2-365-774 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Standoff on Sidney Street, Stepney, London, 3rd January 1911 (1937). The Sidney Street siege occurred after a gang of heavily armed Latvian burglars shot five police officers who attempted to arrest them as they attempted to break into a jeweller's shop. Four of the policemen died. Three members of the gang were cornered at 100 Sidney Street and surrounded by the police. A gunfight ensued, but the police had inferior weapons and reinforcements in the form of soldiers from the Scots Guards were called in by order of Home Secretary Winston Churchill, who arrived to observe the scene himself. After six hours of fighting, the building caught fire and Churchill controversially gave the order that the Fire Brigade take no action. Two of the burglars' bodies were discovered in the burned out building but no trace of the third was ever found. A print from The Story of Seventy Momentous Years, the Life and Times of King George V, 1865-1936, editor Harold Wheeler, Odhams Press Ltd, London, 1937.