Call for calm during melon melee doesn’t bear fruit

The Dundee fruit riot of 1906 had no political or social purpose.

Unlike the meal riot of 90 years earlier, it was not a reaction to hunger or rising prices.

Instead, the fruit riot was simply the product of indolence and holiday boredom. It resulted in a swaying crowd of thousands of roughs overrunning stalls at Lady Mary Fair, using melons as footballs and trampling apples underfoot.

The crowd had sensed there was going be trouble that August day but when it did not prove to be as exciting as hoped, they created their own.

The background was a stand-off between shopkeepers and itinerant market traders.

Shopkeepers did not like losing trade to the “hucksters” so brought up the market stances outside their premises on High Street and began selling goods. When the marketmen arrived they were told to set up shop elsewhere.

Some complied but police considered the alignment of their stalls constituted an obstruction. Scuffles broke out and police arrested three of them.

One unoccupied stall remained and as the market superintendent waited for the owner to return, a vast crowd gathered to watch the showdown. He did not turn up so the stall was wheeled away.

Denied of action, “a desire for mischief suddenly seized them”, The Courier reported. As one body, the crowd turned on the stalls of shopkeepers.

The first belonged to a chemist and bottles of toothcleaning liquid were stolen and showered on the crowd. The stall was levelled and the rioters targeted a jeweller’s booth next. Shop staff managed to rescue the valuables and this incensed the crowd, which was propelled into a savage delirium.

The full force of its combined anger was then directed at a greengrocer’s stall. It was stripped of melons, apples and grapes. Melons were purloined and used as footballs while apples were ground into the dirt.

Police tried to guard the stall but could do little to quell a crowd in the grip of such heightened frenzy.

While urchins threaded their way through the crowd to gather fallen fruit, the Salvation Army made a vain call for calm.

“A desire for mischief suddenly seized them

Chris Ferguson