The Battle with the London Anarchists

Souvenir pamphlet issued to commemorate 'The Battle with the London Anarchists'. Comprising an illustrated account of the events leading up the Siege of Sidney Street and its bloody outcome.
In December 1910 a goldsmith called the police when he heard someone trying to break into his shop. It turned out to be a gang of Latvian activists, whose leader was known as 'Peter the Painter'. They fought a vicious gun battle with police before the building they were occupying burnt down. Many refugees fled Latvia in 1905, following the suppression of the attempted Russian revolution. Incidents like this siege increased the bad reputation of the East End, home to many Jewish people. The pamphlet comments that 'It is a neighbourhood in which the residents are almost entirely foreigners'.