Following the end of the Second World War, African-Caribbean immigration to Britain increased. By the 1950s, white working-class "Teddy Boys" were beginning to display hostility towards black families in the area, a situation exploited and inflamed by groups such as Oswald Mosley's Union Movement and other far-right groups such as the White Defence League, who urged disaffected white residents to keep Britain white. There was an increase in violent attacks on black people throughout the summer. On 24 August 1958 a group of ten English youths committed serious assaults on six West Indian men in four separate incidents. At 5.40 a.m., the youths' car was spotted by two police officers who pursued them into the White City estate, where the gang abandoned their car. Using the car as a lead, investigating detectives arrested nine of the gang the next day, after working non-stop for twenty hours. Just prior to the Notting Hill riots, there was racial unrest in the St Ann's neighbourhood in Nottingham which began on 23 August, and continued intermittently for two weeks.
The riot is often believed to have been triggered by an assault against Majbritt Morrison, a white Swedish woman, on 29 August 1958. Morrison had been arguing with her Jamaican husband Raymond Morrison at the Latimer Road Underground station. A group of various white people attempted to intervene in the argument and a small fight broke out between the intervening people and some of Raymond Morrison's friends. The following day Majbritt Morrison was verbally and physically assaulted by a gang of white youths that had recalled seeing her the night before. According to one report, the youths threw milk bottles at Morrison and called her racial slurs such as "Black man's trollop", while a later report stated that she had also been struck in the back with an iron bar.
The riot
Later that night a mob of 300 to 400 white people were seen on Bramley Road attacking the houses of West Indian residents. The disturbances, rioting and attacks continued every night until 5 September. The Metropolitan Police arrested more than 140 people during the two weeks of the disturbances, mostly white youths but also many black people found carrying weapons. A report to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner stated that of the 108 people charged with crimes such as grievous bodily harm, affray and riot and possessing offensive weapons, 72 were white and 36 were black.
Aftermath
The sentencing of the nine white youths by Mr Justice Salmon, has been passed into judicial lore as an example of "exemplary sentencing" - a harsh punishment intended to act as a deterrent to others. Each of the youths received five years in prison and they were to also pay £500. A "Caribbean Carnival", precursor of the Notting Hill Carnival was held on 30 January 1959 in St Pancras Town Hall, organised by activist Claudia Jones as a response to the riots and the state of race relations in Britain at the time. The riots caused tension between the Metropolitan Police and the British African-Caribbean community, which claimed that the police had not taken their reports of racial attacks seriously. In 2002, files were released that revealed that senior police officers at the time had assured the Home Secretary, Rab Butler, that there was little or no racial motivation behind the disturbance, despite testimony from individual police officers to the contrary.
Cultural depictions
Majbritt Morrison wrote about the riots in her autobiography, Jungle West 11. The Notting Hill race riots feature heavily in the film Absolute Beginners which was based on the book of the same name by Colin MacInnes.
