by Neil Storey
On the same day a poster showing a photo of Gardstein (an image created by making his corpse presentable and ‘life like’ in the mortuary) offering a £500 reward for information on his known accomplices – Fritz Svaars, a man known only as ‘Peter the Painter’ and an unnamed woman of whom police only had a description and no name – was supplied.
The wanted poster issued for Gardstein’s accomplices in the Houndsditch Murders.
Inspector Wensley relating how Sergeant Leeson was shot, at the coroner’s enquiry into the Siege of Sidney Street.
From this appeal a man came forward who recognised Gardstein as his lodger at 44 Gold Street. What the police discovered there was described in the press as ‘The Stepney Bomb Factory’, reported to include ‘materials suitable for the manufacture of bombs, a supply of deadly acids, cartridges sufficient to kill crowds and a quantity of anarchist literature.’
The break the police had been waiting for came on the bitterly cold evening of 1 January 1911. Charles Perelman, who had been the gang’s original landlord when they took rooms at Great Garden Street and Wellesley Street, came forward with information that gang member William Sokolow, known to most simply as ‘Joseph’, had an association with a Mrs Betty Gershon and that since the Houndsditch Murders Joseph and Fritz Svaars and had been hiding out in Gershon’s room at No. 100 Sidney Street.
Detective Inspector Wensley was not going to lose a moment; despite the driving gusts of sleet and snow all officers at his disposal were mobilized and despatched post haste to Sidney Street – the seriousness of the situation was reflected by the order that no married officers were required.
At 2.30 a.m. the first police contingent arrived at Sidney Street – a typical East London street of shops, pubs and houses between Mile End Road and Commercial Road. The building believed to harbour the suspects was one of a block of four-storey, red-brick houses built in 1900. By 3 a.m. over 200 officers were deployed, No. 100 Sidney Street was sealed off and adjacent buildings evacuated. The police officers then investigated No. 100. Gaining access via the landlord and landlady, the police soon found Mrs Gershon, who had been asleep in a stock room, dressed only in her petticoat – she explained the men had refused to leave and had made her take off her skirt and boots so she could not run away. She was removed to City Police headquarters.
The room containing the gang members was very difficult to access. Superintendent Mulvaney recorded:
The measurements of the passage and staircase (staircase was 3½ft wide) will show how futile any attempt to storm or rush the place would have been… The passage at one discharge would have been blocked by fallen men; had any even reached the stairs, it could only have been by climbing over the bodies of their comrades… had they even done this the two desperadoes could retreat up the staircase to the first and second story, on each of which, what had occurred below would have been repeated.
There was also the problem that, by law, the police could not open fire on the room unless they had been fired upon first.
With a rush of the room out of the question the decision was taken to evacuate No. 100 Sidney Street; police snipers were placed in the buildings opposite and they waited for the dawn. As news got out of the police action, curious locals began to cluster against the police cordons. Shortly after 7.30 a.m., as the early morning light began to fill the grey sky and the sleet had turned to rain, the police decided to attract the attention of their quarry. Stationing themselves opposite No. 100 Sidney Street, in an alley which led to a wood yard, Sergeant Weston ran across the road to hammer on the still open door of No. 100 and then ran back again. Wensley then ordered stones to be thrown at the second-floor windows. Still there was no reaction. Then a copper picked up a brick and threw it, smashing a pane of glass – that did the trick. Half a dozen shots rang out at the police officers in the alley – one shot went through one of the detectives’ bowler hats, but unfortunately, Sergeantt Ben Leeson was hit in the chest by another. The policemen retreated with their injured comrade to the wood yard. His wound was thought to be serious – indeed Leeson thought it a mortal wound – and as he lay on the floor tended by his colleagues, he said: ‘Mr Wensley, I am dying. They have shot me through the heart. Goodbye. Give my love to the children. Bury me at Putney.’
Dr Nelson Johnston was sent for from his surgery on Mile End Road. As he crossed Sidney Street a bullet buzzed past him, and only after a difficult and dangerous journey over walls and low roofs was he able to get to Leeson. Dr Johnston treated the wounds as best he could but he knew if Leeson was to stand a chance of survival he had to be taken to hospital. What followed was a brave evacuation of Leeson by stretcher as the shots continued to ring out, pinging off masonry, shattering plaster and windows and whizzing through the air. As they reached the last roof the group, including Dr Johnstone and Detective Inspector Wensley, were pinned down by fire: the doctor was grazed by a bullet, however the still conscious Leeson was not going to allow his comrades to risk their lives anymore and he selflessly rolled off the stretcher and was assisted into the yard by officers below and removed to the London Hospital, where he later recovered from his wounds.
Portraits of the people involved, and scenes from, the Houndsditch Murders and Siege of Sidney Street.
By this time about an hour had passed and still the bullets rang out. Wensley knew it was time for decisive action and sent word to his superiors and via the Home Office: Home Secretary Winston Churchill gave permission for troops to be despatched from the Tower and soon set off to apprise himself of the situation on Sidney Street in person.
