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| Clerkenwell explosion | |
|---|---|
 The House of Detention in Clerkenwell after the bombing; seen from within the prison yard | |
| Location | Clerkenwell, London, England |
| Date | 13 December 1867 (GMT) |
Attack type | Explosion |
| Weapons | 200–548 pounds (91–249 kg)Gunpowder kegs[1] |
| Deaths | 12 |
| Injured | 120 |
| Perpetrator | Irish Republican Brotherhood |
TheClerkenwell explosion, also known as theClerkenwell Outrage, was a bombing attack carried out by theIrish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) inLondon on 13 December 1867. Members of the IRB, who were nicknamed "Fenians", exploded a bomb to try to free a member of their group who was being held onremand atClerkenwell Prison. The explosion damaged nearby houses, killed 12 civilians and wounded 120; no prisoners escaped and the attack was a failure.[2] The event was described byThe Times the following day as "a crime of unexampled atrocity", and compared to the "infernal machines" used in Paris in1800 and1835 and theGunpowder Treason of 1605. Denounced by politicians and writers from both sides of the political spectrum, the bombing was later described as the most infamous action perpetrated by Fenians in Britain during the 19th century. It enraged the British public, causing a backlash which undermined theIrish Home Rule Movement.
The whole of Ireland had been underBritish rule since the end of theNine Years' War in 1603. TheIrish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) was founded on 17 March 1858 with the aim of establishing an independent republic in Ireland, and theFenian Brotherhood, ostensibly the American wing of the IRB, was founded inNew York City in 1859. The IRB was a revolutionary fraternal organisation, rather than an insurrectionary conspiracy. It had an estimated 100,000 members by 1865, and frequently carried out acts of violence in Great Britain.
In 1867, the IRB was preparing to launch anarmed uprising against British rule in Ireland, but their plans became known to theDublin Castle administration, and members of the movement's leadership were arrested and convicted. Two succeeded in evading the police and fled to England, but they were arrested in Manchester and held in custody. On 18 September 1867, while they were being transferred from the courthouse toBelle Vue Gaol, the police van in which they were being transported was intercepted and they were freed. Police Sergeant Charles Brett was shot dead during the escape. Five suspected of involvement in the escape were tried for murder and sentenced to death. One was pardoned, and one had his sentence commuted, but the remaining three were hanged at Salford Gaol on the morning of Saturday 23 November 1867.
Three days earlier, on 20 November 1867,Ricard O'Sullivan Burke and his companion Joseph Casey were arrested inWoburn Square in London. Burke had purchased weapons for the Fenians in Birmingham. Burke was charged withtreason and Casey withassaulting a constable. They wereremanded in custody pending trial, and imprisoned at theMiddlesex House of Detention, also known asClerkenwell Prison (formerly the site ofClerkenwell Bridewell and theNew Prison). (The prison was demolished in 1890; the Hugh Myddleton School building now stands on the site and has been converted into flats; a plaque commemorates the events.) In the previous weeks, a series of meetings of thousands of people regarding the three men convicted of Brett's murder had been held nearby onClerkenwell Green, with a deputation sent to theHome Office and petition toQueen Victoria seeking clemency. A march from Clerkenwell Green toHyde Park was held on Sunday 24 November, preceded by a black banner quoting fromRobert Burns's 1784 poemMan was made to mourn: A Dirge: "Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn."[citation needed]
Burke's Republican colleagues tried to free him on Thursday 12 December, without success. They tried to blow a hole in the prison wall while the prisoners were exercising in the prison yard, but their bomb failed to explode. They tried again at about 3:45 pm the following day, 13 December, using a barrel ofgunpowder concealed on acostermonger's barrow. The explosion demolished a 60 feet (18 m) section of the wall, but no one escaped: the prison authorities had been forewarned and the prisoners were exercised earlier in the day, so they were locked in their cells when the bomb exploded. The blast also damaged several nearby tenement houses on Corporation Lane (now Corporation Row) on the opposite side of the road, killing 12 people and causing many injuries, with estimates ranging from around 30 to over 120.[citation needed]
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Charges were laid against eight, but two turnedQueen's evidence.Michael Barrett and five others were tried at theOld Bailey from Monday 20 to Monday 27 April 1868.Lord Chief JusticeCockburn andMr BaronBramwell presided with a jury. The prosecution was led by theAttorney GeneralSir John Karslake and theSolicitor GeneralSir Baliol Brett supported byHardinge Giffard QC and two junior counsel. Defence barristers includedMontagu Williams andEdward Clarke.
