In the 1870s, Charles Bradley was a successful master linen draper and sewing machine agent in his 30s, with shops at 175 High Street, Watford and High Street, Rickmansworth. He lived above the shop, diagonally opposite Watford High Street Station with his wife Emma and their children; her widowed mother-in-law, Elizabeth Newman; a 13-year-old domestic servant; a shop assistant; and an apprentice. His parents and younger siblings lived next door at 173. These and neighbouring properties were demolished to make way for the junction of the ring road with Lower High Street.
Towards the end of the 1870s, Charles Bradley’s 16-year-old niece, Jane Elizabeth Newman, ‘a well conducted girl’ according to contemporary reports, came to live with the family and was employed as a draper’s apprentice in the shop. All went well, until the night of Sunday, October 5, 1879 when Jane returned to the property ‘a few minutes later than usual’ and found that she had been locked out.
With nowhere to go, she appealed to a neighbour, Mrs Heywood, and was given a bed for the night. But after work, between six and seven o’clock the following evening, she suddenly fled from the draper’s shop. That was the last time she was spotted alive.
Historian Henry Williams tells us that she was ‘seen going down Water Lane in the direction of the river Colne and a rumour soon spread that she had drowned herself in consequence of the ill-treatment received from her uncle’. After a search on the Tuesday, her body was discovered in the river at the rear of Edward Mead’s flour mill in Lower High Street.
It was ‘dragged’ from the river and immediately placed in the Leathersellers’ Arms public house opposite Watford Field Road to await an inquest.
No time was wasted and the inquest was held the next evening, Wednesday, October 8, 1879. While the coroner for St Albans, Mr Henry Brabant, was returning the verdict ‘found drowned’, Henry Williams reported that ‘a large number of persons collected outside the [public] house and from the threats and angry expressions used, it became evident that they intended some injury to Mr Bradley’. He added that ‘One man had a strong rope in his hand, and an intention to drag Mr Bradley through the river was openly expressed.’ As a consequence, police attending the inquest ‘secretly’ returned Charles Bradley to his shop and accommodation.
By around half past seven on Thursday, a mob had gathered outside the shop and a serious riot broke out that lasted into the night. Charles Bradley’s shop was wrecked by stones, bricks and other missiles, as was the adjoining property belonging to his mother who had been widowed three months previously.
All the windows and shutters were broken – the upper floor damage being aided by rioters jumping on passing hay carts. Although the fronts of both properties were completely wrecked, no goods were stolen and there was no other damage. Henry Williams noted that ‘The riot was characterised by a peculiarity not often found at such scenes. There was no pushing or swearing; many females stood and looked on without having their feelings hurt by word or deed.’ The manner of Jane Newman’s untimely death greatly impacted local people.
Later that evening, the crowd outside the draper’s shop had grown to around 2,000. The police were powerless. A local magistrate, The Hon Reginald Capel, tried unsuccessfully to read the Riot Act, but was forced to take cover when stones hitting the shop wall came close to hitting him on the head.
It was not until the early hours of Friday morning that the crowd finally dispersed, after Police Superintendent William Isgate advised people to ‘go quietly away’. No one is believed to have been apprehended.
A large number of people assembled in front of the draper’s shop at daylight on Friday morning, but no further damage was done. That afternoon, local magistrates held a meeting attended by a number of policemen from the surrounding neighbourhood, at which several special constables were sworn in. The magistrates simply cautioned the inhabitants against ‘riotously assembling together’.
Life in Watford would have been untenable for Charles Bradley and his family following his niece’s death. A very short time afterwards, he sold the remains of his home and shop to a young draper – George Longley. During the following decade, George’s business thrived. Despite competition from other drapers in the town, by 1891 he and his wife Rosa had moved to larger premises at 71 High Street, where they employed seven shop workers and two servants.
Charles Bradley and his family moved to Stoke Newington where he became an agent for the Provident Association of London and two of his daughters worked as draper’s assistants. In his later years, following a shift to Margate, he reverted to his former trade and became a ‘drapery traveller’, whilst his wife Emma let out apartments in their property.
Unsurprisingly, after the tragedy, Jane’s aunt, Elizabeth Newman left the Bradley household for St Neots, Huntingdonshire, where she lived with her son.
Lesley Dunlop is the daughter of the late Ted Parrish, a well-known local historian and documentary filmmaker. He wrote 96 nostalgic articles for the ‘Evening Post-Echo’ in 1982-83 which have since been published in ‘Echoes of Old Watford, Bushey & Oxhey’, available at www.pastdayspublishing.com and Bushey Museum. Lesley is currently working on ‘Two Lives, Two World Wars’, a companion volume that explores her father’s and grandfather’s lives and war experiences, in which Watford, Bushey and Oxhey’s history will take to the stage once again.
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