The Story of General Haynau

Reproduced from A Drought of Contentment, The Story of the Courage Group by John Pudney

The forthrightness of brewery people in particular and of Southwark people in general led to an incident at the Anchor — during Queen Victoria’s reign which had international repercussions.

A certain Baron Julius Jacob Von Haynau arrived in this a country in 1850. An Austrian by birth, he had risen to high rank in the Hapsburg army. In Italy he had been in charge of repressing revolt and he carried out his duties so brutally at Brescia that he had become known as the ‘Hyena of Brescia’. Afterwards he had become dictator of Hungary where his hangings and floggings were even more notorious. His evil reputation had spread throughout Europe when arrived in Britain shortly after his deposition in Hungary. The reason for his visit to a relatively liberal-minded country where he was a. unlikely to be welcomed is unknown; although it is known at least that Lord Palmerston then Foreign Secretary, was critical of his presence. Haynau went the rounds of a distinguished foreign visitor and in due course arrived in Southwark and signed his name in the visitors’ book at the Anchor, prior to viewing the wonders of the brewery in all its mid-Victorian splendour. But before the ink of his signature was dry, the office clerks were spreading the news of his arrival, shouting “Down with the Austrian butcher.”

Accounts of what happened vary, but of the severity of the near-lynching there is no doubt. It began in the brewery by somebody dropping a truss of hay on the visitor’s head. Then he was surrounded, pelted and abused by the brewery people who were joined by men and women from the market as he tried to make his escape. Because so many of his own atrocities had been against women, the women of Southwark were particularly ferocious. Haynau fled along Bankside and took refuge in the George public house where, according to some accounts, he was hidden in a dustbin. His life was saved by the multitudinous doors and devious passages of the old inn, which confused his pursuers. Fortunately for him a police rowing galley was alongside and the police managed to rush him on board and row him across the river to safety. “He escaped with his life and lost his moustache” wrote one of the newspapers, referring to his enormous military moustache which had found much favour with characterists. Newspapers and journals, particularly ‘Punch’, took up the incident with relish, and the Barclay, Perkins draymen were the heroes of the hour. The incident, however, did not close with the newspapers’ stories and the retreat of Haynau across the Channel (he died aged 67 in bed in Vienna three years later).

The Austrian Ambassador demanded formal apologies from the British Government. Palmerston’s sympathies were clearly with the draymen. His own view was that the “Ferocious and unmanly treatment of the unfortunate inhabitants of Brescia and of other towns and places in Italy, his savage proclamations to the people of Pesth and his barbarous acts in Hungary excited almost as much disgust in Austria as in England.” Accordingly he first delayed answering the Ambassador and then sent off a letter without waiting for Queen Victoria’s approval of its contents. On receiving the draft, the Queen disapproved very strongly. Palmerston had to defend himself with a note to the Queen: “Viscount Palmerston had put the last paragraph into the answer because he could scarcely have reconciled it to his own feelings and to his sense of public responsibility to have put his name to a note which might be liable to be called for by Parliament, without expressing in it, at least as his personal opinion, a sense of the want of propriety envinced by General Haynau in coming to England at the present moment ... The state of public feeling in this country about General Haynau and his proceedings in Italy and Hungary was perfectly well known ... the brewers’ men were expressing their feelings at what they considered inhuman conduct on the part of General Haynau .-- who was looked upon as a great moral criminal.” The Queen’s irritation was not assuaged. She forwarded Palmerston’s note to the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell: “Lord John will see that Lord Palmerston has not only sent the draft, but passes over in silence her injunction to have a corrected copy given to Baron Keller (The Ambassador), and adds a vituperation against General Haynau which clearly shows that he is not sorry for what has happened, and makes a merit of sympathising with the draymen at the brewery.”

The immediate outcome was that Palmerston, having threatened to resign, had to withdraw the message he had sent to Vienna, and a more apologetic note took its place. But the effect of the draymen’s action lingered on. The Austrians refused to send an official representative to the funeral of the Duke of Wellington two years later in 1852, and by this time the Queen’s views on the incident were more liberal. She expressed surprise that Austria should “slight England in return for what happened to Haynau for his own character.” Public opinion, however, was strongly in sympathy with the Southwark protest. Broadsides and street ballads for many years acclaimed the actions of the draymen. In September 1850 there was even a public meeting at Farringdon Hall in which their “noble conduct” was approved and cheered. When the Italian hero Garibaldi came to London fourteen years later in 1864, one of his most popular gestures was to insist on seeing the “fabrique de biere” where the tyrannical Haynau had been humiliated. At the Anchor Garibaldi toasted the workmen of the world in good Southwark Beer.