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Houndsditch: memorialising a triple police murder

7/4/2022

This column of red granite at the City of London cemetery near Ilford pays tribute to three police officers shot dead while trying to stop an armed robbery of a jeweller's shop by Latvian political emigres.

The burial plots of Sergeant Charles Tucker and Sergeant Robert Bentley lie side-by-side. The third policeman, Constable Walter Choat, is buried at Byfleet.

The three police officers died late on the evening of 16 December 1910. Never before had three London police officers been killed in the same incident - and it has only happened once since.

Inscriptions on the column reveal that the wife and son of Sergeant Tucker are also buried here. So too is the three-year old son of Sergeant Bentley, who was born five days after his father died. Tragedy on top of tragedy.

On the centenary of the killings, the Corporation of the City of London placed a memorial plaque - rather anonymous and easily missed - close to the site of the shootings on Cutler Street.

The would-be robbers were revolutionary expropriators. They were seeking to burrow in to the back of a jewellery shop at 119 Houndsditch from what was then Exchange Buildings. As well as the three police officers who died, one of the robbers suffered fatal injuries when shot by accident by an associate.

In this 1913 map, Exchange Buildings is marked in pink.

Although all the buildings from that era have gone from the area around the scene of the shootings, the street lay-out hasn't changed, and nor has the numbering of buildings on Houndsditch. 119 Houndsditch is now part of a Starbucks!

While Exchange Buildings has long gone, there's a yard with an entrance from Cutler Street which marks the spot.

In the photo below, the full length window is at the back of Starbucks. This was also very probably the location of the back wall of the jeweller's shop in 1910.

Exchange Buildings - three storeys with a single room on each floor and a tiny back yard with a sink and an outside loo - would have stood on this small car park space.

When police tried to find out why there was banging and drilling late on as Friday night, the expropriators came out firing. Just here!

Two weeks later, two of the gunmen were tracked down to a room in Stepney and perished in what became known as the Siege of Sidney Street. But that's another story ...

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On the trail of East End anti-hero, Peter the Painter

1/2/2022

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This is Peter the Painter - fashionably dressed and with a splendid moustache. He looks like a pillar of the establishment. In fact, he was quite the opposite and part of a long line of anti-heroes in the East End of London.

Peter was a Latvian anarchist and nationalist who was believed to be a central figure in two sensational incidents of violence. The first was in December 1910, when a group of Latvian emigres were interrupted while trying to break through a party wall into a jeweller's shop in Houndsditch in the City of London. Three unarmed policemen were shot dead - and one of the gang died from shots fired by an accomplice.

A couple of weeks later - in January 1911 - two of the suspected gunmen were tracked down to a room at 100 Sidney Street in Stepney. A shoot-out lasting six hours ensued, and ended only when the house caught fire. Both gunmen died at the scene.

It's probable that Peter the Painter was neither at Houndsditch at the time of the shoot-out nor involved in the 'Siege of Sidney Street', but helped by his alliterative nom de guerre and the wanted posters put out by the police, he became something of a legend: the criminal mastermind who managed to get away.

The conventional account of Peter the Painter is that his identity has never been ascertained. In fact, the City of London police were confident that they could put a name to him by the close of 1912. But he wasn't in Britain and they had no evidence sufficient to secure extradition, so they kept quiet.

The anarchist and historian Phil Ruff has told the story of the afterlife of Peter the Painter, in as much as it can be retrieved, in his book A Towering Flame.

At the weekend, I strolled round the City and adjoining East End in the footsteps of Peter the Painter.

HOUNDSDITCH

Harris's jewellers was on the north side of Houndsditch just beyond the junction with Cutler Street. Nowadays there's not a single building within 100 yards of the spot that was there back in 1910. But the street layout is much the same. (And there at the eastern end of Houndsditch you can see St Botolph's, Aldgate - often regarded as the entry point to the East End.)

The gang sought to burrow in from the back of the shop, having taken a tenancy on a tiny house in 11 Exchange Buildings, the outside loo of which shared a wall with the jeweller's. Those buildings are long gone - but what was Exchange Buildings remains a yard with an entrance on Cutler Street.

HEADING HOME

The shoot out left three police officers dead, and one of the gang - who went by the name George Gardstein as well as having several other aliases - badly (it transpires fatally) wounded. His colleagues propped him up, a bit as if he was a drunk - it was late Saturday night after all - and sought to find refuge fior him.

Goldstein's room in Gold Street in Stepney was too far away - so they made for 59 Grove Street, where two of the gang, Fritz Svaars and Peter the Painter, had rooms. Both these streets have disappeared. Gold Street has been covered by Stepney Green Park, while Grove Street once stood close to Ropemaker's Walk, on the south side of Commercial Road.

