An Imperial War and the British Working Class by Richard Price

Author:Richard Price [Price, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Reference
ISBN: 9781134529780
Google: ybpYAQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-10-15T01:19:29+00:00

The same sort of evidence is rarer for the rest of the country. It has already been noted how the students at Birmingham were ‘credited with the intention of joining the throng’,75 and there is little reason to doubt that they did attend. In London the Stock Exchange element was sometimes prominent. This may have been true at the Trafalgar Square demonstration of 24 September 1899. Club Life reported how ‘it was noticed by reporters that the noise and disturbance was created by young clerks, medical students and beardless youths’.76 The Star commented on ‘the band of boys in straw hats and high collars . . . [who] are probably too young to remember some earlier scenes in Trafalgar Square’.77 But of the six arrested on this occasion none was a clerk as far as is known—two were not listed as having any occupation in the newspaper report and the other four were all young manual workers.

This, however, was not always the pattern at the London meetings. The aforementioned Merriman and Sauer meeting showed a very different result. It has already been noted how the Stock Exchange was accused of ‘plotting’ to disturb this meeting. The Morning Leader asserted that the rowdies were ‘the Stock Exchange gangs who were present in response to orders’.78 Of the seven arrested for causing a disturbance outside the Queen’s Hall on this occasion three were clerks, two of whom were from the Stock Exchange. Of the four others arrested, two were working-class—a porter and a whip-maker; and two were middle-class—a medical student and the son of the proprietor of the People and the Globe.79

One final example of middle-class group ‘leaders’ as characteristic of the jingo crowd can be examined. W. T. Stead, at the beginning of the war, as a part of his War Against War crusade, addressed several meetings including one at Norwich on 5 November 1899. It was an unsuccessful gathering, broken up by rowdyism created and led by ‘half-a-dozen scions of successful traders or professional men’. These young men were known as the ‘young lions’ of Norwich. They were a well-known set and comprised the sons of leading solicitors in the town including Edward Bullard, the son of the junior member of parliament for the city. A reporter was

struck by the strength of representation which the legal profession had. Foremost in the fray was Mr. Gilbert Kennett, and in the busiest parts of the building I noticed Mr. Emerson Jr., Mr. Cooper Jr., Mr. Orams Jr., and a Mr. Martin, who I believe, is associated in some way with Messrs. Cozens-Hardy and Jewison an important law firm in the town.

Stead was greeted with an outburst of yells from the ‘young lions’ when he rose to speak. A show of hands to hear him was claimed to be ‘about four to one in favour’ but when he tried again, ‘howling, yelling, cat-calls, abuse, and noisy demonstrations from some squeaking instrument . . . rendered it impossible to hear a word’. Led by Bullard, the ‘young lions’ then stormed the platform and captured the meeting.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.