On Saturday evening of 10th November 1894, an instance of lawlessness in Blantyre occurred which made the newspapers.
About 9.30pm, the police had occasion to interfere in a breach of the peace which occurred near to the Public School on Glasgow Road. They were met with abusive epithets, and ultimately they arrested a man named Daniel Lynch on a charge of disorderly conduct. The prisoner stoutly resisted, and a struggle followed at once by the determined opposition of a sympathising ever increasing crowd.
Stones were freely thrown, and several people in the crowd were accidentally cut and bruised whilst police and the prisoner rolled in the mud.
Two additional constables arrived on the scene, but the crowd, which had by this time grown to many hundreds, continued to resent the police interference and surged to the officers, overpowering them and forcing them into retreat to a nearby shop. Seizing their opportunity, the officers grabbed the prisoner and took him into the shop too, where they managed to handcuff Mr Lynch.
Two of the constables, who kept guard at the door, were ‘severely tried’ until additional police assistance arrived. But by this time, the shop was attacked by stones, the glass in the door and the windows smashed, and the fittings damaged. The prisoner was conveyed to the police station under a strong escort. I never found out what prompted the incident in the first place!
AI imagines the scene.
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