‘DID you know,” said a caller, “that Monday is the 120th anniversary of what The Northern Echo called ‘a rather serious riot’.”

Naturally, on receipt of this titbit I went scurrying to the Echo’s dusty bound files to see what story might unfold.

What a dramatic time it was to be alive this October day in 1890.

“The Leeming murderer” Robert Kitching was in Northallerton Gaol awaiting trial. “He maintains that the gun went off by accident and caused the death of the unfortunate policeman,”

said the Echo. Kitching was expecting to go down for five years for killing PC James Weedey in a parking altercation outside the Leeming Bar Hotel but, before the year was out, he had swung for his crime.

In Stockton, Joseph Foster, a lion tamer with Buffalo Bill’s travelling show, was convicted of assaulting with a coalrake a boy who was too eager to see the lion.

In Spennymoor, two female pickpockets – Susannah Graham and Ellen Tulley – were imprisoned for 14 days for taking half-a-sovereign from a man’s pocket in a pub.

In Middlesbrough, “Bridget Conley, commonly known as Biddy the Muf, appeared for the 43rd time at the Police Court…the charge being that of committing an aggravated assault on an old woman whom she felled to the ground with some heavy instrument.”

The magistrate said Biddy the Muf “had been a regular customer” of the court for at least 16 years, and sentenced her to a month hard labour.

Plus there was a “Riot near Consett”. That afternoon, October 25, Leadgate Exiles had played Leadgate Park in the Durham County Challenge Cup. There had been 4,000 spectators and “a great deal of bandinage” (sic), but this was more than just a local derby.

This was a derby with history.

Consett steelworks had started in 1840, sucking Irish immigrants away from the potato famine. Many came from northern Ireland and so supported the predominantly Protestant Leadgate Park.

A sizeable minority were Catholics – Consett still has the largest Catholic congregation in the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle – and their team was the Exiles.

By 10.30pm, the bandinage had turned into “a regular melee” outside the Exiles’ pub, the Bradley Arms. Sgt Nicholson arrested Joseph Carr whose brother “thereupon armed himself with a stout stick and smashed in the front of the public house”.

Sgt Nicholson raced after the second Carr, leaving PC Lambert alone with the manacled Carr, whose friends held the bobby to the floor while the prisoner “effected his escape with the handcuffs still upon his wrists”.

It was now “a rather serious riot”, with shouting, screaming and scuffling spilling into the streets.

“The female portion of the community seemed to be the worst offenders,” said the Echo. “The police made several charges on the turbulent mob and eventually succeeded in dispersing the crowd, two of the ringleaders, Wheatley and Cunly, being taken to the Consett lock-up.”

Calm descended at midnight. The good old days were often not so good.

ON this day 125 years ago, Darlington library opened. There’s a day of Victorian celebrations today. I’m giving a talk at 2pm entitled Darlington Library 125: Its Part in the Peases’ Downfall. All are welcome, but by its end, few people will be excited enough to re-enact a Victorian riot.