The scuttlers and the police who fought back
When the scuttler Henry Burgess waged a one-man terror campaign on the streets of Manchester, only one man was brave enough to stop him
The police officers who patrolled the streets during Victorian Manchester’s scuttling epidemic took their lives in their hands every time they went on the beat.
In the 1890s, gangs of feral boys and girls were engaged in a fierce war with youths in rival neighbourhoods.
Known as scuttlers because of the way they scuttled spider-like across the pavements armed with knives and fire irons, they were unafraid of attacking even the constables who tried to lock them up.
A scuttler named James Gallagher, who was known as the Red King, was charged with attacking Constable McDermott in Style Street, Angel Meadow.
The officer was marching a prisoner to the police station on a Saturday night when Gallagher gave him a “terrible blow” on the head with an iron bar.
Five months later later, another “rough looking” youth named George Cooper kicked a police officer in the legs and bit another’s hand while he was being arrested.
It took four constables to drag him to the station.
In Ancoats, Ned Lynch knocked out a policeman he said he had a grudge against after seeing a blue uniform guarding a street corner in the dark.
It was only in the light of the gas jets at Kirby Street Police Station that he realised he had attacked the wrong officer.
The worst attack of all came when Constable Stanislaus Brierley got into a fight with a gang in Sharp Street.
The poor officer’s eye was kicked clean out of his head — but his attacker was acquitted even though the prosecutor showed Brierley’s eyeball to the jury in a glass jar.
Magistrates and MPs went to London to try to get the Home Secretary to allow them to flog the youths to try to stop the attacks, only to be told to put more officers on the streets.
It added insult to injury, but the police in Manchester took matters into their own hands and soon began fighting fire with fire.
In 1894, one of the most feared Manchester scuttlers was named Henry Burgess.
The previous year he had escaped a hanging after killing a man by setting him on fire with a paraffin lantern.
Now he was on the streets late at night armed with a “formidable knife” and a fire poker looking for a policeman to attack.
In Angel Street, he spied an officer named William Corns and shouted: “Your time has come, Corns. I’m going to put you out this very night.”
But despite the danger, Corns stood his ground. He swung at Burgess with his staff and missed before suffering a heavy blow from the poker.
Burgess ran off, removing his clogs so he could run silently through the streets, and set up an ambush in a nearby back alley.
When Corns went passed he jumped out and hit him again with the poker.
But the officer got the better of him this time.
He aimed a good shot with his baseball bat-like staff into the side of Burgess’s skull and knocked him down.
What the Home Secretary thought of the police officer’s actions went unrecorded, but Manchester’s magistrates were more than impressed with the outcome.
In court, it was revealed that Burgess had been waging a terror campaign on the streets and had 40 convictions for manslaughter, burglary, police assaults and scuttling.
Robert Armitage, the chairman of the bench, said a longer criminal record had not been read out before in his courtroom.
Thinking perhaps of what had happened to Stanislaus Brierley, the magistrate told William Corns he had “nobly done his duty”.
“You are, sir,” he said, “an honour to the force”.
The Manc History Hotlist
Here’s your weekly curated list of history-related things to do around Greater Manchester…
📕 The Working Class Movement Library is holding a fundraising event at Maxwell Hall, Salford University, from 2pm to 5pm on Sunday 24 November called Radical Readings: The Conditions of the Working Class. It will feature readings that capture the history of working class struggle from performers including Maxine Peake and Julie Hesmondhalgh. Tickets £15 (plus £1.96 booking fee).
🏠 Elizabeth Gaskell’s House is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its restoration. There’s a new exhibition on at the house telling the story of the restoration work, with oral history interviews from some of the people involved. Tickets are included in the house admission price — £8.50 with concessions.
🦉 There’s only a month left to visit Gallery Oldham to see the Incomplete History of Oldham in 175 Objects exhibition. It’s been in place for 2024 to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the borough of Oldham. Exhibits include some of the gems from the gallery’s art and natural history collections — including a pet wasp. Free.
🪧 A century on from the first anti-fascist action in the UK, the People’s History Museum has an exhibition on the continuing story of resistance to fascism from the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 to the Rock Against Racism Movement in the 1970s and 1980s and beyond with ceramics, photographs and badges. Free.
And here’s what I’ve been watching this week…
📺 Blitz Cities on BBC iPlayer tells the story of the Second World War Blitz on Britain from the perspective of the people who lived through it and with celebrities including actors Ricky Tomlinson and David Harewood flying over their home cities of Liverpool and Birmingham to find out how and why they were targeted by the Luftwaffe. It’s an emotional watch that brings to life events that took place 84 years ago.
Mill of the Month
November’s Mill of the Month is not one but three connected mills that form the Mutual Mills complex in Heywood, Greater Manchester.
They were built for the Mutual Spinning Company between 1884 and 1914, with a weaving shed added in the late 1920s.
Heywood was the 15th largest centre for cotton spinning in the country and, in their heyday, the Mutual Mills ran 246,000 spindles.
With their Italianate corner towers with their tall arched windows, the mills still rise majestically above the terraced houses.
But today, like a lot of former mills around Manchester, they are being used for storage rather than spinning cotton.
* Mill of the Month celebrates the beauty and grandeur of Greater Manchester’s old cotton mills. If you have a mill in your local area you think should appear here, email me at manchesterhistoryclub@gmail.com and I’ll feature it in a future edition of the newsletter.
Thank you
Thank you for continuing to read this newsletter — your support is really helping me to keep it going — and I hope you found this week’s story interesting.
I’m currently working on a long-term project about the scuttlers and have put out a call for information from scuttler relatives.
If you have any Ancoats scuttlers in your family history and know any stories about them, I’d love to hear from you.
You can drop me a line at manchesterhistoryclub@gmail.com.
I’ve recently stopped my walking tours for this year to focus on my family history research work.
If you know anyone who might be looking for a professional family history researcher, check out my website here. There are now some reviews on there from customers if you want to take a look.
I’ve also been keeping busy by recently taking on a new role as history session leader for Burnage Local History Group.
Oh, and I’ll have some exciting news soon about a new tour I’m planning for next year.
Have a great weekend!
Dangerous times in Manchester!
Thank you Dean for this info on the Scuttlers. Manchester was certainly not somewhere you would just walk around in. during the 19th century. What brave police officers as well.