SQUIZZY TAYLOR
SQUIZZY TAYLOR
29 June 1888 – 27 October 1927
AUSTRALIAN GANGSTER
           Squizzy Taylor (Joseph Taylor) was born in Brighton, Melbourne, Australia and made money through criminal activity. He joined the gang the Bourke Street Rats, a group of thieves.
           In 1913, Taylor was involved in the murder of Arthur Trotter, a chocolate salesman who the gang robbed inside the victim’s home. Due to lack of evidence, Taylor escaped conviction. A taxi driver was also murdered by the gang and Taylor was sentenced to a year imprisonment.
           After World War I, the government made it compulsory for pubs to close at 6pm, this created ‘Sly grog’ shops who sold alcohol after hours. Taylor supplied alcohol with the deal that he and his gang would be protected. Taylor’s rival gang was The Fitzroy Vendetta who they were constantly in conflict with. Some of his gang members ended up in the gallows, but Taylor was too sly to get caught. Taylor disappeared for fourteen months and dressed in disguise as a woman as well as a schoolboy.
           In 1922, Taylor stepped out of his vehicle into gunfire and was hit in the leg and used crutches and had to surrender to police. In 1923, they held up bank manager Thomas Berriman at a railway station, they stole his briefcase which contained $2,000 and during the struggle Berriman was shot dead. Taylor remained free and ruled Melbourne’s underworld.
           Daniel Cutmore ‘Snowy’ had been a member of Taylor’s gang before he moved to Sydney and then returned to Melbourne in 1927. Snowy was on Taylor’s blacklist after he destroyed a business Taylor was protecting. Taylor went to Snowy’s mother’s home in Fitzroy; Snowy was in bed with the flu with a gun hidden in his bed. Taylor and two of his gang members entered the bedroom and Taylor shot Snowy. Snowy managed to reach for his weapon and shoot Taylor before he died. Taylor left the house and climbed into a taxi which was waiting for him. He died as he arrived at St Vincent’s Hospital and was buried in Brighton Cemetery.
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