Nottingham and Notting Hill, 1958: Violence, Resistance and Community

Two cities facing racist violence

In late summer 1958, Black residents in Nottingham and west London faced attacks in the streets and against their homes and businesses. The events became widely known as race riots. That familiar description needs to be accompanied by an account of who was attacked, who defended themselves and what the authorities did. The Modern Records Centre at Warwick preserves responses from residents, unions, public officials and community organisations. Together, they reveal a struggle over protection and belonging that continued after the largest crowds dispersed. ¹

Nottingham and Notting Hill had different local histories. St Ann’s was part of a Midlands industrial city; North Kensington belonged to a large and increasingly diverse capital. Caribbean residents in both places were building working and family lives. They encountered restrictions on employment, accommodation and access to public places, commonly described as the colour bar. Historian Christian Høgsbjerg identifies these everyday exclusions, together with housing pressures and anxiety about unemployment, as conditions in which migrants could be made scapegoats. These conditions help explain the setting of the violence without making attacks on neighbours an inevitable response to poverty. ²

Life in St Ann's

St Ann’s offered places to meet and socialise as well as difficulties. Speaking to LeftLion in 2018, Nottingham Black Archive founder Panya Banjoko described Caribbean and African residents living close together in crowded housing. Jamaican residents developed shebeens, gatherings where people could drink, dance and spend time with friends. Remembering these settings matters because the neighbourhood existed as a community before it became a newspaper story about disorder. People had relationships, routines and ambitions that the violence disrupted. ³

Research for Mufaro Makubika’s play Shebeen brought different memories into conversation. Banjoko recalled listening to Black and white residents, including older Black women whose experiences complicated stories centred only on men and nightlife. Sonia Davies remembered her father describing the 1958 events as white gangs attacking Black men. Her account is a recollection of what he told her, rather than her own eyewitness testimony. It preserves a family understanding of events that could disappear behind a general description of two communities fighting. The play itself uses fictional characters; the interviews supporting its development remain a separate historical resource. ³

The Nottingham attacks and their immediate aftermath

Serious disturbances occurred in Nottingham on 23 and 30 August. Reporting to the House of Lords in November, Lord Pakenham gave figures of twenty-three white people and two Black people arrested in connection with those Nottingham disturbances. Arrest totals cannot identify every participant or determine responsibility for every incident. They do establish that the events were being discussed nationally as more than a private quarrel, and that the official response included arrests across the two weekends. ⁴

The same parliamentary debate joined Nottingham to the disturbances in London while exposing disagreement about what had happened. Pakenham condemned the violence and opposed a hurried decision to restrict Commonwealth immigration in response. He also discussed youth services, housing and prejudice. His speech illustrates how a question about the safety of people already living in Britain could become an argument about the future admission of other people. Protection from attack and immigration policy were being debated together, although they were different questions. ⁴

Eric Irons, whose memoir informed a Nottingham Museums resource, remembered racial hostility at the centre of the confrontation. He also recalled the speed and force of the West Indian response. His account gives Black residents an active place in the events. Following the violence, Irons helped the city council address problems affecting the community and represented a joint committee when a delegation from the West Indian High Commission investigated. The response therefore moved between the street, local administration and Caribbean representatives concerned about their compatriots. ⁵

Organisations that existed before the crowds

Irons’s ability to undertake that work rested on earlier organisation. The Nottingham Museums account records a social club established in 1952 and a consultative committee formed in 1955. He offered advice to unemployed West Indians and Asians, while social gatherings and other activities created regular contact. These arrangements gave residents somewhere to bring difficulties before the violence attracted outside attention. When officials sought community representatives, they encountered people whose experience came from handling practical problems over several years. ⁵

George Powe brought another organising tradition. His family archive records his involvement in the Afro-Asian West Indian Union in Nottingham from 1957, alongside trade union and anti-colonial activity. It also preserves a letter from Raleigh Industries dated 20 April 1956, inviting him to bring a delegation to discuss problems with management. The letter is evidence that challenges to employment discrimination preceded the disturbances. The struggle for better treatment did not begin only when large crowds appeared in the streets. ⁶