When the group got Gardstein into the rooms in Grove Street, there were two women there, Luba Milstein, the partner of Fritz Svaars, and her friend Rosa Trassjonsky. The men dumped Gardstein there, and it was the women - Rosa in particular - who cared for the dying man.

Rosa lived nearby at 10 Settle (now Settles) Street on the other side of Commercial Road, and that's one of the very few places connected to the Sidney Street drama still standing.

10 Settle Street, where Rosa rented a back room on the third floor, is at the end of a short row of five-storey houses which must then have been fairly new. The police searched her room and confiscated her letters and photos - many of which are now in the holdings of the London Metropolitan Archive.

Fritz Svaars' cousin, Jacob Peters (who was NOT Peter the Painter), was also caught up in the police investigation of the Houndsditch killings and was eventually put on trial. He lived nearby on Turner Street, and while his house is not standing some others of that era are.

SIDNEY STREET

The site of 100 Sidney Street was cleared many years ago. Social housing now stands on the spot. But other sections of Sidney Street still have nineteenth century terrace housing ...

and slightly later red brick tenements:

And at the south end of Sidney Street, close to the junction with Commercial Road, there are some reminders of the event that made the street renowned, indeed notorious -

- including two fairly recent blocks which, unlikely as it seems, honour the man on whose trail we have been!

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Rudolf Rocker and 'A Night with the Anarchists'

10/1/2022

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This charming drawing of the anarchist Rudolf Rocker addressing a meeting is by his son, Fermin Rocker.

Rudolf Rocker was the key figure in the flourishing anarchist movement in the East End of London in the years immediately before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. He was German and a gentile, but mastered Yiddish and was the editor of a remarkable Yiddish weekly newspaper, the Arbeter Fraint (or Workers' Friend).

In the aftermath of two notorious shoot-outs - at Houndsditch in the City and at Sidney Street in Stepney - press attention focussed on the mainly Jewish anarchist movement in the East End. Those incidents involved Latvian political refugees, probably with anarchist synmpathies. In December 1910, a group were interrupted at Houndsditch while trying to break through a wall and rob a jeweller's shop - three police men were shot dead and two more police suffered bullet wounds.

The following month, two alleged members of the gang were tracked down to a first floor room in Sidney Street. The house was surrounded by police, troops were brought in, and shots were exchanged over several hours. The two gunmen died.

Rocker and most of his comrades deeply disapproved of this violence, and the 'expropriations' - armed robberies to fund the movement - which occasioned them.

The Worker's Friend was published from an address in Jubilee Street, a stone's throw from Sidney Street. Next door was the anarchist Jubilee Street Club. Many of the Latvians involved in the Houndsditch incident had certainly visited the club. Journalists descended on the area, Some of their reporting was crude, inaccurate and sensationalist but a few among the reporters delivered vivid and well-informed accounts of East End anarchism. I'm posting a few of those pieces of journalism on this blog.

Philip Gibbs and J.P. Eddy, in the immediate aftermath of the Siege of Sidney Street, moved into the East End and wrote a series of articles for the Daily Chronicle - this article, 'A Night with the Anarchists', appeared on 10 January 1911 and includes accounts of conversations with both Rudolf Rocker and his partner Milly Witcop:

Philip Gibbs made productive use of his sojourn in the East End - as well as his three co-authored articles for the Daily Chronicle, he also wrote two bylined pieces for the weekly Graphic, notably this account below of 'An Evening in an Anarchists' Club'.

Again, Rocker is clearly the man that Gibbs heard speak. And the article's conclusion became renowned: 'These alien anarchists were as tame as rabbits. I am convinced they had not a revolver among them. And yet, looking back upon this adventure and remembering the words I heard, I am sure that this intellectual anarchy, this philosophy of revolution, is more dangerous to the state of Europe than pistols and nitro-glycerine. For out of that anarchist club in the East End come ideas more powerful in destruction than dynamite.'

And I'm posting the columns of text individually here so it is more easily legible:

One at least of the mainstream papers took the trouble to talk at length to this prominent anarchist with 'sledge-hammer eloquence'. Rudolf Rocker expressed satisfaction with the write up of this interview he gave to the establishment minded Morning Post published in its issue of 7 January 1911 - here's the article with the title 'The Anarchist Leader':

And let's close as we began, with one of Fermin Rocker's drawings of his father on the platform:

And a codicil, many years ago I interviewed Fermin Rocker (who was born in 1907) about his childhood memories of his father and the anarchist movement in the London of his childhood. Here it is:

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Remembering Houndsditch and Sidney Street

29/10/2021

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I'm doing some research into the spate of Latvian revolutionary 'expropriation' in London 110 years ago and I've come across some marvellous pieces of ephemera. The Latvian anarchists probably got away with a few robberies and wages snatches. But two robberies failed spectacularly - and tragically.

