Circling the family’s wagons

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (119) marks the first of several articles analysing a riot which happened on Windham Road, Springbourne, in 1878. During this, a mob tried to harm Arthur Adams, tailor, a court witness and set his house alight. This article arranges the events along a timeline extracted from several witness statements published in the press.

Victorian Bournemouth (119): background events

Bonfire night violence

After the previous year’s bonfire night, police took fourteen men to court charged with using fireworks in an illegal fashion. Magistrates fined them all. Some expected a quiet night next year, but this did not happen. Most of the ‘rowdyism’ happened in the Triangle area and on Commercial Road. ‘Hobbledehoys’ threw lighted fireworks at passers-by. Police saw men rolling around a burning tar barrel. A series of arrests began. This angered the crowd which some estimated contained several hundred. The police became alarmed. About thirty specials came from the station to provide support. They may have responded with excessive zeal. Arthur Adams, a tailor living in Springbourne, present that night, saw Henry Cobb assault a policeman and heard him threaten to remove his ear. Caroline Head, Arthur’s married sister and neighbour, saw James Dymott conducting anti-social behaviour that same night. Arthur agreed to act as a court witness.

The first hearing

On the afternoon of November 25th, magistrates at Christchurch Petty Sessions once again fined several young men for discharging fireworks. Arthur Adams gave evidence against Henry Cobb. The magistrates sent the latter to prison for six months. Arthur left the court at midday. Outside, John Symonds, Cobb’s friend, confronted him. ‘There goes a wolf in sheep’s clothing’. He threatened Adams with death. Adams sought police protection. Not long after, he took lunch at The Antelope, but again encountered Symonds and others. They threatened to ‘turn him out’. Symonds and associates took the 1530 train back to Bournemouth. They drank beer in the station’s Excelsior Refreshment Rooms. A waiter overheard them plotting to burn Adams’s house. Two left but returned bringing a straw effigy into the bar. The manager ordered them to leave. He identified James Symonds and ‘Mouthy Tom’ Williams. The men headed for Adams’s house on Windham Road.

Victorian Bournemouth (119): the mob attack Arthur Adams’s house

Phase 1

Around 1700, the mob assembled and marched down Windham Road, their shouting attracting people’s attention. Two of Arthur’s brothers, Thomas and George, residents, observed this. Thomas sent George to get the police. At first, the mob, by mistake, stopped outside the neighbouring house. James Symonds knocked on the door, searching for Arthur. Caroline Head, however, Arthur’s married sister, lived there, that afternoon entertaining her nephew, Walter. She went outside and ordered them to leave, then entered Arthur’s house. Inside the passage, she found her sister-in-law, holding her three-year old child, terrified. Another sister-in-law watched through the front window as the mob moved over to their house. The rioters smashed the window. Caroline Head went to fetch her husband, Thomas, working nearby. Now, Joseph Cobb lit the effigy, requiring several attempts before success. Its flame enabled Walter, looking out, to identify individuals. He saw James Dymott dancing around the burning effigy.

Phase 2

Towards 1800, the rioters broke the front door’s lock and threw in the burning effigy. Anne Marie Adams, turned to run, the effigy hitting her back. Neighbour Thomas Head arrived in time to see this, entering Arthur’s house by way of his own. He ran out to remonstrate with the mobsters, but a blow felled him. Resuming his stance, he knocked over his assailant and returned inside. When the mob tried to smash the door, Head held it fast. He returned to his house and loaded his double-barrelled shot gun. The mob heard his threats to shoot unless they dispersed. Meanwhile, look-outs cried, ‘The bobbies are coming’. Afraid of both threats, the rioters escaped. Dymott went to the nearby pub, The Cricketers, for refreshment. At 19.30, Arthur Adams returned from Christchurch to find his garden destroyed, his window and front door smashed, his house charred, but garrisoned by police.

Victorian Bournemouth (119): aftermath

Court processes

A week later, a special Petty Sessions convened. Magistrates heard evidence against James Dymott and others, some not present. They dismissed charges against two, but Dymott remained in custody. The police continued their investigations. Within two weeks, they had enough evidence to charge James Symonds. Magistrates committed him also for trial. Both men came before January’s Winchester Assizes. Dymott claimed an alibi, Symonds disclaimed all knowledge of the matter. The court’s Chairman asked the jury to consider whether the prisoners had had ‘a common purpose’ to jeopardise ‘the lives of people and the safety of property’. After the conviction, the Chairman awarded each eighteen months of hard labour. The length of the sentence sent a message of support to Arthur Adams who ‘had only done his duty in giving evidence and backed up the law’. Others in future should give evidence without fear. Thus, the system maintained its integrity.

Later

The affair retained the attention of the police. About a year after Dymott and Symonds had completed their sentence, ‘Mouthy Tom’ Williams came before the Assizes. He had returned to Bournemouth, whereupon the police arrested and charged him. The witnesses identified Williams as one of the ringleaders. He admitted his presence at the event but denied any participation. The jury believed the witnesses and convicted him. He received the same sentence as his associates. Arthur Adams and his kin continued to live in Springbourne and run their businesses. Apart from Thomas, who died in 1898, the rest lived until the 1920s. James Dymott may have worked thereafter as a seaman. Henry Cobb continued to offend, but Symonds and Williams evade certain identification in the records. Joseph Cobb, thought by some to have lit the effigy, appears to have escaped conviction. He continued to live in the area, surviving until 1945.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (119) has provided a reconstruction of the Windham Road riot which occurred in 1878. It has also examined the events which happened both before and after that dark evening, lit by the flames of Arthur Adams, burning in effigy. The article acts as an introduction to other analyses relating to what The Hampshire Advertiser described as ‘this chapter of Bournemouth mobocracy and violence’.

References

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