Tonight BBC Two will screen the third in a four-part documentary looking at the descendents of Salford’s first gangs, the scuttlers, and of the man who tried single-handedly to wipe them out.
Featured tonight (main image) are Joe Farrar and Lois Farrar. Their ancestor Peter Moffatt was a scuttler.
Joe and Lois are the first generation in their line of the family to go to university.
Press hysteria and public panic gripped Salford in the 1890s as it erupted into postcode violence.
They emerged from the harrowing slums of one of the world’s great cities, malnourished youths clad in bizarre fashions.
The scuttlers created moral panic in high society
The scuttlers were the hoodies of their day, and for 30 years they held the streets of Manchester and Salford in a grip of fear.
Archives: Salford’s Before the Bench from 1877
The Scuttlers were gangs of both boys and girls who fought pitched battles on the streets of Manchester and Salford in the 1880s- 1890s.
Salford gangs were from such areas as Adelphi, Trinity, Greengate, Hope Street, Hanky Park.
Scuttlers distinguished themselves from other young men in working-class neighbourhoods by their distinctive clothing.
They generally wore a uniform of brass-tipped pointed clogs, bell-bottomed trousers, cut like a sailor’s (“bells” that measured fourteen inches round the knee and twenty-one inches round the foot) and “flashy” silk scarves.
Their hair was cut short at the back and sides, but they grew long fringes, known as “donkey fringes”, that were longer on the left side and plastered down on the forehead over the left eye.
Peaked caps were also worn tilted to the left to display the fringe.
The scuttlers’ girlfriends also had a distinctive style of dress consisting of clogs, shawl, and a vertically striped skirt.
Gang members fought with a variety of weapons, but they all carried knives and wore heavy buckled belts, often decorated with pictures such as serpents, scorpions, hearts pierced with arrows or women’s names.
The thick leather belts were their most prized possessions and were wrapped tightly around the wrist at the onset of a “scuttle”, so that the buckle could be used to strike at opponents. The use of knives and belts was designed to maim and disfigure rather than to kill.
By the turn of the century the gangs had all but died out owing to some of the worst slums having been cleared, the setting up of Working Lads’ Clubs (such as Salford Lads’ Club) to engage the working youths in more peaceful activities, the spread of street football and the advent of the cinema.
Salford author Andrew Davies has literally written the book on the scuttlers, and if you’ve never read it is well worth checking out.
‘The Gangs of Manchester’ traces the history of the scuttlers from the Rochdale Road War of 1870-1, through the antics of such infamous fighters as the Bellis brothers of Salford and John Hillier, the King of the Scuttlers, until their demise around the turn of the century.
Read: Eight conspiracy to murder arrests in Salford after shootings, stabbings and grenade attacks
While rival gangs clashed in pitched street battles, magistrate Joseph Makinson tried to stamp out the epidemic of gang warfare, known as Scuttling.
Archives: Salford Magistrates Book of Offences reveals historic crimes
Descendants of the gang leaders and of the judge who tried to give them a taste of their own medicine tell their family stories, and ask whether violence is still part of life in working class Salford.
BBC Two, Thursday 24 March, 8pm-9pm
