FRACAS AMONG STUDENTS

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 22762, 10 November 1945, Page 5

FRACAS AMONG STUDENTS

THIRTEEN APPEAR IN COURT LORD MAYOR’S SHOW DAY LONDON, Nov. 9 A number of university students were taken to Bow Street in a police van this afternoon after a fracas in which scores of police and passersby were soaked with water from hoses and foam from fire extinguishers. The clash is reported to have begun when students in mass attacked King’s College on the Embankment and attempted to capture the college mascot. The main entrance was barricaded and as the attackers tried to scramble over barbed wire and wooden palings collegians on the roof sprayed them with fire extinguishers, hoses and stirrup pumps. The pavement and roadway were soon covered with a messy mixture in which several > pedestrians fell flat. The police had their uniforms soaked when they were called in to restore order. “We W’ant Beaverbrook!”

Thirteen students were charged at Bow Street with insulting behaviour and alternatively with obstruction and were fined ten shillings each. Crowds lining Fleet Street for the Lord Mayor’s Show had a preliminary entertainment when King’s College students burst through the police cordon and demonstrated outside the Daily Express office, repeatedly shouting in unison, “We want Beaverbrook!” Medical students from Saint Mary’s Hospital demonstrated in Fleet Street yesterday against an inaccurate report of the result of a football match. The students today at one stage threatened to surge forward and join the Lord Mayor's procession but were dispersed by the mounted police. Units from all the Services and eleven bands participated in the Lord Mayor's procession, which was the smartest seen for years. The marchers, who were showered with torn paper and streamers, included New Zealanders, bearded Indians, Beefeaters in full dress and pikemen in the costume of Tudor days. The new Lord Mayor, Sir Charles Davis, his predecessor, Sir Frank Alexander, and other city dignitaries followed in cars.