Oldham town: a centre for violence

The Chronicles of Alda — a personal look at 1,000 years of Oldham

ONE of the finest things about my being in spirit these past 1,100 years or so is the pleasure I take from transcending time and being able to view my home town at differing periods of history.

While roaming around some of our public buildings a couple of years ago I overheard several conversations surrounding the same theme — the unruliness and violence which was causing concern in Oldham town centre.

Alda can honestly say that, in all of Oldham’s existence, rarely has he seen such a civilised place.

You do not have to go too far back to discover a town with an absolutely fearsome reputation for violence and drunkenness.

One police court witness in 1870 stated that he had seen more disturbances in Oldham in half an hour than he had seen in 18 years in his native Yorkshire town.

A very illuminating record was left by a Mr Robert Parker, who finished his working days peacefully as registrar of Greenacres Cemetery.

As a young, sturdy and well-built policeman, however, he had commenced his work in the town trying to stem the rising tide of violence.

He had been drafted in from Fleetwood to help police Oldham in 1857. “Oldham was vastly different to Fleetwood,” remarked Mr Parker, “It was a terrible place.”

He described how the area between West Street and Manchester Street had an evil reputation with riots being commonplace on most Saturday nights.

At midnight on Saturdays, all the police officers available would assemble and proceed there to make a clean sweep of the area, using their sticks to beat off the undesirables.

Throughout Victorian Oldham, street fights, fights in public houses, fights with the police and mass household brawls were commonplace in the poorest areas. using the hand-and-foot treatment.

This was where a small gang would set about their victim who was pummelled with the fist and kicked in the head with clogs.

In the mid and late Victorian period, it was the Irish immigrants who were regarded as the poorest members of Oldham’s society and thousands of them lived in the most crowded and squalid circumstances in the worst streets around the town centre.

There was popular resentment towards them with their alien religion (Catholicism) and their wild habits.

The worst mob violence ever seen on the streets of our borough erupted during the Whit Walks of 1861. A procession of Catholic children from St Patrick’s church at Bank Top clashed with a procession of Anglicans in the Market Place and, later that evening, all hell broke loose.

Anti-Catholic riots broke out with the RC churches at Bank Top and Shaw Street being smashed up. The rioting continued for a week and involved 15,000 people.

Attacks against the Irish continued over the years and, in 1868, Irishmen had to gather in large numbers to defend St Mary’s Catholic Church oin Shaw Street (near Blue Coats School) when an angry mob singing “Rule Britannia” laid siege. Such was the damage caused to the church that it had to be rebuilt.

And this is the beauty of history you see; it gives you perspective. From an Oldham perspective, you are very lucky indeed to be living in relatively peaceful times. Long may it continue.

Author’s footnote: The Chronicles of Alda are based on historic fact with a little conjecture and a sprinkling of poetic licence.