The Battle of Cable Street was a series of clashes that took place at several locations in the East End of London on Sunday 4 October 1936.

The British Union of Fascists (BUF), led by Oswald Mosley, announced a march to celebrate the fourth anniversary of their organisation. The BUF had become increasingly anti-Semitic, so their decision to march through East London, then home to a large Jewish population, rather than close to its headquarters in Westminster, was regarded as a deliberate provocation.

A broad coalition of local representatives was unsuccessful in persuading the Home Secretary to ban the march, so the Independent Labour Party, the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Jewish Peoples Council rallied large crowds, of mostly politically unaffiliated people, onto the streets in an attempt to block the march.

There was fighting between the BUF and counter-protestors at the fascist muster point at Tower Hill. The Metropolitan Police then clashed with both parties as they separated the factions and established a cordon around the BUF force.

The Police attempted to clear a route for the fascists through the Aldgate area, but were frustrated by the crowds. Although resistance to the Police around Aldgate was sometimes violent, the defence of the Gardiner's Corner sector of Aldgate, the largest and longest lasting point of contention was characterised by determined peaceful resistance.

The Police continued their attempt to clear Aldgate, but in light of their difficulties there, also tried to clear an alternative route along narrow Cable Street, where fierce fighting occurred as they attempted to clear barricades erected along the street. Unable to clear a route through either Aldgate or Cable Street, and wishing to avoid continued disorder, the Police told Mosley his march through East London could not go ahead, but he was permitted to march to the West End instead.

A large mural depicting the battle was painted on the side of St George's Town Hall to commemorate the event. It stands in Cable Street, about 350 metres east of the main barricade that stood by the junction with Christian Street.

Background

BUF announce march

On 26 September 1936, the British Union of Fascists (BUF) advertised a march to take place the following weekend, on Sunday 4 October, the fourth anniversary of their organisation. Thousands of BUF followers, dressed in their Blackshirt uniform, were to march through the heart of the East End. The BUF had been founded in Chelsea and was headquartered in Westminster, so the decision to celebrate their anniversary with a march in East London, an area that then had a large Jewish population, rather than at their West London HQ was seen as an intentional provocation.

Calls for a ban

The Jewish People's Council organised a petition calling for the march to be banned, which gathered the signatures of 100,000 people, including the Mayors of the five East London Boroughs (Hackney, Shoreditch, Stepney, Bethnal Green and Poplar) in two days.

Late on Wednesday night the Communist Party, under continued pressure from East End branches, changed position and agreed to cancel the Trafalgar Square event and counter-protest against Mosley in the East End instead. On Thursday, thousands of leaflets advertising the Trafalgar Square event were overprinted with the legend "Alteration! Rally to Aldgate. 2PM". On Friday, their Daily Worker newspaper, which carried the party's influence well beyond its limited membership, included a front page article urging readers to attend the counter-protest.

Field of operations

A legacy of the long-ago demolished London Wall is that there are just three main routes into the East End from the direction of the City of London. From north to south, these are: Bishopsgate, Aldgate (440 metres south-east of Bishopsgate) and Tower Hill (450 metres south of Aldgate). The BUF was to gather its supporters at the southernmost of these three entrances, at Tower Hill and adjacent Royal Mint Street in East Smithfield, at 2:30.

  • Salmon Lane, Limehouse, at 5 pm
  • Stafford Road, Bow, at 6 pm
  • Victoria Park Square, Bethnal Green, at 6 pm
  • Aske Street, in the Hoxton area of Shoreditch, at 6:30 pm

In response their opponents, who knew of the intended meetings but not the intended routes from Tower Hill, called on the public to assemble at key points:

  • Leman Street and Aldgate – Anti-fascists considered Leman Street to Aldgate, the logical route for the BUF to take, with the force then expected to divide into smaller columns after reaching the junctions there.
  • Cable Street – Considered challenging for the BUF, as it was then a narrow street, overlooked by homes.
  • St George's Street (now known as The Highway) – This was considered an even harder route for the BUF and the Police did not attempt to clear it.