One was the Tottenham Outrage of January 1909, when two heavily armed robbers stole the money being brought to pay the wages at a rubber factory. They got the cash - but were pursued over six miles by police, passers-by, local kids, the lot. The two robbers died or suffered fatal injuries. And two others were shot dead - a policeman and a ten-year-old boy.

In December 1910, another group of armed Latvian emigres staged a much more sophisticated attempt to rob a jewellery shop in Houndsditch in the City of London. They were interrupted by local police, Three police officers were shot dead, and one of the robbers suffered fatal gunshot wounds at the hands of a comrade.

There was a national sense of shock and anger. This folding mourning card paid tribute to the three murdered policemen.

A few weeks later, two of the suspected Houndsditch gang were tracked down to a first-floor room at 100 Sidney Street in Stepney. Overnight the police surrounded the house and managed to get the other occupants out. The two men were well armed. The first shots rang out at 7:30 in the morning of 3rd January 1911- and the shoot-out continued for another six hours.

The police were comprehensively outgunned, and Scots Guards were called in to help meet the volley of shots fired by the two men. Eventually the house caught fire. The fire brigade were not allowed to douse the flames. In the embers of the house, the bodies of the two gunmen were found - one had been shot and other died from suffocation.

The Siege of Sidney Street was a sensation. This dramatic, illustrated account of the event was on sale within days.

And here's another wonderful artefact - a few days after the Siege, some of those allegedly involved were required to appear in court in committal proceedings relating to the Houndsditch shootings.

This news photo shows the two women who appeared - Sara Trassjonsky and Luba Milstein - flanked by a warder and a prison matron. What a telling image!

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'The battle of Stepney' - Sidney Street 100 years on

1/1/2011

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It was portrayed at the time as Churchill against a bunch of alien anarchists. Monday (3rd Jan) marks the centenary of the 'siege of Sidney Street' in Stepney. This was when Churchill, as home secretary, deployed the army against a group of armed robbers tracked down to a room in the East End. The gang had, the previous month, shot dead three policemen whil trying to rob a jeweller's shop in Houndsditch.

Churchill went along to Sidney Street, replete with top hat, to see for himself. Two of the armed men, Latvian revolutionaries, were founded dead in the burnt out embers of the house at 100 Sidney Street. A third man, 'Peter the Painter', disappeared - and has been the stuff of legend and conspiracy ever since.

The excellent Museum in Docklands is holding a small but very appropriate exhibition linked to the centenary. It has items related to the siege and recovered from the aftermath, and a sensitive account of the political background to the incident.

Sidney Street was commemorated in a huge number of postcards - the few years between the siege and the Easter Rising in Dublin, a similar bonanza for the postcard trade, represented the high water mark of the political postcard. There's a couple of examples below.

Anarchists were blamed for Sidney Street - largely because they were a powerful force among recent Jewish migrants settled in the East End. The anarchist club was at Jubilee Street, close by the scene of what was described as the 'battle of Stepney'. I once interviewed a then very elderly woman, born Naomi Ploschansky, who as a youngster was active in the Jubilee Street club and met the men involved in Sidney Street. They wanted her to teach them English - but her mother said there was no way that Naomi could go round to the men's rooms unchaperoned. Mum knows best!

A century on, the Observer reports - rather approvingly (26 Dec, annoyingly not available online) - 'the return of anarchy'. Whatever next.

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Andrew Whitehead's
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Houndsditch: memorialising a triple police murder

On the trail of East End anti-hero, Peter the Painter

HOUNDSDITCH

HEADING HOME

SIDNEY STREET

Rudolf Rocker and 'A Night with the Anarchists'

Remembering Houndsditch and Sidney Street

'The battle of Stepney' - Sidney Street 100 years on

Andrew Whitehead's blog

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​Andrew Whitehead'sBlog

Houndsditch: memorialising a triple police murder

On the trail of East End anti-hero, Peter the Painter

HOUNDSDITCH

HEADING HOME

SIDNEY STREET

Rudolf Rocker and 'A Night with the Anarchists'

Remembering Houndsditch and Sidney Street

'The battle of Stepney' - Sidney Street 100 years on

Andrew Whitehead's blog

Archives

Categories

Andrew Whitehead's
Blog