The archive also reproduces local labour historian Roger Tanner’s account of the Trades Council response. It blamed government failures over employment and housebuilding rather than Black workers, while also using language that treated lawlessness as a problem on both sides. Those different emphases could sit within the same statement. Powe’s organising pursued a more sustained question: how could workers unite while some of them were being excluded from jobs because of race? The challenge required action inside workplaces and unions as well as condemnation of violence outside. ⁶

Powe puts the argument into print

Powe’s pamphlet Don’t Blame the Blacks, published in Nottingham in 1958, addressed that question directly. A copy exhibited by Senate House Library explains migration through the limited working opportunities and conditions in the Caribbean. It rejects the claim that migrants caused Britain’s social and economic difficulties. Its title condensed a political argument into a demand that could circulate beyond a meeting: responsibility for unemployment and poor housing should not be transferred to the people subjected to discrimination. ⁷

The pamphlet also shows why Nottingham deserves its own place in the history of 1958. A local Black organiser was producing an explanation of events for other workers, not merely waiting for visiting politicians to interpret the city. Print made an argument portable. Readers could encounter it through an organisation, discuss it with colleagues or take it away to consider. Powe connected the circumstances that encouraged migration with the obstacles migrants encountered after arrival, making both part of the same debate about work and power. ⁷

Notting Hill and the boundaries of belonging

In west London, attacks during late August and early September targeted Caribbean residents and properties. Poor housing formed part of the setting, but it does not provide a complete explanation for the conduct of attackers. Historian Christopher Hilliard used arrest information to map the disturbances and the addresses of white people arrested. His research found that few lived alongside Black residents or competed directly with them for housing. The evidence challenges an explanation in which immediate competition between neighbours automatically produced violence. ⁸

Hilliard instead emphasises the importance of ideas about who belonged in particular streets and communities. This interpretation helps distinguish a social condition from a decision to attack somebody. A shortage of decent accommodation affected many people; racist assumptions directed hostility towards particular residents. The relationship between hardship and violence therefore needs investigation rather than being taken for granted. The people trying to make homes in the area were entitled to safety regardless of the conditions of the housing market. ⁸

Residents ask for protection

A memorandum dated 5 September records a visit to the Trades Union Congress by a British-born Black woman, her Jamaican husband and four other Jamaicans. Two were union members and one had recently opened a restaurant. They feared further violence and had advised neighbours to shop early and remain indoors afterwards. Even staying at home did not feel secure. They reported an attack on a club and complained about police language and behaviour. The restaurant owner said officers had damaged his door during a search after dispersing a threatening crowd. ⁹

The visitors wanted protection and a fair chance to earn a living. They also asked for a prominent public meeting in the neighbourhood so that everyone could see they were not isolated. Their position, as recorded by the official, was that they would have to protect themselves if protection was not provided. This was both a practical response to danger and an appeal for wider support. The memorandum preserves their complaints through an intermediary, whose comments sometimes questioned their judgement, making it necessary to distinguish the residents’ statements from his interpretation. ⁹

A statement connecting Nottingham and London

On 4 September, the Afro-West Indian Union issued a statement responding to both cities. It condemned the attacks and held the government responsible for the conditions in which racial violence developed. It called for cooperation with the labour movement and other organisations representing colonial peoples. The accompanying material identified housing, employment and discrimination as problems requiring organisation, and listed George Powe as a Nottingham contact alongside the union’s London address. The two cities were already linked through campaigning networks. ¹⁰

The statement combined positions that deserve to be understood together. It opposed legislation restricting the movement of poorer Black people, while asking colonial governments to provide transport for those who voluntarily wanted to return but could not afford it. Choosing to leave was different from being compelled to leave. It also rejected partial treatment by the authorities. These demands allowed for different individual decisions while defending collective rights. The leaflet included a membership form and advertised Powe’s pamphlet, turning its explanation of the violence into an invitation to take part in organised activity. ¹⁰

The trade union response

The TUC’s General Council approved its own statement on 4 September. It condemned the attacks, urged trade unionists to help prevent further disorder and warned that people associated with pre-war racial agitation were again encouraging violence. The statement called on the authorities to act against those inciting it as well as against the immediate offenders. It also encouraged cooperation through local voluntary organisations. Anti-racist action was presented as a responsibility extending beyond the police. ¹¹

