RIOTS

Apprentice Riots

The rowdiness of apprentices often spilled over into being rioting.

In the years before the start of Civil Wars of the 1640s there was a serious apprentice riot every Shrove Tuesday.

The Bloody Sunday Riot of 1887

Protests at the inequalities and the poverty that were created laissez-faire economics degenerated into the Bloody Sunday riots.

The marchers assembled at Red Lion Square. Progressed to Trafalgar Square where the violence started.

The Socialists John Burns, Henry Myers Hyndman, and Jack Williams were implicated.

Location: Red Lion Square, WC1R 4HQ (blue, yellow)

Trafalgar Square, WC2N 5DS (purple, yellow)

The Brixton Riot

John Fraser (1934-2017), the Labour M.P. for Norwood, came to appreciate the deeply alienating effect that the Met's misuse of the Sus Laws was having on young black men. In 1979 he introduced a Private Member's Bill that sought to abolish the legislation. The measure did not reach the Statute Book.

The 1985 Brixton riots were triggered by a Metropolitan Police unit shooting Cherry Groce, a 31-year-old mother, in her own home. 50 people were injured and 200 arrested. Mrs Groce was left paralysed. She died of kidney failure that was linked to her long-term injuries.

The Gordon Riots

The Lewisham Riot

In August 1977 Lewisham saw the first used of police riot gear on the British mainland. The National Front lost the confrontation.

The Grosvenor Square Riots

Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) contains a speech about education being ineffective, if it were otherwise there would be violence in Grosvenor Square .

Some of the most vivid photographs of the Grosvenor Square demonstrations were taken by Lewis Morley (1925-2013).

May 1968 in Paris would have drawn on the example of the first Grosvenor Square riot.

Location: Grosvenor Square, W1K 2HN (purple, pink)

The National Gallery

When William Wilkins designed the National Gallery (1838) he was required to incorporate a passage that would allow troops to be deployed in the square at short notice from the barracks that were located behind the gallery's west wings. It is reputed that the space s fountains were added in 1845 in order to try to discourage mobs from assembling.

Location: Trafalgar Square, WC2N 5DN (brown, red)

The Piccadilly Riot of 1886

The Piccadilly Riot of 1886 was triggered by employees of the Reform Club baiting the protestors by throwing boot brushes and toothbrushes at them. The shops of Jermyn Street were looted. The rioters tried on their new suits in Hyde Park.

Location: 104 Pall Mall, SW1Y 5EW (orange, brown)

See Also: CLUBLAND The Reform Club

The Red Lion Square Riot

The National Front had been set up in 1967. In 1974 the party ran candidates in the general election. In May 1974 the party up to 10% of the vote in some parts of London. Peter Cadogan was a high profile, left-wing political activist.¹ In June 1974, as the Secretary of the South Place Ethical Society, he accepted simultaneous bookings from both the National Front and Liberation, an anti-colonial group, to use rooms at Conway Hall. He deplored the Front but believed that its members had the right to engage in those of their activities that were legal. The double booking led to the Red Lion Square riot. Kevin Gately, a 21-year-old student at Warwick University, died as a result of a blow to the head. From then there was an active Leftist campaign to oppose the Front wherever it was active.

Cadogan was to tell the subsequent Scarman Inquiry that Liberation had deceived him and that it had been the International Marxist Group that had sought to start the violence.

Location: Red Lion Square, WC1R 4HQ. One of the Hall's entrances is in Red Lion Square. (blue, yellow)

See Also: THE HARD LEFT

¹. In 1968 Cadogan had been one of the organisers behind the Grosvenor Square Vietnam demonstration, which had also ended in a riot. In 1963 he had been prominent in the Committee of 100 Trafalgar Square protest, which had not.

The Southall Riot

In 1979 The Hamborough Tavern in Southall was a music venue. It was putting on a concert by the oi bands The 4-Skins, The Business, and The Last Resort. The Anti-Nazi League organised a demonstration. A riot ensued. During it a member of the Special Patrol Group killed Blair Peach, a teacher. The pub was burned down. There was a perception in the Hard Left that the Front and the police had won Southall. However, a few days later a general election took place. The previous National Front support collapsed.

In 2009 the Met's report into the death of Blair Peach was published.

Location: Southall Dominion Cinema, 112 The Green, UB2 4BQ. Blair Peach's corpse was laid out. Thousands paid their respect to it.

David Backhouse 2024