Police Station and Magistrates’ Court, Church Street
A former centre of local law enforcement that regulated homefront life during the Great War and was a focal point for the most notable incident of civil unrest in Wellington in the aftermath of the conflict.
Background
The former police station and magistrate’s court on the corner of Church Street and Plough Road opened in 1896, replacing a smaller mid-Nineteenth building that still stands on the Green outside All Saints parish church. It was a busy location during the First World War, regularly dealing with cases of desertion and, more occasionally, so-called ‘aliens’ who had been identified as a threat to state security. Upholding the stringent wartime regulations imposed by the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) also fell within the remit of local magistrates (who were largely drawn from the ranks of the local establishment) but nothing in its Great War legacy compares to the events that unfolded there in the wake of the conflict. In September 1919, it was the focus for the most serious incident of civil unrest in the post-war reconstruction era.
A Tinder-Dry Climate
In February 1919, former Prisoner of War Horace Tipton appeared in the dock at the Police Court where he was fined 7s.6d for being drunk-and-disorderly. He and another soldier had been asked to leave Sidoli’s cafe in New Street by the owner and, in turn, a police officer — who he assaulted after refusing to do so. During the war years, such incidents were fairly commonplace but it would not be Private Tipton’s last brush with the law in 1919, and his next encounter would prove to have far more wide-reaching consequences.
By the end of September, Tipton, a soldier of the North Lancashire Regiment, had been demobilised and was back home in Wellington again. The backdrop to the events that were about to unfold was provided by the National Railwaymen’s Strike, which had brought the network to a grinding halt. While the nine-day stoppage was notable for its peaceable nature, it nevertheless ramped-up a sense of national foreboding at a time when the State was increasingly fearful of widespread uprising. In this tinder-dry climate, a seemingly minor event on the evening of the last Saturday in September quickly escalated into something decidedly more serious.
The Fish Shop Incident
The trouble began around 8.30pm, when a crowd gathered to watch an altercation between Tipton and the driver of a motor car in High Street, who the defendant claimed had nearly run him down. Of his audience, Tipton said in court (before local justices James Clay, Wesley Clift and Reverend William Nock) ‘I think they were looking for some fun, as they generally do in Wellington’. However, the mood grew increasingly ugly when the party moved to a nearby chip shop, where Tipton became very violent. ‘His conduct’ it was noted in court ‘was made a good deal worse by his mother and others. Instead of helping him they made him worse’.
After being arrested for disturbing the peace (and, once again, assaulting a police officer), Tipton was removed to the station where a large crowd of followers assembled. The arresting officers were hustled as the crowd attempted to free the prisoner but, once they’d got him indoors, events quickly escalated. The doors were besieged and, from the back of the throng, a mob began hurling stones — smashing practically every window in the building.
The Majesty of the Law
Sentencing Tipton (who expressed regret at his part in proceedings) to six weeks in prison, Reverend Nock expressed his sorrow at seeing a ‘young fellow who had served his country in the position he was that day’. Of the culprits who had attacked the police station, tried to rush the police officers and free the prisoner, ‘they had committed a far more serious offence’ and ‘outraged the Majesty of the law’. ‘When identified’, said the Judge, ‘they will be dealt with as their conduct deserves’.
So far as our research has revealed, the identity of those culprits was never established. Of Horace Tipton, the Wellington Journal reflected that six weeks in jail would give him plenty of time ‘to realise the folly of his conduct’. Yet, just months earlier the local paper had conducted a high-profile fundraising campaign for former prisoners of war who, it was widely agreed, had endured dreadful conditions during their captivity. When they arrived back in Wellington, little in the way of support was available to them, save for the fledgling Comrades of the Great War group, who were struggling (with practically no official help) to find premises for their activities. It seems only the local YMCA was taking an active role in their ongoing care (having, it was claimed by the organisation in 1919, driven itself into debt feeding POWs). A period of wider reflection by all concerned may in fact have been the correct response under the circumstances!