|
|
| A Night on the Town |
| Having a barracks in a town together with several public houses, inns and taverns does tend to pose problems for the local constabulary. |
| In I836, when the new police force had been created, the officers had been received with a certain indifference despite the fact that regular daytime policing by a full-time paid force had not been experienced before. There was always the possibility that the working population would resent the police presence, especially in long-established and popular centres of leisure like pubs and beer houses. Nonetheless, any incidents between the police and the public had been restricted to individual and mostly futile drunken attacks on police constables, usually as lawbreakers were being arrested. |
| The middle class population of Leeds hailed the police as guardians of law and order, but as ratepayers, a number still had doubts about having to finance the force from their own pockets. Viewpoints also divided on political lines. The Leeds Tories felt the new police force a needless extravagance, but Liberals saw them as a defence against law-breaking and immorality - the expenditure of which they argued would be more than compensated by the drop in crime. The summer of 1844 saw widespread resentment erupt and confirmed the suspicions of others about the innate brutality of certain sections of the populace. |
|
On the 8th January 1844, in the Green Man public house, York Street, a young man thought it wise to write on a table,
This took place in a public house close
to a large barracks and not very far from the Irish quarter of
the town. |
|
| On the evening of Sunday 9th June 1844, at about 8 o'clock, the police were called to the shop, in Kirkgate, of Mr Ward, a surgeon. The two officers, Haigh and Best, found a man called Edward Thompson who had been seriously injured. He alleged that two soldiers, Kairn and O'Brien, had attacked and robbed him. They were at the Green Man public house. The officers attended at the beer house and arrested the two soldiers. The watching crowd loudly booed the two soldiers as the police marched them away. |
| Whilst the prisoners were being conducted to the Court House an attempt was made to rescue them. Several soldiers took off their belts and began a furious attack on the police officers inflicting serious injuries on Best. Other policemen joined the conflict and a terrible fight ensued. Their colleagues liberated the two prisoners but they were later arrested in Briggate. The police managed to apprehend seven military personnel and lodged them in the prison. |
| On the Monday morning the prisoners appeared in court, two of them still wearing blood stained jackets from the previous day's encounter. O'Brien and one of the would-be rescuers received two months at the House of Correction. The rest were handed over to their commanding officer for punishment. |
 |
That evening the soldiers were confined to barracks, but several of them got out in small groups and, as they had previously arranged, met at the Green Parrot public house in Harper Street. |
|
At about 7 o'clock, they left the Green Parrot
in a large group. They were armed with sticks, coshes, bludgeons
and other assorted 'blunt instruments' and went in search of
police officers. In Kirkgate, Briggate and other nearby streets the police were attacked and in every instance suffered defeat and injury. Pc Wildblood narrowly escaped with his life; Pc Robertson was badly injured about the head; Pc Smith received injuries that nearly killed him. A large crowd of civilians followed them, flooding in to Kirkgate from all directions - all the time cheering and urging on the military. One Leeds newspaper declared that for at least half an hour the town centre was in the hands of a disgraceful mob. Frantically the police sought refuge where they could find it - in narrow alleys, shops and inns. Here, depending on the character of the inhabitants, they received either sympathy or contempt Shopkeeper William Taylor told of how the crowd also directed the soldiers to the police when they tried to take cover. During the affray the streets and windows in the major streets were crowded with people cheering the soldiers on to greater violence. In some instances members of the public also assisted the soldiers. |
|
A piquet eventually arrived to quell the disturbances.
Some of the soldiers ran off into the town but many of them were
marched to the barracks in Woodhouse Lane. The following night, Tuesday, the military command took special care in not allowing anyone to leave the barracks. The civilians however gathered in large groups and roamed the streets. At about 9 o'clock, they attacked the police in Kirkgate and pelted them with stones and bottles. It took a large contingent of police officers, armed with cutlasses, to clear the streets. |
|
On the 2nd July, after a four-day trial, several of the prisoners received sentences ranging from large fines to terms of imprisonment.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
