unfortunately, The Brain was (according to Walker) still alive, which would seem to rule Stokes out.
Who were all these encrypted crims? Can you decode Walker’s code names?
Part of his story appears (same story, written differently, I think) in The Mail (Adelaide) 9/10/54 (it sounds like it’s part of a series, but I’ve only found the one). Unfortunately, it’s still full of the code names, so probably no help.
I’ve only skimmed the article, but the only ID is “Scotland Yard” as “Walkerden”.
I think the Aus series “Underbelly” might have done a season on Victoria in that era, so might see if I can find anything there (I underbelly is available to stream in Aus on “Stan” (or possibly “7plus” – I know it was originally a Ch9 series, but Ch7 seems to bought the rights for a whole load of old Australian series))
Oops, I was wrong about Underbelly. It has Melbourne in the 1920s and in the 1970s+ but nothing in between 🙁
Podcast:
https://forgottenaustralia.com/2019/06/18/australias-most-vicious-gunman-part-two/
Speculates “The Brain” might be Alf King, “The Thing” likely Herbert Adams
Armed hold up guy name of Clarke out of St. Kilda, ran with big Harry Nugent’s boys, along with pal Toni Martini (Henri) and his moll Mona Beatten til about 1944 or thereabouts. They didn’t call him Nobby as might be expected and they didn’t label him Darkie (Darky) either, but something quite similar with a Yankee lilt. So maybe he was tanned from the groin south ala Dr. Dwyer’s mention of an old ‘tan’. That aside, even more revealing was ‘N’ Clarke’s preference for wearing sheila’s clobber whilst on the job, perhaps supported by high heels for toning the calves and why not?.
Milongal: a quick peek on Trove yields bookmaker / mechanic Herbert Adams of Punt Rd Windsor in various scrapes with the Law.
Code names usually have some connection to identifiable aspects of the person’s name, history or role.
nicknames are another matter. Why was my grandmother’s nickname ‘batey’? Well apparently she liked to go with my grandfather when he went fishing, and he claimed he always caught more when she was there. And people with red hair are called ‘bluey’ and Wodehouse is full of nicknames like ‘Pongo’ and ‘Bingo’ but apparently not because the first had b.o. or the second liked to play that game.
These are said to be ‘nicknames’ not ‘code names’ so you’re a braver man than I.