Bloody Sunday (1887)

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For other uses of "Bloody Sunday", see Bloody Sunday (disambiguation).

Bloody Sunday
Part of the Irish Home Rule movement
Engraving from The Graphic (published 19 November 1887) depicting a policeman being clubbed by a demonstrator as he wrests a banner from "a Socialist woman leader, one Mrs. Taylor", while other people are covering their heads to protect themselves from raised police batons.
Date13 November 1887
Location
Trafalgar Square, London, England
Caused by
Goals
MethodsPolitical demonstration
Parties
Lead figures
Number
10,000–30,000 (est.)

Metropolitan Police: 2,000

British Army: 400
Casualties
Death(s)13
Injuries75 badly injured (all sides)
Arrested400

Bloody Sunday was an event which took place in London, England on 13 November 1887, when a crowd of marchers protesting about unemployment and the Irish Coercion Acts, as well as demanding the release of MP William O'Brien, clashed with the Metropolitan Police. The demonstration was organised by the Social Democratic Federation and the Irish National League. Violent clashes took place between the police and demonstrators, many "armed with iron bars, knives, pokers and gas pipes". A contemporary report noted that 400 were arrested and 75 persons were badly injured, including many police, two policemen being stabbed and one protester bayonetted.[1]

Background

Lord Salisbury
, it had a much wider context.

The

class struggle
and an obvious flashpoint.

This attracted the attention of the small but growing

reformist socialists of the Fabian Society. Police and government attempts to suppress or divert the demonstrations also brought in the radical wing of the Liberal Party and free speech activists from the National Secular Society
.

The working class in British cities contained many people of Irish birth or origin. London, like industrial areas of northern England and western Scotland, had a large Irish working class, concentrated in the East End, where it rubbed shoulders with increasing numbers of Jews from Eastern Europe.[2]

Demonstration of 13 November

One of the bludgeons used by the rioters

Some 30,000 people, "mostly respectable spectators",

Robert Cunninghame-Graham, who were primarily leaders of the Social Democratic Federation. Also marching were the Fabian playwright George Bernard Shaw, Eleanor Marx,[3] and Charlotte Wilson
.

There were approximately 14,000 police officers for 5.5 million Londoners.[4] Two thousand police and 400 troops were deployed to halt the demonstration.

secularist
, spoke at the rally and offered herself for arrest, but the police declined to do so. Of the 400 arrested, 50 were detained in custody.

At some point James Compton Merryweather, head of the firm

Sir Charles Warren, declined.[6]

In the fighting, many rioters were injured by police

police horses. The British Army dispatched a force of 400 men, consisting of both infantry and cavalry. Although the infantry were marched into position with bayonets fixed, they were not ordered to open fire and the cavalry were not ordered to draw their swords. An Australian newspaper, of conservative political orientation, reported that the wounds received by the mob were less severe than those of the constables.[1]

Aftermath

Reports place the death toll at 13.[7] This 'report' concerns events in Ireland in 1972, not those in London in 1887 and should be deleted or ignored here.

The following Sunday, 20 November, saw another demonstration and more casualties. According to a report in the partisan Socialist Review, among them was a young clerk named Alfred Linnell,[8] who was run down by a police horse, dying in hospital a fortnight later from complications of a shattered thigh.[9]

The funeral of Linnell on 18 December provided another focus for the unemployed and Irish movements. William Morris, leader of the Socialist League, gave the main speech and "advocated a holy war to prevent London from being turned into a huge prison".[10] A smaller but similar event marked the burial of another of those killed, W. B. Curner, which took place in January. The release of those imprisoned was celebrated on 20 February 1888, with a large public meeting. Henry Hyndman, leader of the SDF, violently denounced the Liberal Party and the Radical MPs who were present.

See also

  • Belgian strikes of 1886

References

  1. ^
    Sydney Morning Herald, 15 November 1887, at Trove
  2. Charles Booth study of London's population in this period is available online at the London School of Economics
  3. ^ Women fighters and revolutionaries - Eleanor Marx www.socialistparty.org.uk
  4. ^ http://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/pmg/criml.php[permanent dead link]
  5. ^ "History of the Metropolitan Police" Archived 21 April 2013 at the Wayback Machine, at met.police.uk
  6. ^ Inquirer and Commercial News, Perth, 28 February 1896, p.9, (quoting an unknown London paper), via Trove, National Library of Australia.
  7. ^ "Bloody Sunday: What happened on Sunday 30 January 1972?". 13 March 2019. Retrieved 11 April 2024.
  8. ^ London, 13 November 1887 Archived 24 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine, Issue 224, Socialist Review, November 1998
  9. ^ Killed by the Police South Australian Register (citing the somewhat partisan Pall Mall Gazette), 13 January 1888, at Trove
  10. ^ Burial of a Rioter Kerang Times and Swan Hill Gazette, 23 December 1887, at Trove

Bibliography

  • Thompson, E. P. William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary, Merlin Press, London, 1977
  • Taylor, Anne. Annie Besant: A Biography, Oxford University Press, 1991 (also US edition 1992)
    ISBN 0-19-211796-3
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