A rifle platoon consisting of Lieutenant Ross, two NCOs and seventeen men of the Scots Guards were despatched from the Tower. Also present was the reporter J.P. Eddy, who recalled the soldiers arriving shortly after 10 a.m.:
I can now recall their smart and businesslike appearance which they presented and the sense of confidence which they at once imparted. Boards intended for the display of newspaper posters were borrowed from newsagents, and on these the soldiers lay at each end of the street. They were quickly on the mark, firing diagonally at No. 100.
Lying on newspaper advert boards, the Scots Guards fire at the ‘Anarchist’s Fort’ at No. 100 Sidney Street.
To be precise, the Scots Guards were deployed three on the corner with Oxford Street, two at the end of Hawkins Street, two on Lindley Street corner and three at the Mile End Road end of Sidney Street. Guardsmen were also positioned in Mann & Crossman’s brewery in the positions previously occupied by the police marksmen, as well as other buildings opposite or with clear sight of No. 100. The soldiers were soon pouring rapid fire into the second-floor rooms of No. 100, forcing those inside down to the first and ground floors, and by maintaining regular fire reduced those firing out to the occasional shot or burst of fire. Between 11 a.m. and 12 noon the soldiers were augmented by a further sixty police armed with shotguns and revolvers. A gunsmith also arrived with his stock of shotguns and ammunition, which was handed out to those police officers with military experience.
The scene was well observed by reporters, a number of whom (including J.P. Eddy and Philip Gibbs, later knighted for his work as a correspondent during the First World War) had paid a sovereign to the enterprising landlord of the nearby Rising Sun public house for a commanding view of the street. Indeed, Gibbs was later to recall: ‘On that morning when Eddy and I stood under fire-bullets were ricocheting off the walls around us – we were, I remember, extraordinarily careless of any danger.’ Another reporter present was Joseph Meaney, who was so proud of the bullet hole through the tail of his overcoat that he refused to have it mended.
The Daily Chronicle reporter evocatively recorded what he saw from the roof as the gunmen exchanged fire with the Guards:
Carefully does it: Scots Guards marksmen choose their moment from their vantage point in a building opposite No. 100 Sidney Street.
The police and soldiers doing their duty on Sidney Street: note the nurse on stand-by in the crowd and the loca
ls and newspaper reporters gathering on the window ledges.
Plan of the Siege of Sidney Street.
Bullets were raining upon it [No. 100]. As I looked I saw how they spat at the walls, how they ripped splinters from the wall, how they made neat grooves as they burrowed into the red bricks, or chipped off corners of them. The noise of battle was tremendous and almost continuous. The heavy barking reports of army rifles were followed by the sharp and lighter cracks of pistol shots. Some of the weapons had a shrill singing noise, and others were like children’s pop guns. Most terrible and deadly in sound was the rapid fire of the Scots Guards, shot speeding on shot, as though a Gatling gun were at work. Then there would come a sudden lull, as though a bugle had sounded ‘cease fire,’ followed by a silence, intense and strange, after the ear-splitting din.
It reopened again when a few moments later there came the spitting fire of an automatic pistol… From my vantage point I could see how the assassins changed the position from which they fired. The idea that only two men were concealed within that arsenal seemed disproved by the extreme rapidity with which their shots came from one floor and another. As I watched, gripped by the horror and drama of it, I saw a sharp stabbing flash break through the garret window. The man’s weapon must have been over the edge of the window sill. He emptied his magazine, spitting out the shots at the house opposite, from which picked marksmen of the Scots Guards replied with instant volleys. A minute later by my watch shots began to pour through the second floor window, and before the echo of them had died away there was a fusillade from the ground floor.
So this amazing duel went on, as a distant clock chimed the quarters and half hours. From 11 o’clock until 12.30 there were not scores or hundreds of shots fired, but thousands. It seemed the assassins had an almost inexhaustible supply of ammunition.
Home Secretary Winston Churchill (furthest forward man wearing a top hat) comes to see the ‘Battle of Stepney’ for himself.
At around noon Winston Churchill, the Home Secretary, arrived and took up a position on the corner of Hawkins Street, less than 100 yards from the fighting. He was apprised of the situation and discussed plans for breaking the siege with the senior officers present. Suggestions of breaking through the walls of the adjoining property or dropping through the roof into No. 100 were considered. Churchill himself thought a search should be made of local foundries for a large steel plate which could cover officers as they rushed the building; another story told of a suggestion to bring in a field gun and pound the building to the ground.
But all these discussions were to be proved purely academic when, shortly after 1 p.m., the cry of ‘Fire!’ was heard from among the onlookers. Smoke and a lick of flame were spotted coming out of a garret window and within minutes the flames came through the roof as the house went up like a tinder box. Station Officer Edwards, in charge of the Bethnal Green fire engine, arrived at the scene, but was stopped by police. At Churchill’s personal intervention they were ordered to stand fast. Within the hour the house had been engulfed in flames and smoke; soon the roof and floors collapsed within, sending masonry and burning timbers showering onto the street.
