WIDOW AND CHILDREN OF POLICE-SERGT HATELY – RARE NORTHUMBERLAND RIOT BROADSIDE RELATING TO THE ALNWICK DISTURBANCES OF 1875 – 1875

Rare nineteenth-century printed subscription broadside issued following the death of Police Sergeant John Hately after the Alnwick riot of March 1875, listing donations raised for the support of his widow and children.

The broadside records an extensive roll of subscribers from across Alnwick and the surrounding district, preserving a remarkable snapshot of Victorian civic response, charitable giving, and local society in Northumberland during the later nineteenth century. Printed in double-column format, the sheet details individual donations ranging from substantial civic subscriptions to modest public contributions, collectively documenting the community reaction to one of the most serious episodes of civil disorder in Victorian Alnwick.

Sergeant Hately died following disturbances connected with the annual Alnwick March hirings on 6 March 1875. Contemporary reports describe police attempting to disperse a large and disorderly crowd outside the Angel Inn, during which Hately collapsed after sustaining injuries amidst violent confrontation and intense exertion. His death became widely commemorated within Northumberland policing history and remains associated with one of the county’s most notable nineteenth-century public disturbances.

Of particular importance is the apparent institutional rarity of the present broadside. No catalogued copy has been traced in major institutional databases including Library Hub Discover, WorldCat, or the British Library catalogue. The piece therefore appears to be either unrecorded institutionally or surviving in exceptionally few copies. Ephemeral locally printed subscription sheets of this nature were ordinarily discarded after use, making survival uncommon.

The document possesses substantial research value for historians of:

• Victorian policing,
• Northumberland local history,
• social welfare and charitable subscriptions,
• nineteenth-century crowd disorder,
• and regional genealogy.

A rare and historically significant survival of Victorian Northumberland ephemera.

Single printed broadside. Sheet size: approximately 33 x 20.3 cm.

Condition: Folded as issued with light creasing, minor age toning and handling wear consistent with survival of ephemeral material. Overall condition very good for a provincial nineteenth-century broadside of this nature.

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