How two gangster brothers were hanged for the murder of a former boxer in 1920s Sheffield

Sheffield in the 1920s could be a lawless place, with parts of the city left impoverished and many living in dangerous slums, controlled by gangs who would fight it out for control in endless turf wars.
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Poverty was extreme and unemployment through the roof, with Britain still on its knees financially after the First World War.

Out of this chaos rose the Park Brigade - run by Lawrence Fowler and his younger brother Wilfred - they terrorised the East End and Park areas of the city throughout the early 1920s.

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But, thinking they were beyond the reach of the long arm of the law, in 1925 the gang came to an extremely sticky end.

Lawrence and Wilfred Fowler, who were both hanged for murdering former soldier William Plummer in Sheffield in 1925Lawrence and Wilfred Fowler, who were both hanged for murdering former soldier William Plummer in Sheffield in 1925
Lawrence and Wilfred Fowler, who were both hanged for murdering former soldier William Plummer in Sheffield in 1925

It all started when one of the Brigade’s members, Trimmer Welsh, got himself into a fight in a Sheffield pub with a man by the name of William Plummer and took something of a hiding.

He had been mistreating a barmaid and Plummer - a powerfully-built former boxer who had served in WWI - took him outside and administered a damn good kicking.

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Within days, Plummer was again ambushed by a couple of gang members - this time including Wilfred Fowner, who was 23 at the time of the attack.

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But Plummer was again victorious, leaving the pair bloodied and battered and the whole Brigade with egg on their faces.

With fear the gang’s ultimate weapon, they couldn’t afford two such public defeats, and on April 27, around a dozen members and supporters turned up outside Plummer’s Norfolk Bridge home.

When he bravely stepped outside to face them, they beat, kicked and stabbed him to death in the street.

Soon rounded up by the law they had such contempt for, the Fowler brothers and five other members of the Brigade faced trial in July of that year at Leeds Assizes Court.

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They tried to claim self defence but an eye-witness gave evidence stating that Lawrence Fowler was heard to say to Plummer: “You’ve done for our kid and now we’ll do for you.”

The Fowler brothers were both found guilty of murder at the end of the week-long trial and were sentenced to hang.

Gang members George Willis and Amos Stewart got 10 years each in prison and Stanley Harker got seven years, all for manslaughter, while two further gang members were acquitted.

The Fowlers appealed their conviction, which was thrown out by The Court of Appeal in London the following April, almost a year after the murder.

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In September of the same year, the Fowler brothers were hanged at Armley Prison in Leeds, a day apart and on the same gallows. Historians believe the warden took the decision not to hang them at the same time as he felt there might be trouble between the brothers.

A newspaper report covering the trial states: “Plummer was warned the gang was coming and said: “I shall just have to stick it’.

“When attacked by six men, Plummer cried out: ‘I shall take you on one at a time’. Plummer knocked Fowler down and the gang then battered Plummer on the skull using truncheons and other weapons.”

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