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lest we forget: the riots which have slipped from memory

Pickman's model

Pickman's model

Starry Wisdom
i'll start you off with the battle of mayfair - 17 august 1969 - when a thousand-strong mob attacked the ulster office in berkeley square:

upload_2017-7-20_12-53-24.png
upload_2017-7-20_12-53-51.pngupload_2017-7-20_12-54-26.png
 
South Shields, at the mouth of the Tyne, had one of the earliest Arab populations in the UK. The seamen settled there and became well integrated, because - it was said - the main pastimes of the local men were getting drunk and beating up their wives. Muslims didn't drink and, so, they were a better marriage bet.

Then times got hard and the (by now well-integrated) Arab seamen saw what they thought was unfair treatment in the handing out of tickets to work merchant ships. They felt the white locals were getting all the work and they were being discriminated against.

The thing exploded into full-scale riot and street battle....

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/south-shields-riots-between-yemeni-9770735

My own mother, thirty years later, would still warn us about going across the river to South Shields because of the Arabs and their knives.....
 
Gordon Riots - Wikipedia
not the gin as I once thought. Started out as an anti-catholic protest then shit snowballed.


After the first march to Parliament, further riots occurred involving groups whose grievances were nationalistic, economic, or political, rather than religious. Aside from the issue of Catholic emancipation, it has also been suggested that the driving force of the riots was Britain's poor economic situation: the loss of trade during the war had led to falling wages, rising prices, and periodic unemployment. As Rudé noted, there was no general attack on the Catholic community, "the victims of the riots" being distinguished by the fact they were "on the whole, persons of substance".[10] Voting in parliamentary elections was restricted by a property threshold, so most Londoners were unable to vote and many hoped for reforms to make Parliament more representative of the people.
Click to expand...
 
Sirena said:
South Shields, at the mouth of the Tyne, had one of the earliest Arab populations in the UK. The seamen settled there and became well integrated, because - it was said - the main pastimes of the local men were getting drunk and beating up their wives. Muslims didn't drink and, so, they were a better marriage bet.

Then times got hard and the (by now well-integrated) Arab seamen saw what they thought was unfair treatment in the handing out of tickets to work merchant ships. They felt the white locals were getting all the work and they were being discriminated against.

The thing exploded into full-scale riot and street battle....

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/south-shields-riots-between-yemeni-9770735

My own mother, thirty years later, would still warn us about going across the river to South Shields because of the Arabs and their knives.....
Click to expand...
North Shields is also at the mouth of the Tyne.

In the 19th century, Dockwray Square, just by the Fish Quay, was a posh Victorian square full of lawyers and port officials and suchlike. Stan Laurel's fairly middle-class family lived there around the turn of the century, when the square was just beginning its slow decline. By the second world war, it was a rough area and all the old houses had become poor working-class tenements.

After the war, as part of the general clear-up because of bomb-damage, the square was cleared and everyone moved to a brand new estate just west of town. The estate was called The Ridges. When I was at school in the 60s, The Ridges had a fearsome reputation. We were all mostly council estate kids but the kids from The Ridges were always understood to be the 'hard' kids and we didn't mix much with them.

It got to be such a no-go, quasi-criminal area that the Council had to do something about it. They put money into it and renamed it the Meadowell Estate but nothing really changed and the thing finally blew wide open in 1991 when the whole area exploded into riots....

Meadow Well riots - Wikipedia

Stories that shocked Tyneside: The Meadow Well riots in North Shields - Chronicle Live
 
Sirena said:
North Shields is also at the mouth of the Tyne.

In the 19th century, Dockwray Square, just by the Fish Quay, was a posh Victorian square full of lawyers and port officials and suchlike. Stan Laurel's fairly middle-class family lived there around the turn of the century, when the square was just beginning its slow decline. By the second world war, it was a rough area and all the old houses had become poor working-class tenements.

After the war, as part of the general clear-up because of bomb-damage, the square was cleared and everyone moved to a brand new estate just west of town. The estate was called The Ridges. When I was at school in the 60s, The Ridges had a fearsome reputation. We were all mostly council estate kids but the kids from The Ridges were always understood to be the 'hard' kids and we didn't mix much with them.

It got to be such a no-go, quasi-criminal area that the Council had to do something about it. They put money into it and renamed it the Meadowell Estate but nothing really changed and the thing finally blew wide open in 1991 when the whole area exploded into riots....

Meadow Well riots - Wikipedia

Stories that shocked Tyneside: The Meadow Well riots in North Shields - Chronicle Live
Click to expand...
Fetch

Times 12/9/91
 
Sirena said:
South Shields, at the mouth of the Tyne, had one of the earliest Arab populations in the UK. The seamen settled there and became well integrated, because - it was said - the main pastimes of the local men were getting drunk and beating up their wives. Muslims didn't drink and, so, they were a better marriage bet.

Then times got hard and the (by now well-integrated) Arab seamen saw what they thought was unfair treatment in the handing out of tickets to work merchant ships. They felt the white locals were getting all the work and they were being discriminated against.

The thing exploded into full-scale riot and street battle....

South Shields riots between Yemeni and British sailors remembered 85 years on - Chronicle Live

My own mother, thirty years later, would still warn us about going across the river to South Shields because of the Arabs and their knives.....
Click to expand...

I read Peter Mortimor's book 'Cool for Qat', which your link kinda leads to, and that's where I first heard about these riots. His book, unfortunately, is shit though. There are much better books about Yemen. But, yeah. Informed me of these riots.
 
Sirena said:
South Shields, at the mouth of the Tyne, had one of the earliest Arab populations in the UK. The seamen settled there and became well integrated, because - it was said - the main pastimes of the local men were getting drunk and beating up their wives. Muslims didn't drink and, so, they were a better marriage bet.

