TAKING REFUGE IN CHURCH

Meanwhile the mounted contingent continued their pursuit, driving all before them into Duncannon Street. Frightened men and women sought refuge in St. Martin’s Church, and old men and women, and in one case a man with only one leg, were helped over the high railings which surround the building so that they might be out of harm’s way. The crowd around the church momentarily became denser. It was impossible for more than a fraction of those who were being pressed back up the stairs and against the railing to reach safety, and while the mounted police were manoeuvring in the road, foot constables were pressing forward through the masses wedged together on the pavements.

There was a good deal of shouting and protesting, but under no pretext whatever were any of the public – demonstrators, or people caught up accidentally in the vortex – allowed to retain a foothold. Similar scenes were being enacted on the opposite side of the road, near to the George Washington statue, and in the failing light it was just possible to make out struggling masses of men high up towards St. Martin’s Lane in one direction, and in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross in the other. In all directions the crowd was pressed back until the square and its approaches were cleared.

During the disturbance the traffic was, of course, held up, and motor ’buses filled with workers returning home were caught in the stampede. The police made a number of arrests. Two policemen are reported to have been knocked down by a horse, and several constables to have been injured, one rather severely by a bottle which was broken on his head.

It was in the early afternoon that the demonstrators assembled on the Embankment. They came from all parts of London, and when the procession moved off, it was with the intention of marching to Spring-gardens, where the London County Council was holding its special meeting to deal with unemployment. The police, however, refused the men permission to approach Trafalgar-square.