Tottenham Outrage

The robbery, of workers' wages from the Schnurmann rubber factory, was carried out by Paul Helfeld and Jacob Lepidus, Jewish Latvian immigrants.

A joint funeral for the two victims—Police Constable William Tyler and Ralph Joscelyne, a ten-year-old boy—was attended by a crowd of up to half a million mourners, including 2,000 policemen.

This affected public sentiment after another armed robbery by Latvian immigrants in December 1910, which resulted in the murder of three policemen; the events culminated in the siege of Sidney Street.

In the 19th century the Russian Empire, then including Latvia, was home to about five million Jews, the largest Jewish community in the world at the time.

The popular press reflected the opinions of many;[9] a leading article in the Manchester Evening Chronicle supported the bill to bar "the dirty, destitute, diseased, verminous and criminal foreigner who dumps himself on our soil".

[10] The journalist Robert Winder, in his examination of immigration into Britain, opines that the Act "gave official sanction to xenophobic reflexes which might ... have remained dormant".

[15] On 1 May 1907 Paul Lepidus was killed when a bomb he was carrying to assassinate Armand Fallières, the President of France, exploded prematurely.

He participated in the 1905 Russian Revolution and afterwards helped to build resistance groups in Saint Petersburg—then the capital of Imperial Russia—and the area now covered by the Baltic states.

At the same time every week Schnurmann's chauffeur, Joseph Wilson, drove to a bank in nearby Hackney with Albert Keyworth, a 17-year-old office boy.

[27] As the two gunmen ran down the street, other members of the public joined the chase, as did several off-duty policemen from the station—none carrying firearms—some on foot, but some having commandeered bicycles from passers-by.

One round broke the car's water pipe, disabling it, and Wilson received a minor wound to the neck; Newman's cheek and ear were damaged by one shot.

Men who had been duck shooting on the marshes used their shotguns to return fire and when the two criminals moved on from the bridge, local footballers joined in the chase.

He crossed the nearby railway line and took refuge in Oak Cottage, a small two-up two-down where a Mrs Rolstone and her children were present.

[29][31][39] The incident had lasted over two hours and covered a distance of six miles (10 km); Helfeld and Lepidus had fired an estimated 400 rounds of ammunition.

[15] The coroner in the Walthamstow inquest described Lepidus as a "secret revolutionary agent", and said that the law would have to change to stop such criminal elements entering Britain.

Although Constable Eagles believed he had fired the shot that killed Lepidus, the round extracted from the dead man's head indicated otherwise.

[15] When the verdict was given, it was for the wilful murder of PC Tyler by Helfeld, for which the coroner used the authority of his court to commit the Latvian to trial.

[42] Joscelyne and Tyler's joint funeral was held on 29 January 1909, attended by Sir Edward Henry, the Commissioner of Police, and Herbert Samuel, Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department.

[43] The cortège passed along a two-and-a-half mile (four km) route lined by 2,000 police officers and a large crowd, estimated at up to 500,000.

They were escorted by policemen, a police band, men from the local fire brigade, a contingent from Royal Garrison Artillery and tramway employees.

[52] On her death, the capital sum of the money raised for her was paid to the Metropolitan and City of London Police orphanage fund.

[53][54][i] The King's Police Medal was established by a Royal Warrant, dated 7 July 1909, to recognise the bravery of the officers who had pursued Lepidus and Helfeld.

[61] A cross was carved into a wall where PC Tyler was shot,[62] and a plaque in his memory was installed at Tottenham police station.

[63] A blue plaque in memory of Joscelyne was placed at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Tottenham,[64] and one indicating the end of the chase at the approximate site of Oak Cottage (now destroyed).

[65] Following the events at Tottenham, Sir Edward Henry set up a board to examine compensation claims made by members of the public.

These changes had not been implemented by the end of December 1910, when a group of Latvian revolutionaries undertook an attempted break-in at a jewellery shop, which led to the siege of Sidney Street.

[70] Although there was some initial confusion about the backgrounds of Helfeld and Lepidus—The Star reported that they were Italians—the actions of the two men led to a debate on immigration control.

[71] In early February 1909 Herbert Gladstone, the Liberal Home Secretary defended the Asquith government's record on immigration, citing the number of foreign dissidents who had been expelled from Britain for criminal activity.

[72] The popular press reported the case extensively, and some newspapers, particularly The Daily Mail, focused on attacking the Aliens Act 1905, blaming it for being too open and making it too easy to enter the country.

[53] In December 1909, during the events that led to the siege, a leading article in The Times described the Whitechapel area as one that: harbours some of the worst alien anarchists and criminals who seek our too hospitable shore.