London’s Screen Archives enables Londoners see their past come alive on film. Managed by Film London, we are a unique network of historic film collections that cares for, collects and screens heritage film across the city. Together we preserve London’s rich film heritage from feature films to home movies, public information films, newsreels, and records of the capital’s many different industries.
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Pacifists Routed at Brotherhood Church
Windows are smashed, doors broken and blows exchanged, as a violent mob attacks a pacifist meeting held inside a Hackney church.
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Overview
This offers terrifying evidence of the hatred towards pacifists during the First World War. A large mob smashes windows and kicks in doors of a church in Hackney, before they hurl objects at those sheltering inside. The victims are pacifists – the Brotherhood Church were a Christian sect with origins in the Quakers – and the caption celebrates the aggressors as the ‘forces of loyalty and patriotism’. As the violence unfolds, a policeman studiously looks the other way.