BLOODY SUNDAY

At around 4pm on Sunday, 13 November 1887, several marches converged on Trafalgar Square in support of the unemployed, and the imprisoned Irish nationalist and editor of United Ireland, William O’Brien MP. Public meetings in the square had been banned, and it was ringed by policemen, supported by the Life Guards, displaying fixed bayonets. Graham had been scheduled to speak at the rally, but finding his way barred, in a reckless, but certainly premeditated act, he charged the police cordon arm in arm with fellow socialist, John Burns, followed by between seventy and a hundred others, and was severely beaten. Sir Edward Reed MP wrote the following account in the Pall Mall Gazette:

Graham, Burns, and Hyndman were taken to Bow Street Magistrate’s Court and charged with ‘Unlawful assembly, assault of the police, along with other evil-disposed persons, thereby endangering public peace.’ Their trial, which began on 16 January 1888, lasted three days, during which several witnesses testified that hitherto the rally had been orderly, and that Graham, who was defended in court by the future Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, had not assaulted the police. Immediately prior to sentencing, Graham was reported to have ‘divided his attention between bowing to his friends in the body of the Court, arranging his luxuriant locks, and admiring the brilliant bouquet which he displayed in his button-hole’. Graham and Burns were found guilty of unlawful assembly, and were sentenced to six weeks in prison, without hard labour, while Hyndman was acquitted on all charges. (At this time, Graham still held the office of Justice of the Peace in three counties, and was Deputy- Lieutenant of Dunbartonshire.) William Morris wrote of the event: ‘His conduct will long be remembered, one would hope, by lovers of freedom; but he must expect for some time to come to be a pariah among M.P.s.