Licensees:
Dover Chronicle 15-10-1842 & Canterbury Weekly
Journal 27-10-1842
A serious disturbance took place here on Sunday, the 9th inst., just after the close of Divine Service in the morning, which would probably have ended in bloodshed, had it not been for the prompt and energetic measures taken by the Mayor and Magistrates.
It appears that William Downing, one of the police, having witnessed an assault in High Street on Mr. Snelling, a butcher, by a man of the name of Cherry, a miner employed in the works of the railway, proceeded very properly to take the offender into custody, and succeeded in doing so, but the prisoner was soon rescued by some of his companions, who shortly came up. A sort of running fight then ensued between the rescuers and the police, and the man ultimately succeeded in getting into the Railway beershop, in Radnor Street.
The Mayor, on being informed of the riot, immediately attended on the spot, where he was joined by two of his brother Magistrates (Mr. David and Mr. William Major), and called out the whole of the police constables, who for some time endeavoured to recapture the man, but were prevented by a large body of his comrades, who has assembled in the beershop. The mob being continually increasing both within and without the house, and amounting to at least between four and five hundred persons, who evinced much disposition to violence and riot, the Mayor sent for the Preventive Force to aid the civil power in quelling the disturbance, and directed Mr. Bond, the Clerk to the Justices, to read the Riot Act, which was accordingly done.
The Preventive Force, under the command of Captain Peat and Lieutenant Kennicot, soon dispersed the mob from the front of the beershop, and the constables, after considerable difficulty, succeeded at length in capturing the man on the roof of the house, to which he had escaped to avoid being taken. Several of the mob within the house repeatedly threatened that there should be bloodshed if the police persisted in capturing Cherry.
The Preventive Force behaved with the greatest forbearance, and no-one was hurt except Downing, the policeman, who received several violent blows from the offender, who was a very powerful and active man.
The man was taken and lodged in gaol just previous to the commencement of Divine Service in the afternoon. Two other men were subsequently taken for having joined in rescuing Cherry, and the three prisoners were examined before the Mayor and Magistrates on Monday morning, and fully committed for trial at the approaching borough quarter sessions for the misdemeanour.
Dover Chronicle.
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