The Tottenham Outrage

The Tottenham Outrage was a notorious crime that shocked Edwardian Britain and screamed out from the national newspaper headlines. It has become a story that has grabbed many people’s imagination and has been told and retold in different ways and formats since it happened on 23 January 1909. Whether you have read about it in a pulp fiction detective story from the 1930s, heard it as a story passed down through the family or learnt from a school project or local history book, the main ingredients of the storyline have stayed the same.

At Schnurman's rubber factory in Chesnut Road in Tottenham, two armed robbers seized the delivery of the payroll one Saturday morning. What followed was a 7-mile hunt in hot pursuit of the two men, known as Paul Hefeld and Jacob Lepidus. They were described as anarchists who were Latvian Jews and were said to have worked at one of the Jewish factories in Tottenham.

The public outrage about this crime in 1909 was in reaction to the immigration controls that had been brought in by the government’s Aliens’ Act in 1905 and also the murder of a police officer and a young boy. These two tragic fatalities were a young 10-year-old boy Ralph Joscelyne on his baker's round, and the second PC William Tyler who had led the chase. Another 23 people were hurt during the 2-hour hunt.

(From the collections and © Bruce Castle Museum and Archive)

Chasing them from Tottenham over the marshes to Hale End in Walthamstow, the police took the lead with many bystanders and onlookers also taking part, trying to stop the robbers. Read more about the chase.

(From the collections and © Bruce Castle Museum and Archive)

You can see the two memorial plaques and find out more about this tragic story (with additional links to online resources) on the London Remembers website.