Liberal Home Secretary Winston Churchill and the Siege of Sydney Street (1911)
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LIBERAL HOME SECRETARY WINSTON CHURCHILL AND THE SIEGE OF SYDNEY STREET (1911) STORY OF A CONTROVERSY Student: Samira SNOUSSI Lecturer: Michael PARSONS – THE LIBERAL PARTY 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………3 The Tottenham Outrage and the Houndsditch Murders………………………………………..4 The Siege Of Sydney Street……………………………………………………………………..6 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………...14 2 INTRODUCTION Everyone, who has got the least knowledge, knows who is Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who played such a major role during World War II that he was – and still is – considered as a hero in the United Kingdom, and at least in all European countries. To say a few words about his political path, he entered politics in 1900 as a Conservative member of parliament for Oldham. He switched parties in 1904 to become a Liberal, as he disagreed with the Conservative policy of protectionist tariffs preferentially favouring trade with the British Empire. As a Liberal, he had a rapid ascent, as he held major positions such as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, President of the Board of Trade, Home secretary, First Lord of the Admiralty, Minister of Munitions, Secretary of state for War, then for Air, then for the Colonies. He ended up rejoining the Conservative Party again in 1925 and became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and later on, in 1939, Prime Minister to play ‘the role of his life’. All of this can be found in the first article or book about Winston Churchill, of course. Yet, what is really interesting in Churchill’s biography is the fact that, before becoming a hero, he had been much controversial, especially as Home Secretary, to the extent that he had a ‘reputation for being a frenetic and far-from-calm Home Secretary’.1 When I started working on Winston Churchill as a Liberal, I found those many allusions to him as a controversial personality, and this is due to many statements, actions and attitudes he had, starting with the fact that he switched parties from Conservatives to Liberals then back to Conservatives again. He even remarked: “Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat.”2 The fact is that we can do extensive research around a lot of facts showing how controversial Churchill was, and I chose two of what seemed to me to be the most interesting events that shook the British public opinion or at least many of Churchill’s political fellows. Then, when looking closer in one of them, in other words the Siege of Sydney Street, I found it interesting to go far deeper in it rather than look merely at the surface of several events. So, the aim of this file is to try and clarify The Siege of Sydney Street issue, to which Churchill was linked as a Liberal Home Secretary, and for which he was much criticized, both by his political fellows and by the People and understand the circumstances as well as the role Churchill played, but also the reasons why he was criticized, by whom, and if there were good reasons for that criticism. 1 JENKINS, Roy, Churchill, A Biography, Ed.MacMillan, 2001 in (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill_in_politics:_1900%E2%80%931939#Home_Secretary) 2 TABER, Jane, Like Winston Churchill Nicole Turmel is a Rat - 2011 (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/like-winston-churchill-nycole-turmel-is-a- rat/article2117220/) 3 THE TOTTENHAM OUTRAGE AND THE HOUNDSTICH MURDERS Many sources link the Siege of Sydney Street, more popularly known as ‘Battle of stepney’, to another famous affair called the Houndsditch Murders. Yet, Donald Rumbelow, in his book The Houndsditch Murders and the Siege of Sydney street3, gives detailed accounts of the gang of Russian Latvian refugees that were behind this event and other sensational crimes in London between 1909 and 1911, among which there was what was called the ‘Tottenham Outrage’ in 1909, the Houndsditch Murders in 1910 and the famous Siege of Sydney Street on New Year’s day in 1911.4 In fact, there was a Latvian refugee society in London’s East End who had escaped from Russia upon the suppression of the revolt in their country in 1905. They lived and supported their continuing revolutionary actions by committing robberies on which they put the splendid expression ‘expropriations’.5 They were referred to as East End Anarchists.6 Many sources reported that they were under the leadership of someone called ‘Peter the painter’. However, this leader has been highly controversial and sometimes even considered as fictious as he was never to be found, dead or alive, after the Siege of Sydney Street. Rumbelow identified him as possibly being ‘Peter Piaktow’ and Churchill described him later as “one of those wild beasts who, in later years, amid the convulsions of the Great