Fenian Ambush This is a memorial that you may have
to seek out because it isn't exactly in a location most
people would pass on any given day. It sits on
Hyde Road not far from Devonshire Street, at the point
where the railway crosses the road. It was at this
point in 1867 that a prison van containing prisoners,
enroute to the nearby Belle Vue Prison (below) from the
courthouse in the city centre, was attacked by a group
of 30 or 40 men in an attempt to free the
prisoners.
 The mounted escort fled and in the
melee the police officer in the van was shot and killed
and the two prisoners escaped. Apparently, the men
had been arrested under the vagrancy act by police
officers in Shudehill who suspected them of planning to
rob a shop. They were infact members of a Fenian
group. The incident was described as the
“Manchester Outrage”. The two prisoners who
escaped were never recaptured but three men, William
Allen, Michael Larkin and Michael O'Brien, were tried,
convicted of the murder of the police guard and hung at
the New Bailey Prison (below). Over time they
became known as the “Manchester Martyrs”.
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