A Devilish Kind of Courage: Anarchists, Aliens and the Siege of Sidney Street

(Hardback)

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On 3 January 1911, in the heart of London's mainly Jewish East End, police discovered Latvian revolutionaries wanted for the murder of three officers. A six-hour gunfight ensued, with a fire consuming the besieged building. Winston Churchill, then Home Secretary, arrived at the scene and ordered the blaze not to be extinguished. Afterwards two charred bodies were found; the elusive Peter the Painter, believed to have been the ringleader, remained at large. This gripping episode, known as the 'Siege of Sidney Street', was a nationwide sensation and ignited fierce debates on immigration to Britain, political extremism and law enforcement. This book unravels the full story of the siege, the Latvian emigres and their ties to the vibrant anarchist movement in London's East End.

Reviews

"Whitehead has written a vivid and authoritative account of a stand-out event in the always turbulent history of London's East End. A Devilish Kind of Courage is an accomplished piece of historical research and a story wonderfully well told - combing police archives, trial records, Yiddish language anarchist papers and even the memoirs of a notorious East End criminal. It places the account of gun-toting desperadoes, migrs from the Tsarist Russian Empire against the background of an intense debate about the large numbers of near destitute immigrants from Eastern Europe - a controversy that still resonates to this day. The book also brings to the fore the unsettling story of three women caught up in the Siege of Sidney Street and subsequent trial."--Rachel Lichtenstein, author of 'On Brick Lane'
"A fascinating, forgotten story told in rich, evocative detail. A Devilish Kind of Courage provides a vivid portrayal of the East End of London in the early years of the twentieth century, and of the tumultuous rise and fall of the anarchist movement in Britain."--Sam Miller, author of 'Migrants: The Story of Us All'

Author Bio

Andrew Whitehead is a historian and lecturer with over thirty years of experience in public broadcasting, including as editor of the BBC World Service. His publications include Curious Crouch End.