Then times got hard and the (by now well-integrated) Arab seamen saw what they thought was unfair treatment in the handing out of tickets to work merchant ships. They felt the white locals were getting all the work and they were being discriminated against.

The thing exploded into full-scale riot and street battle....

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/south-shields-riots-between-yemeni-9770735

My own mother, thirty years later, would still warn us about going across the river to South Shields because of the Arabs and their knives.....
Click to expand...

Oldest mosque in Britain as well IIRC
 
Stroudwater Riots of 1825, good little local history book done about it which doesn't seem to be online, mentioned here though:
George Heskins was also in the prison, having been committed at the
Trinity Sessions, 1825, for assembling with other persons on the 6th day of
June and assaulting Robert Horton- imprisoned for nine months. On this day
several weavers were thrown into the Brook in Nailsworth and in Stroud a mob
of about 2000 continued to duck perrsons in Mr Holbrow's fish pond. Meanwhile
a detachment of the 10th Hussars arrived at Stroud on June 6th and the town
and neighbourhood became quiet.
Click to expand...
 
oth-one-tree.jpg


I like this one as it was on the doorstep of where i lived for 20 years.... The Golf Riots of Honor Oak / One Tree Hill...and a case where the people won, and the legacy of that win lives on

ONE TREE HILL

The Golf War


Golf, golf, golf: Enemy of freedom.
One Tree Hill, in Honor Oak, had always been an open space, a traditional gathering spot for locals, more recently for recreation. In Autumn 1896 it was suddenly enclosed by a golf club! Locals were understandably pissed off. There followed a large number of protest meetings, in Spring-Summer 1897, many held in the open air on Peckham Rye. Meetings of an “Enclosure of Honor Oak Hill Protest Committee" were held from August in the Samuel Bowley Coffee Tavern, Peckham Rye. They got support from the Commons Preservation Society. They were in the process of collecting evidence about traditional access to the Hill. But there was some unrest in the membership, over the slow progress they were making...

At a meeting of the Committee, a resolution to defend the hill by pulling down the fences was defeated. But in late August, the Golf Club prosecuted 2 lads who had broken down part of the fence and ‘trespassed’ on the hill… children who wandered through a broken section to pick flowers were also attacked by a fierce guard dog. In October a large protest meeting on the Rye condemned the Club’s prosecution, and supported the 2 ’trespassers’. Further failed attempts to get the Committee to authorise direct action against the fence led to a resolution at a mass meeting on October 3rd 1897, voting for the removal of the fence the following Sunday… On the 10th, some 15,000 people assembled; after apparently waiting a while for an appointed demolisher, a section of the crowd in Honor Oak Park pulled down part of the fence. The crowd then rushed onto the hill from Honor Oak Park & Honor Oak Rise. "The hill was soon covered with a disorderly multitude, and it was quickly found necessary to reinforce the police who had been posted to keep order." I bet it was. Some of the crowd attacked the house of the grounds keeper, (he of the vicious dog?), only the arrival of more cops keeping the crowd at bay. The more constitutional element attempted to take control, starting a meeting and denouncing the "unseemly and riotous conduct taking place…an appeal was made for quiet and more orderly conduct…the crowds, after singing ‘Rule Britannia’, dispersed …"

Although the Protest Committee disassociated itself from the violence, two former members also publicly went to pull down a section of fence on October 16th, stating they’d been instructed to do so on behalf of the public. Seems a reasonable defence!

The Golf Club however was still maintaining they had bought the land fair and square from the previous owners.


“a lurid glare upon the upturned faces”

On Sunday the 17th, a very large crowd gathered, obviously expecting trouble. Estimates vary from 50,000 to 100,000 people present! They were faced by 500-odd police, some mounted, patrolling the hill. The filth fought off several attempts to demolish the fence and rush the hill, mostly at the south side, overlooking Honor Oak Park. At least 12,000 were hemmed in here, many of who stoned the cops, charging several times and being charged in return. "Late in the day a furze bush was fired, and this cast a lurid glare upon the upturned faces of the packed mass of onlookers." Ten people were nicked, two of whom got sent down for a month, three for fourteen days and the rest fined. The following Sunday, the 24th, thousands again gathered at the Hill.

Meanwhile, the Protest Committee, although condemning the rioting, took advantage of them. In its attempts to persuade the Camberwell & Lewisham Vestries (One Tree Hill being on the border of the two parishes) that the enclosure should be reversed. The Committee’s investigations had revealed several rights of way across the hill: at an inquiry in January 1898, the Joint Committee of the 2 vestries voted to go to court over the enclosure.
They sought advice from the Commons Preservation Society. This process dragged on, into 1899; meanwhile the Golf Club had obtained a court judgment for trespass against 5 members of the Committee.

Over the next few years, though the riots never revived, the process ground on, with Camberwell Borough Council putting pressure on the owner of the Hill, J. E. Ward, to sell the land. Ward dug his heels in, asking for a huge amount for the land. Eventually the London County Council, stuck a clause in their 1902 General Powers Bill, for a compulsory purchase – leading to the Hill being bought for £6,100 in 1904.

It is still a very lovely open space now, definitely worth a visit/picnic, with its great view of London. In 1997, a hand-crafted centenary bench was put up to remember the riots, though it has since vanished. It was from here that the Association of Autonomous Astronauts tried to launch their independent ventures into space in 1999.
 
Don't know if anyone remembers the Thamesmead riot in the 80s,I remember getting a cab from Brixton to there the guy with me was a reporter/photographer with the Morning Star at the time, the cab driver was well up for it.The two of us in the back swigging cans of Pils and smoking joints with the windows rolled down and no other cars on the road.Good times.
 
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