Anarchists, Authorities and the Battle for Public Space, 1880–1914: Recasting Political Protest as Anti-social Behaviour

Abstract

Victorian anarchists in Britain were a marginal group whose political significance far outweighed their actual powers and scope for action. As a catalyst for discourses and debate s, their history provides many insights into the values and fears of their contemporaries regarding immigration, crime, urbanization, the rise of the labour movement and the meaning of British liberalism (Shpayer, 1981: 23; Shpayer-Makov, 1988; Bantman, 2013). The anarchist groups who burst onto the public stage in the late 1880s and remained there until the First World War brought together native militants and immigrants from all over Europe, notably Eastern Europe, France and Italy. At the end of the nineteenth century, London became the main refuge for those individuals who sought to escape repression in their own countries, as anarchist-inspired terrorist attacks brought a great deal of police attention and repression to the movement. For many contemporary observers and politicians — especially those with Conservative leanings — anarchists were therefore suspect on the triple count of their status as immigrants, potential terrorists and socialists. As a result, they found themselves the centre of lively debates throughout the period. These resulted in formal legislation aimed at controlling their entry into Britain, alongside that of other ‘undesirable’ population categories, with the Aliens Act passed in 1905.