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'Real instigators' of the riot troubles

Two letters questioning the role played by the Town Council in the Peace Day riots and the future of Mayor Henry Impey were published in the Luton News on August 14th, 1919.

'Lest We Forget' wrote: “One is glad that some, at least, of the offenders who helped to make our town hideous on Peace Day are being brought to justice. No doubt they are receiving their desserts, and rightly so.

Overlooked soldiers who helped quell riot

[The Luton Reporter: Tuesday, July 12th, 1919]

Both police and firemen have been paid a meed of official and public recognition which everyone agrees they richly deserve for their gallant and heroic conduct against overwhelming odds in connection with Luton's notorious peace rioting, but the soldiers have been entirely left out of it all, and many who noticed the salutary effect of the soldiers' intervention consider they have cause to feel aggrieved at what can only have been an unintentional oversight.

Bank holiday rush to the seaside

[Beds & Herts Tuesday Telegraph: August 5th, 1919]

Luton seems very empty now. The big works are closed for the week, there is a general holiday in the straw trade for the week, and the shops are closed for part of the week. Thousands of people have gone away, and despite the crowded conditions of all the seaside resorts, they seem to have found places in which to make a home for the time being.

Holidaymakers suffer a riot backlash

Two weeks after the Peace Day riots, the Luton Reporter newspaper (August 5th) gave its view of what it headlined “Luton's burden of debt and disgrace”. Its editorial read:

In spite of the visible scars and stains left by the disastrous happenings of a fortnight back, the town had become more or less restored to a normal condition of affairs in time for what has always been known locally as the holiday month. Unhappily there remains the burden of debt and disgrace.

Injured police leave hospital

[The Luton Reporter: Tuesday, August 5st, 1919]

Insp Herbert Hunt and Pc Sear and Pc Silvester, three of the four members of Luton Borough Police Force so badly mauled by the mob in the peace rioting outside the Town Hall that they had to be treated for their injuries in the Bute Hospital, were discharged from the hospital on Monday evening [July 28th].

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