London's Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City (25 page)

Exactly what happened on 8 February 1886 is still not entirely clear, but a peaceful protest escalated into disorder and rioting." The SDF had been angered by police tactics in the years since their creation in 1881, complaining that while the police had been quick to move on their demonstrations they had allowed organizations such as The Salvation Army and other groups espousing evangelism and abstinence from alcohol to assemble without disruption. That the police were concerned about the activities of The Salvation Army is evident from some of the correspondence held at The National Archives; but it was the awful noise of badly played brass instruments and the reactions of local residents that features most prominently in early reports of the Army's activities. Hyndman's socialists arguably offered a much more serious threat to the peace of the nation than a parade of well-meaning, if cacophonous, evangelists. We can usefully explore the events of February 1886 through the pages of the London press and the report of a parliamentary committee that investigated them.'

The police had been informed that there was likely to be some trouble in the square as the socialists and free traders disputed the territory for debating, but it would seem that they feared little more than a bit of `horseplay' as a number of police witnesses told the committee. The police presence in the square was minimal and the officer in charge, Superintendent Walker, was in plainclothes, as his position only required him to wear uniform on formal occasions. This seems to have led the committee to conclude that there was a lack of visual leadership on the day. The police had placed reserves in various locations close to the square in case of trouble, a tactic still employed by the modern Metropolitan Police in dealing with protest marches and gatherings. The crowd itself contained considerable numbers of what Superintendent Dunlap, himself on duty in the square, described as `the roughest element'." At about half past three a large body of demonstrators began to move off in a westerly direction, towards Pall Mall. Here is where the confusion about the events of the day is most apparent. Sir Edmund Henderson, then chief commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was also in the square. He seemingly feared that a `mob' was likely to cause trouble along Pall Mall and so instructed Dunlap to request the reserves under Superintendent Hume at St George's Barracks, to move off and protect the property in that area. Dunlap then selected a trustworthy constable from A division to deliver the message.

However, something got lost in translation and the police reserves were directed to the Mall, rather than Pall Mall. Just who was to blame for this error concerned the committee who questioned everyone from the commissioner down to the unfortunate constable, William Hulls. PC Hulls told the committee that Dunlap told him to take a message to Hume from Sir Edmund Henderson to `throw the men along the Mall'. He went as fast as he could, fighting his way through the throng from the foot of Nelson's Column, reaching the barracks in five minutes. Hume received his message and added `I suppose they are going to make for Buckingham Palace, and then lined up his men and moved them off. Hulls returned to duty and neglected to report the successful completion of his mission to his superiors because he `saw them all busy on that occasion and did not like to interfere"' Thus, in a faint echo of Balaclava, the men at St George's barracks charged off in the wrong direction leaving Pall Mall and its windows to the mercy of the London mob. The first window was broken at 3.40 p.m. at Messrs Christopher's in Pall Mall East; at the Junior Carlton Club a crowd member mounted the balustrade and addressed his colleagues. A shower of small stones hit the club, breaking more windows. It has been suggested that members of the club had been taunting the protestors from the comfort of their offices but this is not confirmed in the committee report and is hard to clarify for certain.

The press went to town on the riots, condemning the protesters and blaming the SDF for the trouble. The Times wanted to know `whether there is no law that can touch Messrs. Hyndman, Burns and Champion' (the principal SDF leaders), while the Morning Advertiser declared that in `no other capital in the world could fellows like Burns and Hyndman have been permitted to preach the detestable doctrines they did' Indeed when working-class Parisians had objected to the seizure of the Montmartre arsenal and had declared the Paris Commune in March 1871 the retaliation of the French authorities was absolute, with some 25,000 communards being killed in fighting and a further 10,000 executed or exiled. By contrast the response of the London authorities was therefore more than moderate.

