Walsall Anarchists

[1] Recent research into police files has revealed that the bombings were instigated by Auguste Coulon, an agent provocateur of Special Branch Inspector William Melville, who would go on to become an early official of what became MI5.

Following the trial, a number of other anarchists including Victor Cails, Fred Charles, William Ditchfield, John Westley and Jean Battola, were also arrested and jointly charged with manufacturing explosives.

[7] A further person named McCormack, who had been recently expelled from the socialist club in Walsall, offered to become an informant for the police, who soon decided he was unreliable.

After being arrested under charges of public intoxication, he promptly declared in court next day that the police had employed him to fabricate evidence against the Walsall Anarchists.

[12] The case aroused media attention, particularly around two texts: the Means of Emancipation and The Anarchist Feast at The Opera – the latter described how the maximum amount of damage could be done to an opera house by rupturing its gas supply and leaving incendiary devices in the seats, while the miscreant could make their escape.

The climate of the trial was not conducive to a sober consideration of the facts – The Anarchist Feast at The Opera was read out as if it were the views of the defendants.

Although the judge denied he was punishing them for being anarchists, The Times was more to the point:[16] The offence with which the prisoners were charged is one of the most dastardly and wicked which it is possible to conceive.