The third part of the BBC’s excellent series The Secret History of my family arrived in Salford this Thursday when the the descendants of rival gang leaders in 1880s Salford uncover tales of street battles, lawbreaking and press hysteria.
Press hysteria and public panic gripped 1890s Salford as it erupted into postcode violence.
Rival gangs of youths, known as scuttlers, clashed in pitched street battles.
Magistrate Joseph Makinson attempted to stamp out the epidemic of gang warfare by giving the scuttlers a taste of their own medicine.
More than a century later, descendants of the rival gang leaders and descendants of the judge who tried to stop them tell their family stories, and ask whether violence is still part of life in working-class Salford.
BBC2 Thursday 24th March, 8pm