The Morning Post dismissed the protesters as being composed of `a few fanatics, a great amount of loafers and idlers, and a huge contingent of professional thieves' and the Daily Telegraph accused the police of being unprepared: `Practically, London was yesterday afternoon in the hands of the mob, who could have done anything they chose. For the credit of the nation such a miserable scandal must not be allowed to occur again'79 Such sentiments were repeated in the pages of the Birmingham Gazette, Birmingham Post, Leeds Mercury and Liverpool Post.80 Other papers were careful to point to the very real hardships that some people were experiencing in the capital and the danger of neglecting the poverty and misery of some Londoners. The Daily News warned that `a disposition now exists to turn empty stomachs and idle hands into materials for social and political agitation' and advised that the authorities act to prevent this happening.R" The Pall Mall Gazette published an interview with the leadership of the SDF who denied any responsibility for the rioting in the capital: `That was entirely contrary to our wishes' claimed Hyndman, `We simply [...] set before the people what we conceived to be the only truth that could bring them permanent and substantial relief; but we had no idea that they would at once proceed to break windows, or indulge in any violence whatsoever, before adding the `time for that is not yet come, in our opinion. It may come, but this was premature - decidedly premature'." There is a sense in Hyndman's comments, and in the reportage of the Pall Mall Gazette, that this had very little to do with fermenting revolution. As the paper noted, the socialist speakers `accompanied [the rioters] rather than led them' and the leaders of the SDF were clearly unhappy that political protest had descended into riot and the looting of shops. As groups of rioters made their way to Hyde Park they could been seen carrying armfuls of clothing, bottles of alcohol and other goods, all pillaged from the shops on Piccadilly and its adjacent streets.

This `final curtain call for the London crowd' recalled the events of June 1780 rather than those of Paris in 1789 or 1870.83 Historians have mixed views on the social background of the `West End' rioters. Gareth Stedman Jones has argued that they were predominantly drawn from among the East End's casual poor and he and Eric Hobsbawm have described this group as `apolitical' in their actions: these were men that could gather `to hear Conservative-inspired demands for protection as a solution to unemployment' and then `riot the very same afternoon under the banner of socialist revolution"' The underlying apathy of the unskilled working class is contrasted with the aspirational politicking of London's artisans - the traditional radicals in the capital's political history. However, Marc Brodie warns us against too easily accepting such a simple dichotomy: London's working class had a number of local and personal influences that affected their political consciousness.85 Stedman Jones recognizes this, accepting that many were `motivated by sectional rather than class interests' in their attendance at rallies and later union actions.R6 East London's politics was a volatile mix of ideologies and pragmatic demands for change; its poorest classes could be exploited to swell the ranks of demonstrations for any number of causes.

The verdict of the parliamentary committee was that the police were at fault for the disturbances. There had been, they concluded, a lack of numbers, a breakdown of communication, and a failure to co-ordinate resources. The committee was clearly puzzled that the police did not deploy mounted police to marshal such demonstrations. Sir Edmund Henderson was contrite and admitted that in future the Met would review its preparations. The committee finished with these words: `we conclude our report by a strong expression of opinion that the administration and organization of the Metropolitan Police Force require to be thoroughly investigated; and we hope that this investigation will take place without delay.R7 Before the end of the following year the police were to be found wanting again, this time because their attempts to police the demonstrations of the unemployed ended in much more than a little `horseplay'

Beyond the concerns with the ability of the policing authorities to quell any attempts at socialist revolution and unruly demonstrations was a more deepseated fear of social unrest caused by the deprivation experienced by thousands of Victoria's subjects. The occupation of Trafalgar Square and St James' Park was an ugly reminder of the plight of London's poorest. The solution was far from clear. That a significant section of British society lived in, or close to, poverty and pauperism was in many ways an indictment of the very system that had made the Empire as successful and powerful as it was at the end of the century. Industrial growth and military might (at least at sea) had made some people very rich; others had grown very comfortable as wages rose and consumption increased. The splendour of the Victorian age is still visible in Britain's modern urban centres. But the very motor of capitalism means that for some to prosper many others have to settle for less. The challenge for the late Victorians and Edwardians was to steer the nation through turbulent waters without suffering a cataclysmic mutiny below decks. The poor had to be helped to become part of the system and to be able to support themselves within it. The alternative was to share the wealth of the Empire more evenly among its vast population; or at least to mitigate some of the worst effects of a market economy on its poorest subjects by using public funds, raised by taxation.

