Robin Longbottom examines how the outbreak of the First World War led to violent attacks on shops run by German immigrants

UNTIL 30 or 40 years ago, pork butchers’ shops were a familiar sight in our

high streets but they have now largely disappeared.

They became common during the 19th century selling bacon and hams, pies, sausages, roast hocks, polony and brawn.

The demand for this cheap ready-to-eat food was largely met by immigrant pork butchers from Germany, many of whom came from the southern state of Wurtemberg.

In the 1870s, Adolph Karl Lorenz Andrassy arrived in Bradford from Kunzelsau in Wurtemberg.

Another German, Frederick Beyer, had already opened a butchers shop in Ivegate. And in 1877 Andrassy married Beyer’s sister Magdalene and then moved to Keighley, where he opened a pork butchers at 40 High Street.

Andrassy settled into life in Keighley, changed his name to Charles, joined the Methodist Church and took British citizenship in 1899.

His business was so successful that he was able to pass it to a relative, Karl Andrassy, in 1901 and retire to Oxenhope.

A few years after Andrassy arrived, George Schneider – also from Kunzelsau – opened a shop at 10 Church Street. He married Barbara Metzler, another German, in Shipley in 1887, embraced English culture, took British citizenship and retired to a house in Utley in 1906.

Schneider passed his shop to his wife’s sister, Pauline, and her husband Karl Hofmann, who was again from Kunzelsau. He employed another German, Christian Frederick Walters, who after his marriage in 1909 opened yet another pork butchers at 86 Low Street.

However, when war broke out in Europe in July 1914, there was growing resentment towards the small German community.

Trouble started on Saturday, August 29, when an Irishman called Kelly caused a disturbance in Karl Andrassy’s shop in High Street. The two came to blows and Andrassy threw him out of the shop.

Within a few hours a large mob, led by an Irishman called Billy Darcy, gathered in the Westgate area.

With cries of “Who will join Darcy’s army?”, the mob – mainly from the Irish community – marched to Andrassy’s shop, smashed the windows, robbed it and set fire to it. Other less-violent members succeeded in putting the fire out as the Andrassy family fled out of the back to the safety of the police station in North Street.

The mob then turned its attentions to Hofmann’s in Church Street, where they smashed the windows and made off with the contents of the shop.

Christian Walter’s shop in Low Street was also looted and then the mob surged along North Street and stoned the police station, the courthouse and the police superintendent’s house.

The police were unable to stop the violence and sent to Bradford for reinforcements.

After further looting, some members of the mob employed at Prince Smith & Sons, machine makers, with whom they had an industrial dispute, now turned to settle matters with Sir Prince Smith and went to attack his house in Spring Gardens Lane. Fortunately, the gates to the grounds were locked against them.

The police, having failed to gain control, eventually sent for Monsignor Russell, the Catholic priest.

A tough, no-nonsense Irishman, he finally dispersed the mob having first denounced them in the strongest terms and telling them that if they wanted to fight Germans, they should get themselves down to the recruiting office and leave peaceable citizens alone.

A number of arrests were made the following day.

Herbert Towers, who had stolen a side of bacon from Hoffmann’s, was fined, whilst William Darcy and other ring leaders received sentences of up to three months hard labour.

Karl Andrassy never reopened his burned-out shop and left the district.

However, Hofmann’s remained popular purveyors of pork pies, sausages and roasted hocks into the 1970s when they finally shut their doors for good.