The main mass of anti-fascist protesters would gather at Aldgate, the central of East End's three entry points, for 2 pm. In doing this the crowd could occupy the important road junctions in that area, including Gardiner's Corner, the junction of Whitechapel High Street with Leman Street, Commercial Street and Commercial Road. (The junction of Commercial Road and Whitechapel High Street has since moved east by 100 metres.)

Numbers involved

Very large numbers of people took part in the events, in part due to the good weather, but estimates of the numbers of participants vary enormously:

  • Estimates of Fascist participants range from 2,000 to 3,000, up to 5,000. This included units of black-bloused female fascists, totalling around 400. to 250,000, 300,000, 310,000, and up to 500,000. The Independent Labour Party and Communists, like the Fascists, set up medical stations to treat their injured.

After separating the factions, there was then fierce fighting as police then moved to clear counter-protesters from the crossroads where Royal Mint Street, Leman Street, Dock Street and Cable Street meet. The counter-protesters were moved onto these neighbouring streets, including a large number forced into Dock Street.

The streets around Aldgate were broad, and impossible to effectively barricade except by blocking them with large crowds of determined people. Several tram routes went through Gardiner's Corner, and efforts to hold the junction were helped when a number of tram cars, perhaps four,

Dense crowds gathered from Aldgate Pump, along Aldgate High Street and Whitechapel High Street to St Mary Matfelon Church and some way along Whitechapel Road and Mile End Road, extending around a mile in total. The adjacent side streets, most notably Minories and Leman Street, which led from Tower Hill to Aldgate, also became congested. The greatest concentration of people was at Gardiner's Corner, the junction of Whitechapel High Street with Leman Street, Commercial Street and Commercial Road. Surges of people trying to avoid police charges were pressed against plate glass windows of the Gardiners Corner shops, a number of men and women were injured as the windows of these shops broke under their weight.

Fenner Brockway, who had already been injured by a police baton, decided to try to contact the Home Secretary, John Simon.

Cable Street

Protesters built a number of barricades on narrow Cable Street and its side streets. An initial barrier, made of materials taken from a nearby builders yard, was placed 170 metres along Cable Street immediately east of its junction with Shorter Street (now called Fletcher Street), in the St George in the East area of Wapping.

The police took the first barricade and dismantled it, but several policemen were taken prisoner in fighting, held in empty shops and had their helmets and truncheons taken from them as souvenirs. At Cable Street, as elsewhere, children's marbles were also used to counter charges by mounted police.

Mosley received the fascist salute from his followers as he arrived, and had a debrief from his second in command Tommy Moran. A police officer summoned Mosley to Sir Philip Game's HQ at the junction of Mansell Street and Royal Mint Street. When he arrived he was told that if he proceeded with his march and meetings that serious disorder was certain and that the march could therefore not go ahead. He was told that he could march to the West End, and if he wished hold a meeting in Hyde Park instead. Mosley said that he would consult with his ‘officers’.

On hearing the news there were boos and shouts of "We want free speech" from the angry Fascists, who sang the fascist songs "Up the Blackshirts" and the Nazi Horst-Wessel-Lied. At around 3:40 Mosley told the head of the Mounted Police, Major G.H.B. De Chair, that they would not hold a meeting in Hyde Park after their march west. Many of the arrested demonstrators reported harsh treatment at the hands of the police.

March to the West End

Around 4:00, the Fascist column, interspersed with its marching bands, turned, left the East End and headed west. The column marched through the deserted streets of the City of London business district, preceded by around fifteen mounted Police. The route taken was via Byward Street, Great Tower Street, Eastcheap, down Queen Victoria Street and onto the Victoria Embankment on the edge of the West End.

The BUF sought to maximise the publicity from the aftermath, portraying their failure to complete the march as a sign of an ineffectual government allowing a dangerous mob to deny their right to free speech.