Skeleton Army - Confrontation

Confrontation

On Sunday, August 17, 1884, the police, the Salvation Army and the Skeletons confronted each other. For an hour the police kept the peace, then the Skeletons rioted. The area was filled with screaming men, brick dust and broken glass. The Salvationists returned to their "barracks" and the Skeletons tried to burn it down. The landlord of the barracks, George Head, defended his property and the people there with a revolver, wounding several Skeletons.

George Scott Railton, second in command of the Salvation Army, by contrast, claimed the Skeleton Army first started in Weston-super-Mare in 1881. There in 1882 Captain William Beatty was given a three months prison sentence by the magistrates for a breach of the peace. The action was reported by The Times; at the appeal hearing it was stated that the Skeleton Army was founded in Weston-super-Mare.

The 'Bethnal Green Eastern Post' (November 1882) stated:

A genuine rabble of "roughs" pure and unadulterated has been infesting the district for several weeks past. These vagabonds style themselves the 'Skeleton Army'.... The 'skeletons' have their collectors and their collecting sheets and one of them was thrust into my hands... it contained a number shopkeepers' names... I found that publicans, beer sellers and butchers are subscribing to this imposture... the collector told me that the object of the Skeleton Army was to put down the Salvationists by following them about everywhere, by beating a drum and burlesquing their songs, to render the conduct of their processions and services impossible... Amongst the Skeleton rabble there is a large percentage of the most consummate loafers and unmitigated blackguards London can produce...worthy of the disreputable class of publicans who hate the London school board, education and temperance and who, seeing the beginning of the end of their immoral traffic, and prepared for the most desperate enterprise.

Skeletons used banners with skull and crossbones; sometimes there were two coffins and a statement like, “Blood and Thunder” or the three Bs, “Beef”, “Beer” and “Bacca”. Banners also had pictures of monkeys, rats and the devil. Skeletons further published so-called "gazettes" considered libellous as well as obscene and blasphemous.

Both sources agree Salvationists were pelted with missiles. At Bethnal Green flour, rotten eggs, stones and brickbats were among those used. Salvationists were beaten. When news of trouble in London spread, Skeleton riots took place in other parts of Britain.

The Metropolitan Police were at first unhelpful. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Edmund Henderson denied what happened. The public eventually demanded action and Skeleton riots in London were belatedly put down.