The 170-Year Signal: The Amos Sherriff Story
From the Slums of Russell Street to the Mayor's Parlour.
1. The "Crude Claims of Mercantile Demand" (1905)
In 1905, Leicester's boot and shoe trade collapsed. Cheap American imports and the end of army boot contracts following the Boer War left thousands facing starvation. Employers used the crisis to slash piecework rates, a move workers called "white slavery."
Those who complained, especially union men blacklisted after the 1895 lockouts, were sacked. There was no welfare state. The only option was the Workhouse—a prison for the poor.
On June 4th, Amos Sherriff, a respected civic leader and former child laborer, stood in Leicester Market Place alongside the "Red Vicar," Rev. F. Lewis Donaldson. Donaldson declared it "radically wrong to leave the matter of unemployment to the crude claims of mercantile demand."
They gathered 497 men. They weren't a rabble; they were a disciplined army preparing to walk 100 miles to look the King in the eye.
2. The Pilgrimage of Pain
For six days, they marched through driving rain. In Market Harborough, they were fed bread and cheese and slept on straw in cattle sheds, the local paper noting that "sleep and rest did not reign supreme." By Bedford, they were soaked to the skin and battered.
They were met by future Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, who called on them to display their poverty so that it might "make poverty a little rarer in the coming generation."
They carried collection boxes, rattling them not as beggars, but as men demanding recognition.
3. The Royal Snub & The Establishment's Fear
When they reached London on June 10th, battered and blistered, they held rallies in Trafalgar Square. But the goal was an audience with King Edward VII.
The King refused to see them. To the Crown, they were "riff-raff." Yet, fear ran deep: security was stepped up at Buckingham Palace, terrified these starving bootmakers might storm the gates.
Even the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to meet them, claiming he "failed to see what good receiving the deputation would do."
The snub was a clarifying moment for Amos. Marching had forced the government to pass the weak Unemployed Workmen Act of 1905, but pleading with elites was a dead end. To change the condition of the poor, the "scum" had to take power.
4. The Vindication (1922)
Seventeen years after being shunned by the King, Amos Sherriff—the man who molded 700 bricks an hour in the slums of Russell Street—rose to the highest office in his city. In 1922, he was elected Mayor of Leicester.
He wore the chains of office not as a vanity, but as proof that a working man could govern with more compassion and competence than the elite born into power.
We are the descendants of that signal. The Radical Left S.C.U.M. isn't just a name; it is a 170-year-old legacy of those refused an audience with power. Amos started the march in 1905. We are here to continue it.
Don't Just Watch History. Wear It.
Support the UK HQ and carry the signal of the 1905 Pilgrimage.