CROYDON CHRONICLES: Mobs of young people roaming the streets, stealing from shops and terrorising the neighbourhood – just an everyday episode in Croydon, not from last month but during the Edwardian era.
DAVID MORGAN delves into the Minster archive

The “flash mob”, mass shoplifting incidents menacing business and the public in Clapham and elsewhere in London this month are nothing new.

In April 1911, Croydon’s local papers were full of what was described as the “Croydon Saturnalia”. Chief Inspector Mackay of the Croydon police, appearing before the borough’s magistrates’ court, remarked on the increasing rowdiness of mobs of dozens of young men crowding the pavements, intimidating passers-by and boarding trams without paying.

Long-standing problem: newspaper report from 1911

This disorder often occurred on Sunday evenings around 11pm, when crowds flocked out of the Music Halls, the cinemas and pubs. The police were obliged to put two extra officers on the streets in an effort to restore order and reassure the public.

The owner of one business near Poplar Walk told the police that that area of Croydon on a Sunday evening was definitely to be avoided. He deplored the way in which young men behaved, forcing women to step back from boarding trams while they got on before them. He wanted a queuing system to be put in place, like they had in London, and enforced by plain clothes police officers.

Other witnesses spoke of the way that young men and women walked up and down the High Street often gesturing and jeering whenever any member of the public spoke to them about their behaviour.

“North End and Katharine Street on a Sunday evening are a disgrace to the borough,” said Sydney Edridge, the Clerk to the Borough Justices. He blamed the poor behaviour on two factors. The prime cause was home life and environment and the second was ignorance.

Citing an example of a girl under 16 applying for a summons against the alleged father of her child, Edridge continued his outburst: “Juvenile immorality is a terrible and growing evil.”

In May 1911, a crowd estimated to be as large as 300 to 400 people in North End gathered, again on a Sunday evening, when a man was arrested for being drunk and disorderly. A further arrest occurred when a second man kept shouting out to the drunk to resist the arrest.

In court, the man arrested for being drunk and disorderly complained that the police called him a “North End Hooligan”.

Hooligans: in late Victorian London, there was a growing problem with gang violence on the streets

The word “hooligan” had come into use in the 1890s, derived from the name of a fictional or real Irish gang, the Hooligans, possibly Houlihans, who ran amok in Lambeth, and became the subject of some popular Music Hall songs around the turn of the 20th Century.

In Croydon, the police inspector told the court that the defendant had previously been arrested three times for assaulting the police. The drunk was sentenced to two months hard labour and the youth who egged him on was given one month’s hard labour.

The chair of the magistrates stated that they did not want Croydon to be a place for people to avoid and that peace must be preserved.

Six years later, in November 1917, it was clear that hooliganism remained a problem in Croydon. Over one weekend there had been various outbreaks of disorder, with six youths appearing in court on a Monday morning charged with insulting behaviour. Fighting had broken out in the crowd and the arresting constable was injured after being kicked.

A group of four, aged from 16 to 24 and who were all in employment, had been seen by a police constable on a Sunday evening in North End with arms linked, shouting and bumping into passers-by who were forced to step out into the road.

In giving evidence, the constable said there was a great deal of horseplay and torch flashing going on in general in North End and that this group was causing a particular nuisance. He said the oldest member of the group, who it was revealed had been discharged from the army, was helping another who was drunk and they were shouting that they should kick in the door of a restaurant on Station Road.

In court, it was said that this group had been warned about their behaviour the previous evening. Each of the four were fined 20 shillings – or £1 (worth about £90 today).

“The public must be protected” declared the Mayor.

‘Rampant hooliganism’: this newspaper cutting is from 1921

Further troubles flared in January 1918. Ten youths were causing a nuisance in the High Street on a Sunday evening when they were approached by a constable and warned about their behaviour. Most dispersed, but two, defiantly, carried on with their shouting and swearing, declaring that, “They’re not coppers”. They were accused of making “vulgar noises”.

After appearing before the magistrates, the two were each fined five shillings (25p) with the deputy mayor telling them that there were too many young people behaving thoughtlessly in the streets at night.

Two 15-year-old girls were up before the magistrates in the same session, accused of similar offences as the youths. Described in the press as “nicely dressed and pleasant-faced girls”, the deputy mayor decided that if they paid four shillings costs each, then no conviction would be recorded against them.

Even into the 1920s, Croydon police still had to deal with situations flaring up in North End. “Rampant hooliganism” was the headline in an edition of the local paper in 1921. It took six policemen to move one prisoner into the cells at the police station because of one particular incidence of violence.

It began, again, with a police arrest which was challenged, a crowd gathered and began to threaten the officers.

At the magistrates’ hearing, Alderman Howard Houlder commented that “hooliganism is rampant in these places on a Sunday evening and hooliganism must be stamped out for the peace of the inhabitants passing along there”.

The magistrates decided that the assault on the police was the most serious offence and the defendant was sent to prison for 14 days with hard labour.

Houlder was outspoken in his views about Croydon young people. “Katharine Street seems to be a place of assignation. There is a want of discipline. Young people are out of hand and it is the duty of the parents to co-operate with the police and the authorities to put a stop to it.”

‘Disgraceful’: Croydon’s hoolies have given headline writers scope for outrage for more than a century

Responses to modern examples of similar behaviour rarely recognise that such conduct is far from new or unusual.

Nobody wants to see law-breaking. No one wants areas of the borough of Croydon to be off-limits because of criminality. How can that be achieved?

Historians, though, will always look back at the evidence from the past to reach a more rounded assessment. Did Alderman Houlder have a point? How can hooliganism be stopped in Croydon today?

You have 45 minutes to write your answer. Please use both sides of the paper.

• David Morgan has been chronicling Croydon’s history for Inside Croydon for almost a decade. Morgan is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster, who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups

If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page

Some previous articles by David Morgan:

• Duke survived death after he hunted with Croydon’s hounds
• The day Dr Bookless took the wicket of the great WG Grace
• From flames to fame, Waddon’s Knox family made their mark
• The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history

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