Barrett, a native ofCounty Fermanagh, protested his innocence, and some witnesses testified that he was in Scotland on 13 December, but another identified him as being present at the scene. Two defendants were acquitted on the instructions of the presiding judges in the course of the trial, leaving four before the jury. After deliberating for 2½ hours, three of the defendants were acquitted, but Barrett was convicted of murder at around 6:30pm on 27 April, and sentenced to death. Further enquiries into his claim to have been in Glasgow at the time of the bombing were unable to disturb the sentence, and Barrett washanged byWilliam Calcraft on the morning of Tuesday 26 May 1868 outsideNewgate Prison. He was the last man to bepublicly hanged in England, with the practice being ended from 29 May 1868 by theCapital Punishment Amendment Act 1868.
The trial of Burke and Casey, and a third defendant, Henry Shaw aka Mullady, began on 28 April, all charged with treason, before Mr Baron Bramwell and Mr Justice Keating and a jury. The prosecution claimed that Burke had been involved in finding arms for the Fenians in Birmingham in late 1865 and early 1866, where he was using the name "Edward C Winslow".
After a period in the USA, he returned to Liverpool to take part in the preparations for a plan to storm Chester Castle, and then in Ireland. After court hearings on 28, 29 and 30 April, the case against Casey was withdrawn, but Burke and Mullady were found guilty of treason on 30 April, and sentenced to 15 years and 7 years ofpenal servitude respectively. Burke protested that he was not a subject of the Queen, but a soldier of the United States, but evidence was provided that his mother and sister lived in Ireland, and he was convicted nonetheless.
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This bombing enraged the British public, souring relations between Britain and Ireland and causing a panic over the Fenian threat. The radical,Charles Bradlaugh, condemned the incident in his newspaper theNational Reformer as an act "calculated to destroy all sympathy, and to evoke the opposition of all classes". The bombing had a traumatic effect on British working-class opinion.Karl Marx, then living in London, observed:
The London masses, who have shown great sympathy towards Ireland, will be made wild and driven into the arms of a reactionary government. One cannot expect the London proletarians to allow themselves to be blown up in honour of Fenian emissaries.
A cartoon byJohn Tenniel published inPunch magazine on 28 December 1867 shows the "Fenian Guy Fawkes" sitting on a barrel of gunpowder with a lighted match, surrounded by innocent women and children.[citation needed]
The day before the explosion, the Prime MinisterBenjamin Disraeli, had banned all political demonstrations in London in an attempt to put a stop to the weekly meetings and marches that were being held in support of the Fenians, with a similar vice-regal declaration in Ireland. Disraeli had feared that the ban might be challenged, but the explosion had the effect of turning public opinion in his favour. After the explosion, he advocated the suspension of theHabeas Corpus Act in Britain, as was already the case in Ireland, and wider security measures were introduced. Thousands ofspecial constables were enlisted to assist the police.
TheMetropolitan Police formed aSpecial Irish Branch atScotland Yard in March 1883, initially as a small section of theCriminal Investigation Department, to monitor Fenian activity.Queen Victoria, reportedly irritated that only one man was convicted for the bombing, wrote to Home SecretaryGathorne Hardy observing that she was "beginning to wish" that perpetrators of such crimes "belynch-lawed on the spot".[3]
Liberal leaderWilliam Ewart Gladstone, then in opposition, announced his concern about Irish grievances within days of the explosion, and said that it was the duty of the British people to remove them. This act powerfully influenced Gladstone in deciding that theAnglicanChurch of Ireland should bedisestablished as a concession to Irish disaffection. Later, he said that it was the Fenian action at Clerkenwell that turned his mind towards Home Rule. When Gladstone discovered atHawarden later that year that Queen Victoria had invited him to form a government he famously stated, "my mission is to pacify Ireland".[citation needed]
In April 1867, the supreme council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood condemned the Clerkenwell Outrage as a "dreadful and deplorable event",[4] but the organisation returned to bombings in Britain in 1881 to 1885, with theFenian dynamite campaign.[5] The impact of the event was referred to over 50 years later, when a review ofJames Joyce's novelUlysses in theQuarterly Review in October 1922 described the book as "an attempted Clerkenwell explosion in the well-guarded, well-built, classical prison of English literature".[6]
On 24 September 1877, MPCharles Stewart Parnell opined to his constituents that "No amount of eloquence could achieve what the fear of an impending insurrection, what the Clerkenwell explosion and the shot in the police van [Manchester Martyrs incident] had achieved."[7] Parnell also attributed the explosion and the Manchester Martyrs incident as leading to "some measure of protection being given to the Irish tenant" and theChurch of Ireland being "disestablished and disendowed".[8]
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51°31′28″N0°06′26″W / 51.5245°N 0.1072°W /51.5245; -0.1072