January 1, 1970

In January 1911 Churchill provoked controversy when he personally oversaw the police’s attempts to capture a group of Russian anarchists, led by ‘Peter the Painter’; they had allegedly murdered three policemen in Houndsditch and were holed up in a house in Sidney Street in London’s East End. The Home Office phoned Churchill on 3 January and he approved the dispatch of a platoon of Scots Guards from the Tower of London to reinforce the police surrounding the house. But he couldn’t resist going to see what was going on himself.

Churchill, captured on film by newsreel cameramen and very conspicuous in his top hat among the policemens’ helmets, said later that he’d been ‘driven by a strong sense of curiosity’. The two men in the house were both killed and the house eventually caught fire, with a fireman dying when the house collapsed. He was later much criticized for putting himself in danger (and being involved in the first place).

He is reported to have said to his secretary, Charles Masterman, at the Home Office: ‘Now Charles, don’t be cross, it was such fun.’