Vera Purdy

Vera Purdy (20 January 1909 – 21 December 1940) (other names included Vera Robinson) was an Australian prostitute and underworld figure. She was associated with reputed and convicted thieves, committed offences from Victoria to Queensland, and was a drug addict. Her obituary described her as 'volatile Vera Purdy, demi-mondaine, pickpocket, dope fiend, veritable she-cat, one of the most picturesque feminine figures to make her way through Australia's underworld'. Described as a 'tall, trim, peroxide blonde' died relatively young at 31.

Purdy, the 'Queen of Darlinghurst's 'night clubs'' was also referred to in 1940 after her death as the 'Fighting Queen of Sydney Underworld'. She was said to be 'the toughest, smartest, prettiest, most fashionable girl of the Sydney underworld. All the mob men, the razor men, the muscle men, the gun men, the cocaine men, the stand-over men; the dips, the safe-blowers and the urgers' liked her, yet feared her – and yet her reputation, like her life, did not survive as long as Tilly Devine (1900–1970) or Kate Leigh (1881–1964). A stylish dresser with expensive clothes, vermillion-sticked lips and pencilled eyebrows, with coiffured fair hair, Purdy's temper was well-known; at one stage when being arrested by a police officer and directed to drive to the police station, she kidnapped him.