Australia’s most feared criminal in 1916
Long Harry Slater was a gang leader, standover man, cop-shooter, house bomber, suspected murderer and gang war adversary to Squizzy Taylor, making him Australia’s most feared criminal until the early 1920s.
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Long Harry Slater was the most feared criminal in Australia from 1916 through to the early-1920s.
He was a gang leader, standover man, cop-shooter, house-bomber, and suspected murderer. He was one of the figureheads in a gang war against Squizzy Taylor and carried three permanent bullets in his body as a result.
His first conviction was in 1910, when, at the age of 21, he plunged his hand into a stranger’s pocket, reefed out some cash, and ran away. He was a slow runner though, and it wasn’t long before a cop was jogging alongside him.
Described by police as “a great lump of a man”, Slater was thickset, broad across the shoulders, and had paws like a bear.
After several stints in prison for similar blunders, it became apparent that pickpocketing wasn’t his game.
By 1915, he had forged connections with the higher end of Melbourne’s criminal community.
Instead of petty crime, the gang concentrated on well-planned, larger-scale operations.
On June 14 that year, they enacted one of the most brazen jewellery heists in Melbourne’s history.
During business hours on crowded Collins St, four men smashed the front window of Drummond’s jewellery store and snatched £3000 worth of diamond rings.
Slater and two other suspects immediately skipped town and boarded a ship to the USA. They got into strife there too and were deported in 1916.
Back in Australia, Slater teamed up with gunman John ‘Snowy’ Cutmore. They were soon the most feared duo in Australia’s underworld.
Described by police as ‘constant companions’, their main haunts were Melbourne and Sydney. Their modus operandi was to demand money from other criminals.
If the other criminals didn’t oblige, they’d be bashed, shot, or have their house bombed.
In 1917, both Slater and Cutmore were present when boxer, Charlie Cleary, was shot dead in Fitzroy. Cutmore was the main suspect but went into hiding until it had all blown over.
In 1918, on the exact third anniversary of Drummond’s robbery, the same gang robbed Kilpatrick’s jewellery store, also on Collins St.
Police received reliable information that Slater and Cutmore were holding half of the diamond rings.
There was still an unresolved dispute over the division of the spoils from Drummond’s robbery, and the same occurred with Kilpatrick’s.
This time it caused a rift in Melbourne’s underworld, sparking the beginning of one of Australia’s greatest gang wars: the ‘Fitzroy Vendetta’.
The war was between the Fitzroy gang: - which included Slater and Cutmore - and the Richmond gang, which was controlled by Squizzy Taylor and Henry Stokes.
During the vendetta, which lasted well into 1919, gunshots could be heard in Melbourne on an almost daily basis.
1919 was a big year for Slater. In January he shot Constable Archibald Cooper during a bungled robbery in Fitzroy. The constable survived against the odds.
Slater evaded detection until arrested in April as a result of a tip-off from Squizzy. He was allowed out on bail, a decision the authorities would soon rue.
Within weeks, one of Squizzy’s gang was shot seven times through the neck, the main suspect being Slater.
Later the same day, Slater, Cutmore and two others, forced their way into the bedroom of boxer, Albert Lewis, and beat him with revolver butts and a lead pipe.
The following week, Slater and Henry Stokes came face-to-face in Little Collins St.
Stokes was quicker on the draw and shot Slater six times.
“I don’t care if I killed him”, Stokes told police, “he’s been waiting around my place for three nights. He shot one of our men the other week for nothing”.
When Slater was released from hospital, he faced three separate trials - the attempted murder of Constable Cooper, the bashing of Lewis, and a charge of robbery from the person.
With the aid of a good solicitor he got off on all three.
By mid-1919, the Fitzroy gang had been broken up by police. Remnants of the mob relocated to Sydney, where Slater and Cutmore already had a footing.
In 1921, Slater and his gang entered a sly grog shop in Sydney to collect protection money. The proprietor refused, so Slater ordered one of his gang to pull the trigger.
The proprietor died, and the shooter was sentenced to death.
Slater went on the run but he and Cutmore were captured in Adelaide. He faced three trials for directing the murder but was eventually found not guilty.
He remained active in the underworld throughout the 1920s.
In 1927, Squizzy and Cutmore killed each other in a Carlton shooting duel.
Journalists, who later turned up at the Cutmore home to interview family members, noted that Slater was present, grieving with relatives.
During the 1930s depression, Slater and his wife ended up moving to his final place of residence: a shack in the Unemployment Camp at Yarra Bay in Sydney.
Slater was still getting some work as an underworld debt collector.
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In 1940, he was walking to his local tram stop when he was shot by a man from a pushbike. The man then calmly rode over to where Slater lay, put the end of the rifle in his ear and finished him off.
At first, police believed the murderer to be an enemy from the underworld, but it turned out to be a disgruntled chicken farmer who lived nearby.
“You won’t worry me or anyone else ever again”, he was heard to say, before riding away.
— Michael Shelford is the host of Melbourne Historical Crime Tours
Listen to the interview now in today’s new free episode of the In Black and White podcast on Apple/iTunes, Spotify or web . And listen to our previous podcasts including the Essendon Football Club trainer who was a quack doctor, or the story of Australia’s Willy Wonka.