Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T07:52:23.422Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - ‘A Spider’s Web of Police Communication’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2021

Get access

Summary

On the afternoon of 14 January 1881, a seven-year-old boy named Richard Clark and his nanny, Mary Ann Nadin, were walking along Tatton Street in Salford, heading towards Oldfield Road to meet the boy's father at his place of business. Passing by the Infantry Barracks, Richard and his companion were suddenly propelled violently by the force of a sharp blaze that pierced through the sullen fog, sending off bits of debris in every direction. After the dirt and snow had settled, an elderly man who had also been walking in the vicinity of the Barracks prior to the explosion, but had luckily escaped unscathed, could see the injured Mrs Nadin wailing over the motionless body of her young ward; Richard had suffered a major head wound and despite the forthcoming medical efforts to revive him, was bleeding to death. A woman later recalled before an inquest that shortly before the explosion she had seen ‘two men [stopping] on the footpath next the barrack wall, and one of them struck a match. They then stood for a few minutes with their faces to the wall, and afterwards walked off… after [which] she saw a light against the wall, and sparks falling from it.’

The two men were never found or even properly identified (a local publican had told police he had encountered two suspicious ‘Yankee-Irishmen’ carrying equally suspicious packages only hours before the explosion), but in Salford and Westminster alike little doubt remained as to who was responsible for the outrage. Only ten days prior, the War Office had issued orders to volunteer regiments in Liverpool and Manchester to deposit their armaments in ‘a place of safety’ as information deemed credible suggested ‘an organised attempt would be made by some disaffected portion of the population to seize the arms stored… in the district’. That ‘disaffected portion’ was a euphemism for the sympathizers and agents of the umbrella organization known as the Fenians, which at the time comprised the Irish-based Irish Republican Brotherhood, its American offshoots, viz. the Fenian Brotherhood and the Clan na Gael, as well as satellite groupuscules like the United Irishmen of America.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×