At this stage it was almost certain that no one could have survived the inferno. Detectives, revolvers in hand, cautiously approached No. 100. One of them kicked the door in: he was met by a wall of fire and a belch of flame. Further checks were made that none of the ‘anarchists’ had broken through the adjoining walls before the fire brigade was finally allowed to train their hoses on the fire and douse the flames. But even then No. 100 was a house of death, for as a party of firemen moved in to begin sifting through the debris, part of the building collapsed, injuring five firemen – one of them, Charles Pearson, fatally.
At 1 p.m. the cry of ‘Fire!’ was heard from among the onlookers on Sidney Street as smoke and a lick of flame were spotted coming out of a garret window.
Once it was almost certain that no one could have survived the fire, detectives, revolvers in hand, cautiously approached No. 100.
The fire brigade are finally allowed to train their hoses on the fire and douse the flames. But even then No. 100 was still a house of death for as a party of firemen moved in to begin the sift of the debris part of the building collapsed injuring five firemen – one of them fatally.
Among the cinders of the fire-scorched remnants, the bodies of those believed to be Svaars and Joseph were discovered. The remains of Svaars still had his Mauser pistol close by (this relic was later displayed at the headquarters of the City Police at Old Jewry). Joseph was discovered among the debris of the collapsed first floor. He was known to have walked with a pronounced limp, and when his bones were uncovered they were deduced to be his as ‘the shaft of the femur showed a circular elevation − probably the site of a former fracture.’ This relic was displayed at the Medico-Legal Collection of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, but is believed to have been destroyed after the bombing of the building where the collection was housed in 1941.
So ended the Siege of Sidney Street, also known as the Battle of Stepney. The international press, who clearly had no understanding of the climate of fear surrounding anarchists, which, rightly or wrongly, had built up in London, spoke of overkill. The captured gang members identified as being involved in the Houndsditch Murders were brought to trial, but were faced by weak cases against them and the charges failed to stick; the men walked free. Nina Vassilleva faced two years imprisonment with hard labour for harbouring a felon, but even this was quashed by the court of appeal on the grounds of misdirection of the jury by the judge.
A policeman guards the entrance to the burnt-out shell of No. 100 Sidney Street.
Postcards, photographs, newspapers and supplements recording the Siege of Sidney Street sold in their thousands – ‘The Battle with the London Anarchists’ is a rare surviving example. (Steward P. Evans)
After the battle the search continued for the elusive and enigmatic ‘Peter the Painter’.
Still, some shadowy gang members were believed to remain at large, but only one truly caught the public’s imagination – Peter Piatkow, alias the enigmatically named ‘Peter the Painter’ (this nickname came from his work as a painter and decorator, not because he was a man known for any real artistic inclinations). Undoubtedly a member of the gang, his role and significance within it has become exaggerated out of all proportion. Like infamous predecessors Spring-Heeled Jack and Jack the Ripper, the mystique of ‘Peter the Painter’ caught the moment through a heady blend of his involvement with criminal acts of national concern and his strong, handsome features which adorned many a wanted poster and newspaper. Spiced with the ‘exotic’ mystery of his past life and travels across Europe, the public’s fascination with this tall, dark and mysterious man endured – he even had a certain seductive appeal, particularly among certain young and impressionable women drawn to bad men.
As a consequence, the media interest lingered on him. Because of the intense public interest, newspaper reports scrabbled for news of sightings and supposed narrow escapes, adding yet more to his air of daring and mystery. This elusive ‘Scarlet Pimpernel’ character acquired quite a folk-hero status, and despite his name being on many lips – and being sought here and sought there – he was never caught.
Heroes of the Siege of Sidney Street gather for the camera.
Another crime persistently entangled with the Houndsditch Murders and Siege of Sidney Street is the murder of Leon Beron, a Russian Jew who had come to Whitechapel from France and was beaten to death with a blunt object, probably an iron bar or ‘burglar’s jemmy’. He was also stabbed and robbed. His body was found among bushes on Clapham Common at about 7.30 a.m. on New Year’s Day in 1911. This association was made more acute as accounts of Beron’s murder appeared cheek by jowl with the reports of the Siege of Sidney Street, and one of the senior investigating officers was Inspector Wensley (who had led the investigation of the Houndsditch Murders and had a high-profile role at the Sidney Street siege). The temptati
on to find some association between the crimes was irresistible. Beron’s killer was in fact a convicted burglar on ticket-of-leave named Steinie Morrison (29), and it was far more likely that he was motivated more by greed than politics and killed Beron for his money.
However, certain mysteries remained, notably the curious ‘S’ shapes cut into Beron’s face. The conjecture over their supposed significance or symbolism was widely reported and discussed in the newspapers after the publication of the inquest findings. An exchange at the Central Criminal Court trial between Mr Edward Abinger, Morrison’s tenacious defence counsel, and Joseph Needham, W Division’s Police Surgeon, went as follows:
Abinger: Do you agree that the symmetrical cuts on the face were extraordinarily like two S’s?
Needham: Yes, that is so. I think I described them as being rather like the ‘f’ holes of the violin, on each side of the strings.
