Decline
Although she was one of Sydney's wealthiest women in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, by 1955, the Taxation Department ordered her to pay more than £20,000 in unpaid income tax and fines sending her close to bankruptcy. In 1953 Tilly Devine boasted to the media, "I am a lucky, lucky girl. I have more diamonds than the Queen of England's stowaways - and better ones too !"
She sold off her last brothel in Palmer Street, Darlinghurst in 1968, and died two years later.
Tilly was famous for flamboyant acts of generosity, and also for her violent feud with criminal vice rival Kate Leigh. Tilly Devine was charged by the famous Sydney Detective Frank Farrell on many occasions, and their feud lasted for 30 years.
Read more about this topic: Tilly Devine
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