Figure 5 `The unemployed and the police', Moonshine, October 1887. In this cartoon the suggestion is that the real troublemakers are the political speakers who were using the plight of the urban working classes to call for radical reform.88

This is where we need to return to the work and ideas of Beatrice Webb and Helen Bosanquet and the ideological battle between collectivism and individualism.

THE BOSANQUETS AND WEBBS: COMPETING IDEOLOGIES OF REFORM

Helen Dendy was born in Manchester in 1860, the youngest daughter of businessman and former nonconformist minister, John Dendy. After achieving a first at Cambridge, Helen moved to London and joined the COS. She met and married the philosopher Bernard Bosanquet in 1895 and they collaborated on several publications that outlined their vision of `individualism'.89 While historians have perhaps neglected Helen Bosanquet her more illustrious counterpart occupies a much larger place in history. Beatrice Potter was born in Gloucestershire in 1858, one of ten children. Her father, Richard, was a businessman and railway director and Beatrice grew up in some comfort and as, her biographer notes, sought `from an early age, to question her circumstances'.90 In 1883 she also joined the COS to work with the London poor. The COS was `professionally pioneering but ideologically reactionary' in that while it adopted the very modern practice of personal visits to those in need, this was accompanied by a very Victorian emphasis on self-reliance." Along with other reforming bodies in the capital (such as the `observation post' at Toynbee Hall, where young men from good families were urged to settle after completing their degrees at Oxbridge to help instill the benefits of education and self-improvement among the local working poor92)the COS stressed the importance of personal contact with the poor and working classes.

However, Beatrice clearly wanted to do more than the `ladies work' undertaken by Octavia Hill and her COS visitors and she ventured to Manchester to look at social conditions there and to broaden her political outlook. In 1886, after working as a rent collector at Katherine Buildings, Whitechapel (one of the capital's new model dwellings), she published her first article in the Pall Mall Gazette on the subject of unemployment in the East End.93 In this Beatrice firmly rejected attempts to create work for the unemployed by means of artificial schemes of public works and demonstrated a philosophy that was very close (in its attitude towards pauperism at least) to that of Helen Bosanquet. The two women had, therefore, similar beginnings and shared experiences in social investigation. By 1890, however, Beatrice had rejected individualism and had declared herself a socialist, if not a revolutionary one.94 After a chastening experience with Joseph ('Radical Joe') Chamberlain, Beatrice met, and then married, Sidney Webb whose cockney charm and avowed intellect must have helped overcome his unprepossessing looks. They forged a strong intellectual partnership and, as Fabian socialists, made a major contribution to the history of Labour politics in Britain.

The story of the intellectual `war' between the Bosanquets and the Webbs has been told elsewhere in more detail and with much greater depth than this volume has space to allow and so what follows is a relatively brief summary of their different positions with regard to poverty and the role of the state.95 Although they adopted different approaches to the problems of society, and, in particular, poverty, the Bosanquets and Webbs, according to A. M. McBriar, `certainly shared a feeling characteristic of many intellectuals in the later Victorian age: a sense that the traditional values of earlier Victorianism no longer provided a satisfactory way of reconciling man to society and the universe' McBriar goes on to add: `Not being either revolutionaries or deniers, they were in search of a new creed to live by, a new "collectivism" that would restore a sense of true community to a society become divided and disharmonious."' Helen Bosanquet had refined the rhetoric of `deserving' and `undeserving' recipients of charity and poor relief. Instead she recognized that some people could be helped while others were beyond redemption. In a collection of essays published in 1895 Helen failed to see any real future for the `residuum; who did no useful work as far as she could see: