As John Holland was walking along the Back Road in Shadwell he saw a man attacking an elderly man and his wife. He rushed over and remonstrated with him, pulling him off the old man. He told him he should be ashamed of himself assaulting someone old enough to be his father. The man was unmoved by the dressing down, landed a blow that knocked his victim to the ground and then set upon Holland as well.

He hit the good Samaritan over the head, which pitched him to the street and, just as he saw the old man trying to get to his feet behind him, turned and kicked him full in the face. Meanwhile as Holland struggled to stand up the violence continued as his assailant kicked him in the groin, ‘which completely disabled him’.

It was a brutal attack on two entirely innocent people and there were witnesses to it. A passing gentleman told Holland he should press charges and a policeman was called for. Running hard from the nearby King David Lane police station PC Joseph Harrad (263K) was first on the scene and he arrested the attacker who later gave his name as Henry Dixon, a tailor.

Dixon, a small man, was still boiling with rage and shrugged the policeman off him.

‘Don’t hold me by the collar’, he snarled, ‘I will walk quietly with you’.

He only walked so far however, stopping after a few yards near a waterspout and declaring:

‘I’ll be damned if I go any further’.

When PC Harrad insisted, Dixon seized the waterspout and refused to move. The pair wrestled and the spout broke, tumbling policeman and his quarry into the street. The tailor was up first and ran at Harrad and hit him. Undeterred the copper grabbed him and dragged him into a nearby greengrocer’s shop, which was close to the police station.

Here Dixon landed a severe blow on the policeman’s face and gave him a bloody nose and mouth. Mr Longlands, the grocer, saw what happened and came to the aid of the officer and got knocked back with a fist to his chest for his pains. As Dixon kicked out at Longlands’ shins his cries brought the grocer’s daughter out from the back of the shop. She assumed the attacker was PC Harrad and piled into him with her hands, pulling him off the tailor. The poor copper finally managed to explain that it was Dixon who was the problem and she desisted.

The fight carried on for several minutes and both ‘parties were alternatively up and down’ before sergeant Derrig (27K) arrived and Dixon was finally subdued and frog-marched to the nick. PC Harrad was covered in bruises and Holland and the grocer had both sustained a number of injuries. Dixon was charged with assault and presented at Thames Police court the next day to be examined by Mr Broderip the magistrate.

The magistrate praised the conduct of the policeman and said he’d acted bravely and with ‘great forbearance’. Dixon cut a sorry figure in court, his clothes (which were described as ‘seedy habiliments’) ripped and torn and had little to say in his defence. He alleged that he was defending himself and that he been shoved by the old couple as he passed along the street but that was a weak excuse for such violence.

In fact it was the worst case of assault Mr Broderip had seen in a long time and handed out multiple fines for the various offences that totaled £8 and 40s(or around £600 today, probably two month’s salary for him at the time). I doubt the tailor had the funds for these so probably ended up serving the alternative of serving nearly six months in prison at hard labour.

[from The Morning Chronicle, Saturday, June 6, 1840]