Alan Wills, of Windermere, describes The Seathwaite Navvies' Riot of 1904

When the landlord of the Newfield Hotel in the Duddon Valley told a customer to leave the bar during the afternoon of July 25, 1904, nobody expected the situation to escalate in the way it did.

Within the following two hours the hotel, the church, the vicarage and the school would all be vandalised and three people would be shot, one fatally. This was the Seathwaite Navvies’ Riot.

The trouble started at 2pm when some navvies employed on the Seathwaite Reservoir to Barrow-in-Furness pipeline had been drinking in the bar since 10am.

They included Owen Kavanagh, James Foy and Garrett Kinsella.

The landlord, Thomas Dawson, and his wife Elizabeth, were on the premises with their daughter, Mary Margaret.

When Foy demanded another beer Dawson told him to leave, which he eventually did. However, the pair argued outside. Foy grabbed Mary by the shoulders, tearing her blouse and Foy’s friends joined in the argument. The navvies threw stones through the hotel windows, re-entered the bar, smashed bottles and stole spirits, tobacco and cigarettes before proceeding 100 yards up the road to the other properties.

After an orgy of window smashing they returned at 3.30pm to the hotel, which was closed.

The people inside included John Greenhow, a barman and Henry Knox Todd from Glasgow, an assistant waterworks engineer.

The mob threw more stones through the windows and threatened to murder anybody inside if the door was not opened. Greenhow pointed a muzzle loader through a window and shot Kinsella.

The mob’s threats continued so Knox shot Kavanagh with a double-barrelled shotgun. By this time Dawson was outside. Somebody passed him a firearm through a window. He told the mob twice to disperse but Foy threw a stone at him so Dawson shot him.

Kavanagh died the next day; Foy lost a leg; Kinsella recovered but was sentenced to nine months hard labour. The damage to property consisted of 40 smashed panes of glass at the hotel, 50 at the church, 37 at the vicarage and 17 at the school.

The three gunmen were arrested for the shootings, charged and appeared in court where they were granted bail, the charges soon being dropped. The jury at the inquest into Kavanagh’s death returned of verdict of justifiable homicide.