Today in London squatting history, 1978: mass eviction in Huntley Street, Bloomsbury.

In February 1977 5 blocks of 54 empty police flats, in Huntley Street, behind University College Hospital, which had lain empty for 4 years, were squatted; as an initiative of the Squatters Action Council. Getting in to the blocks (all amusingly named after the first five commissioners of the Metropolitan Police!), wasn’t hard, the front doors were unlocked… Soon 160 people were living here, including recent evictees from squats at Cleveland Street, Trentishoe Mansions & Cornwall Terrace. One block was allocated to women and children from a hostel for battered women (in co-operation with Women’s Aid); a ground floor flat became the office of the Squatters Action Council and later the London Squatters Union.

3 days after the flats were squatted, the Health Authority, who owned them, announced that they were to be used to house nurses and doctors from neighbouring University College Hospital.

In 1977 the many activists living in the flats were regularly woken early in the morning by motivated people going round knocking on doors to gather people to head up to the mass pickets at the Grunwicks strike in West London…

After the Health Authority obtained a Possession Order in July 1978, the flats were barricaded, a watch was set up around the clock on the roof. Barricades were also set up in the street; the occupiers prepared for a confrontation. However, negotiations were also going on for rehousing of the squatters…

The squats were infiltrated by two undercover cops, “Nigel and Mary”, posing as homeless… Now many of the squatters sussed to these two early on, but others went all liberal, saying there was no proof, they could be ok etc… “Nigel and Mary” managed to get themselves on the roof rota one morning, up turn the cops… well you can guess the rest.

On 16th August 1978, in London’s biggest mass eviction, the houses were evicted by the Special Patrol Group; in all 650 coppers led by ex-bomb squad supremo, & nemesis of the Angry Brigade, Roy Habershon. They sealed off the street & send in bulldozers. All 5 houses were cleared despite some resistance from the barricaded buildings. This included a pan of what was alter allegedly piss (but was in fact just water) being poured over Harris, the Under-Sheriff of London.

It turned the police had been tapping the phones, taking aerial surveillance pictures, and so on… 14 squatters were nicked, charged with ‘resisting the sheriff’ contrary to Section 10 of the Criminal Law Act 1977. 12 later got acquitted, but Piers Corbyn (then famous as the ‘king of the squatters’ in Elgin Avenue, now more infamous as a climate change denier and Covid conspiracy superspreader) and Jim Paton of the Advisory Service for Squatters were found guilty… Although Jim wasn’t even present at the eviction, he had been heavily involved in planning the resistance (including negotiating the loan of lots of corrugated iron from squatted street Villa Road for building the barricades).

In solidarity with the evicted Huntley Street residents, 150 Dutch squatters besieged the British Embassy in the Hague (smashing the windows by throwing heavy cast-steel yellow dinky toys modeled on the bulldozers used to smash the barricades!), & the British embassy in Stockholm was also picketed.

In fact the eviction was totally unnecessary – an agreement had been won the day before that all the squatters would be rehoused (which was to some extent why securty on the barricades had been slightly relaxed – it was thought the eviction wouldn’t take place with an agreement for rehousing in place…) The deal was granted by then Camden councillor Ken Livingstone… Many were given flats on the nearby Hillview Estate, in Kings Cross, which was handed over to Shortlife Community Housing to manage…|

There’s a short video of the eviction here:

NB: Nothing can’t be sold… The poster reproduced at the top of this post, printed in support of the Huntley Street squatters, is being sold on the internet  by a ‘rare books’ dealer in the US for $750… Betting the money will go to housing campaigns today…?