A dastardly duality

Stephen Huggins speaks to Simon Hope about his book focusing on the person who propagated anti-Army violence in Victorian-era Eastbourne

I'VE had a soft spot for The Salvation Army since I was a boy,’ Stephen Huggins reminisces. ‘I lived in Hove, just around the corner from the citadel. Every Sunday evening the band would play outside the hospital across the road. It became a regular part of our week.

‘I wasn’t a Christian then – we were not a Christian family – but it left an impression on me. I didn’t know then the high price people had paid for the right to play music in the streets.’

Today, Stephen is a semi-retired vicar living in Bexhill. It was his longstanding admiration for The Salvation Army that led to his recent book on anti-Salvationist violence, 'The Mob and the Mayor'.

‘I first came across the fact thatthe early Army had been violently attacked when I was a student at King’s College,’ Stephen says. ‘I was reading history and sociology and it was part of an article about social control.’ While the article he read was not entirely pro-Salvation Army – framing the rise of the Skeleton Army and the riots of the late 19th century as the Movement’s fault – the information stuck with him. Later in his studies he discovered the extent of the violence. Of particular interest to him was what happened in Eastbourne, only a short drive from his home.

Setting off to the records office, he delved into the minutes of old council meetings. A quick trip up to London to peruse the records of the International Heritage Centre, and the book was well on its way to becoming a reality.

‘There wasn’t a great deal written about the riots until just a few years ago,’ Stephen points out. ‘And what was written was on the boundary of sociology and history. Most of the time these were written by sociologists who had no real sympathy towards religious faith.’

Then Major Nigel Bovey released 'Blood on the Flag', a comprehensive overview of the Skeleton Army. After this, Stephen began writing The Mob and the Mayor to home in on the situation in Eastbourne and expand upon the local context.

‘I was aware of the problem,’ says Stephen. ‘But it was Nigel’s book that provided the Salvationist understanding of the situation. While my book does cover the tensions between the Skeleton Army and The Salvation Army, it also looks more at what happened in Eastbourne.’

Wherever the Skeleton Army raised its head, there was usually a great deal of spontaneity – people got drunk or riled up and attacked Salvationists. The peculiarity of the situation in Eastbourne was that, while the mobs arose of their own accord, they were further enabled by leading officials, who not only supported the riots but also abetted them and took part.

‘It’s an astonishing story,’ Stephen marvels. ‘The mayor at the time seemed in every other regard a perfectly decent fellow. But there was something about The Salvation Army that just enraged him.

‘I found it hard to understand at first. How can you compartmentalise your life in such a way? But this guy had it tied up! He was a churchgoer and a big supporter of charities. He even had a time in his office when people could just turn up and he’d give them money.

‘From any other viewpoint, the mayor was a nice bloke, apart from the fact that he just did not like The Salvation Army at all. There would probably have always been incidents in Eastbourne, but it wouldn’t have gone on so long and it wouldn’t have been as violent without the mayor.

‘There also appears to have been some sort of collusion with the two chiefs of police, but all three did seem like genuinely nice blokes. In the minutes of a parliamentary meeting discussing the problem, a QC makes the point that in every regard the mayor was a thoroughly decent fellow, except in his view of the Army.’

Highlighting one noteworthy incident, Stephen describes a visit from Camberwell Band that attracted a large mob.

‘It was said that the mayor shouted: “Lock them up!” Now, he claimed that he was referring to the crowd, but that doesn’t seem likely, given his other Louisa Clark in her Lewes Prison pronouncements about the Army and clothing because the police locked up the bandsmen!

‘It was a huge court case that went to the Old Bailey. It couldn’t be tried in Sussex because feelings were running too high. It dragged on and on and on and caused the Army huge costs and human resources.’

Another disturbing trend that revealed itself was the way in which Salvation Army women were treated. They were particularly targeted with sexual abuse. Moreover, the mobs assaulted them by tearing their clothes in a way that wasn’t done to the Salvationist men.

‘I have to say that these women, with their courage and their faith, were just so admirable,’ says Stephen. ‘Lots of them were sent to prison. They were degraded. They were falsely accused of things of a sexual nature. It was absolutely awful. I can’t help but feel admiration for them.’

Taking a moment to step back and look over everything he discovered, Stephen suggests there is a lot to be learnt today about tolerance: ‘We are living in a time when toleration and sympathy and understanding are becoming alarmingly short in supply in a way that I never imagined I would see in my lifetime. The Mob and the Mayor is an example of what happens when you have religious intolerance.’

On a more personal level, the book has left a deep and lasting impression on Stephen.

‘There’s been so much that I’ve learnt about The Salvation Army that has impressed me and affected my faith,’ he reflects. ‘If you ask my family, I just don’t stop talking about the Army.

‘From seeing a bunch of men and women standing in the rain playing their musical instruments outside Hove hospital, my admiration for The Salvation Army has only deepened.’

* 'The Mob and the Mayor' is available from amazon.co.uk priced £15.59 and as an ebook priced £14.81