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.

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.