There were limits to the language used. The statement described the outbreaks as hooliganism and placed considerable emphasis on migrants becoming accustomed to British life. That approach could coexist with a sincere condemnation of racism, but it did not fully reflect the residents’ demands for protection recorded in the following day’s memorandum. Comparing the documents reveals different priorities within organisations seeking a response. For those facing attacks, safety at home, at work and on the journey between them was an immediate concern. ¹¹

Punishment and arguments over reconciliation

The courts imposed substantial sentences on some of those convicted. In December 1958, Fenner Brockway asked Home Secretary R. A. Butler to reconsider four-year prison sentences being served by four young men for offences connected with the Notting Hill disturbances. Brockway made clear that he did not condone their conduct. He also reported requests from Black workers for a reduction and asked whether sentences affecting both white and Black defendants could be reviewed in the interest of goodwill. ¹²

Butler refused to intervene, explaining that the Court of Criminal Appeal had upheld the sentences and that no new circumstances justified recommending mercy. The exchange shows that the aftermath included disagreement about what justice required. Deterrence, punishment and attempts at reconciliation did not necessarily lead everyone to the same conclusion. Brockway’s report should not be treated as the opinion of all Black residents. It records one position being advanced within a wider debate, at a time when experiences of vulnerability and confidence in the authorities varied. ¹²

Repairing homes and rebuilding everyday security

An emergency meeting of the Paddington Overseas Students and Workers Committee on 18 September brought the practical aftermath into focus. Tony Lynes sought help contacting people whose homes needed repairs after the attacks. Other speakers discussed youth work, relationships with the police and the conduct of the press. A representative from Paddington Technical College reported good relations between students of different backgrounds, reminding the meeting that hostility did not describe every local relationship. ¹³

The meeting established a smaller committee to investigate and act, including Caribbean representatives and a representative of the West Indian Workers and Students Association. Participants differed over the weight to give housing, fascist activity and youth behaviour. Yet damaged homes still needed repair and residents still needed ways to move safely through their neighbourhoods. The work following 1958 took place through such concrete demands. In both cities, Black residents and their allies pressed institutions to recognise people already living among them as neighbours and fellow workers whose security could not be postponed. ¹³

Sources

[1] University of Warwick Modern Records Centre. The 1958 riots Archive guide; 30 March 2022.

[2] Christian Høgsbjerg White Rose Research Online. Notting Hill Riots 1958 University repository abstract of encyclopedia entry; 2009.

[3] LeftLion. Shebeen A Tale of St Ann's in the Fifties Interviews by Bea Udeh; 9 June 2018.

[4] UK Parliament Hansard. Colour Prejudice and Violence House of Lords debate; 19 November 1958.

[5] Cassandra Gooptar Nottingham Museums and University of Nottingham. Leader in the Community Eric Irons Resource pack based on family memoir; 2021.

[6] George Powe heritage website. Political and community activism Family archive including correspondence and Roger Tanner's research.

[7] Senate House Library University of London. Don't Blame the Blacks Pamphlet catalogue and exhibition interpretation; Pamphlet 1958; exhibition 2025.

[8] Christopher Hilliard History Workshop Journal. Mapping the Notting Hill Riots Racism and the Streets of Post-war Britain Published abstract; 15 April 2022.

[9] Trades Union Congress University of Warwick Modern Records Centre. Notting Hill Memorandum of interview with residents Reference 292/805.7/3/212; 5 September 1958.

[10] Afro-West Indian Union University of Warwick Modern Records Centre. Statement on racial violence and organising leaflet Reference 601/B/3/2/1/1; 4 September 1958.

[11] Trades Union Congress University of Warwick Modern Records Centre. The Notting Hill Riots General Council statement Reference 292/805.7/3/198; 4 September 1958.

[12] UK Parliament Hansard. Disturbance Notting Hill Sentences House of Commons questions; 11 December 1958.

[13] Paddington Overseas Students and Workers Committee University of Warwick Modern Records Centre. Minutes of emergency meeting Reference 292/805.7/3/88; 18 September 1958.

Sources checked on 23 October 2026.