Jack Dyer Was a Policeman in a Depression-Era Shanty Town. Who Was “Black Elsie” — and Why Did She Protect Him?
Before Captain Blood became one of Richmond’s defining figures, Jack Dyer had another job: policeman.
In Depression-era West Melbourne, that work repeatedly took him into Dudley Flats, a ramshackle shanty settlement where poverty, violence and survival operated by their own rules. One of its best-known residents was Elsie Williams — ‘Black Elsie’ — a singer whose life had unravelled into drinking, prison and the rough social world of the Flats.
Dyer often escorted her home when she wandered into trouble. The strange part is what came back the other way. Elsie treated Dyer as a mate, brought him gifts and, on at least one dangerous occasion, stepped between the young policeman and people threatening him.
How did a Richmond footballer and policeman become an unlikely ally of the woman described as the ‘boss’ of Dudley Flats — and what did she see in Jack Dyer before Tigerland made him Captain Blood?
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