War, were to devour and ravage the Russian State and People”.7 In any case, the gang members always used aliases, the most important of them being Jacob Fogel (or Jan Sprohe), William Sokolow (or Joseph), Fritz Svaars, Mouremtzoff (or George Gardstein), Nina Vassilleva (or Gardstein’s mistress), Luba Milstein (or Svaars’ mistrss), Jacob peters, Max Smoller (or Joseph Levi) and Piaktow himself.8 3 Rumbelow, Donald, The Houndsditch Murders and the siege of sydney street, Ed. St Martin’sPress MacMillan, 1973 (http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/radical/the-siege-of-sidney-street) 4 Smith, Stanley, Churchill and… Politics- The Siege of Sydney Street- A Bizarre Escapade of Churchill Derring-Do (http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/radical/the-siege-of-sidney-street) 5 Smith, Stanley, Churchill and… Politics- The Siege of Sydney Street- A Bizarre Escapade of Churchill Derring-Do (http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/radical/the-siege-of-sidney-street) 6 Mustill, Edd, The Siege of Sydney Street and East end Anarchism, (http://thegreatunrest.net/2011/01/14/the- siege-of-sidney-street-and-east-end-anarchism/) 7 Smith, Stanley, Churchill and… Politics- The Siege of Sydney Street- A Bizarre Escapade of Churchill Derring-Do (http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/radical/the-siege-of-sidney-street) 8 Smith, Stanley, Churchill and… Politics- The Siege of Sydney Street- A Bizarre Escapade of Churchill Derring-Do (http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/radical/the-siege-of-sidney-street) 4 Anarchist Peter Piaktow9 The story between the Police and the members of this gang began on the 23 January 1909 with the “Tottenham Outrage” when two Latvian refugees attacked a man carrying the wages for a rubber factory. There was a fight in which gunshots were fired and overheard at a nearby police station. This resulted in a struggle between the police and the robbers and ended up with two people killed and 27 injured. Later on, the gang planned another important robbery. Indeed, on the night of the 16 December 1910, the Latvian revolutionaries attempted to rob a jeweler’s shop at 119 Houndsditch in the city of London. The gang attempted to break into the rear of a jeweller’s shop by tunneling from three buildings in the cul-de-sac behind. A neighbour heard the noise caused by the hammering and informed the Police. Nine unarmed policemen were called to the scene. What happened after is that three of the police were shot dead and two injured. The public was shocked by what quickly became known as the Houndsditch Murders. A huge manhunt was organized to track down all of the gang, and several members and their associates were soon arrested, even if it is thought, today, that those were not even part of the Houndsditch robbery.10 Anyway, two of the members were hunt down to 100 Sydney Street, Stepney, in London’s East End, where two members of the gang, Fritz Svaars and William Sokoloff, alias Joseph, remained hidden. This set the beginning of the famous siege on 03 January 1911. 9 Drake, Mathew, Honouring an Anarchist: Fury as Siege of Sydney Street Killer Gets Tower Block Plaque, 2008 (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1061719/Honouring-anarchist-Fury-Siege-Sidney-Street-killer-gets- tower-block-plaque.html) 10 Urbanora, Crime, Non-Fiction, People, Politics, 2011, in The Bioscope, Reporting on the World of Early and Silent Cinema (http://bioscopic.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/the-siege-of-sidney-street/) 5 THE SIEGE OF SYDNEY STREET The Metropolitan Police website reports the beginning of this event in the following words: “ The Metropolitan Police received information that two of the Gardstein gang were sheltering in Mrs Betsy Gershon's flat in Sidney Street. The combined force of Met and City Police cordoned off the area and evacuated other residents. The gunmen had removed Mrs Gershon's skirt and shoes to prevent her from leaving the building, but she was permitted to go downstairs, where the police rescued her.”11 Indeed, the besieged anarchists were given away by an informer, and, in the early hours of Tuesday 3 January 1911, two hundred policemen were posted in shops and buildings surrounding the block in which they were hidden. When dawn broke, the battle started right before the eyes of curious people who had gathered around the police to see what was going on. Shots were fired out through a window from the inside of the house, and a policeman was hit in the chest. Following this, orders were given to bring in two companies of Scots Guards to take charge of the fight while the police would withdraw the gathering crowd away from the street. That is when Churchill heard of the Siege and decided to intervene. According to Stanley Smith, “A call went out for troops from the tower of London – a call that reached Home Secretary Churchill in his morning bath.