Inside Croydon

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. Continue reading →