Harry Sidney Foy: death of a much-loved entertainer

Court and inquest papers

NRS-345 Coroners’ inquest papers (Files concerning inquests, magisterial inquiries and inquests dispensed with) consists of files created for coronial investigations conducted in NSW. Inquests investigate the manner and cause of sudden or suspicious deaths.

A typical file may contain details of the deceased and the circumstances of their death, witness depositions and testimony, police reports and statements, medical evidence, and occasionally, photographs, plans and other exhibits.

If further court action arises as a result of the inquest, the inquest papers may be filed with later court papers.

NRS-880 Papers and Depositions, Supreme Court Sydney and on Circuit contains papers of criminal proceedings before the Supreme Court of NSW. These files may contain depositions, police reports, exhibits and supporting papers.

The story within the records

On the evening of Thursday 1 April 1943, over a thousand people gathered inside Paddington Town Hall.

A further thousand waited outside, hoping to be admitted. Among them was notorious crime boss Tilly Devine, who, the papers said, ‘vehemently demonstrated’¹ because she couldn’t get in, and was moved on by police controlling the crowd.

Inside the hall, a ‘rare treasure’ had just been auctioned, with Mrs Olive Ward, owner of Maxine’s Night Club, Kings Cross, landing the winning bid. The prize was a photograph, mounted within an ornate gilt frame, of renowned nightclub singer Harry Foy.

The auction was part of a well-attended benefit dinner held to support Harry’s still-grieving mother. Harry Foy had died in December 1942 following an altercation during a performance at the Ziegfeld Café, a popular Sydney nightclub.

Inquest papers and court depositions relating to his death are held as NSW state archives. They provide a glimpse into the world Harry inhabited.

On 22 December 1942, Harry Foy worked his regular shift at the Surry Club Hotel, on the corner of Cleveland and Elizabeth streets, Redfern, where he also lived. He worked the bar until the hotel closed at 6pm, and then continued to clean up until 8pm. At 12.30am, dressed in street clothes, he ran into the hotel’s licensee Elizabeth Hoogwerf in the passageway, and told her, ‘I am going down to the Ziegfeld’s to put a turn on down there’. Elizabeth told the court Harry was then ‘very happy’ and said that when she saw him ‘about the hotel he was very happy and he was a very likeable chap’.

Cecil Newsome, manager of the Ziegfeld Café in King Street, central Sydney, deposed that he had known Harry for more than 15 years, in Harry’s role as an artist at various nightclubs, including Ziegfeld’s. Cecil described Harry’s performance in a statement to the Coroner’s court. His act was to ‘sing a song and do a bit of dance. The dance would be a female impersonation’. Cecil didn’t see Harry’s act that night, but he ‘could hear him singing on the microphone’. He explained that Harry’s ‘items [performance] were more or less the same style. He always put over a song and dance. He was very popular’. Indeed, Harry was one of Sydney’s best known female impersonators, moving in the same spheres as his good friend the renowned performer and female impersonator Lea Sonia, who had died in tragic circumstances just months earlier, struck by a tram.

Cecil described previous performances he had seen, stating that Harry might

That night, however, events took a tragic turn.

The sound of a commotion drew Cecil downstairs: ‘[W]hen I came down to the foot of the stairs two or three sailors and a civilian were carrying [Harry] off the dance floor’. A plan and photograph presented as exhibits to the Coroner provide a glimpse into the club that night, and the tragedy that played out on the dance floor.

Charles Milton Richardson, seaman second class attached to the United States Navy, stated that he was standing in a circle on the dance floor while Harry was ‘putting on an item on the floor’. Harry was ‘dressed in men’s and women’s attire mixed. He had male attire with some female upper garments round about his shoulders and neck. His face was painted up’. Harry continued his usual performance, dancing among the patrons. He approached John Tyler Williams, a naval rating, and tried to kiss him in a manner that had the rest of the crowd laughing. Williams, however, took offence and hit Harry in the face. Harry fell hard onto the dance floor. He never recovered.

The witness testimony from the navy personnel makes clear that Harry’s perceived sexuality played a crucial role in Williams’s actions. One witness stated that Harry ‘appeared to be a fairy’, and that he was a ‘queer’. Williams in his defence described Harry’s performance as ‘filthy conduct’, stating that ‘I have no use for these people whatsoever’.

Cecil drove the injured Harry to Sydney Hospital in his car, and waited at the hospital following Harry’s admission. Harry died in the early hours of the morning, the result of a fractured skull.

John Tyler Williams was committed for trial ‘on a charge of feloniously slaying Harry Sidney Foy’. The case, however, didn’t proceed. Correspondence in the criminal deposition file from the Senior Crown Prosecutor to the Attorney General notes that given the circumstances, it was likely the accused would be acquitted and as such, the recommendation was that the case should not got to trial.