She could hear the shouts of disbelief and anger as the news spread outside to the waiting crowd. Mr Fleming banged his gavel and appealed for calm, and Hargreaves and the other special constables rolled up their sleeves, prepared for trouble.

Mary thought that she’d best get back to the Star. The situation was on the brink of turning nasty and she realised that she should have left sooner. The doorways were all blocked by milling bodies and their faces were dark and thunderous. Then, above the noise of shouting, came the sudden sound of breaking glass and a stone thumped to the floor inside the theatre, followed by another and then another. Mary ducked down between the seats and covered her head with her hands. One man nearby had been hit by flying glass and blood flowed copiously from a gash on his head.

The crowd began to panic under the assault. Some rushed for the doors whilst others climbed up on to the stage away from the windows. She saw Mr Feilden put his arms around his wife and daughters and usher them away, calling for someone to bring his carriage around to the back.

Mary crept between the rows of seats to follow them. There was more chance of her getting out that way than at the front. She squeezed past people one by one as they swore at her and tried to push her to the back of the heaving mass of bodies, but she slipped through and out into the late afternoon. The engines were still thumping, but men were spilling out of the mills, seemingly having abandoned their work to hear the result. And although it wasn’t yet dark, fires were being lit and there was a thick smell of burning in the streets. The sound of breaking glass came again and again as more windows were smashed and fighting broke out between the mob and the special constables.

‘Tha’s not safe here, lass.’ Mary turned at the sound of Hargreaves’s voice. He must have seen her and followed her out.

‘I’m all right,’ she told him. ‘I think tha’s probably needed elsewhere.’

‘Nay,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘They can manage.’

She tried to move away as he reached to take her arm but she was hemmed in by the crowd.

‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘I’ll make sure tha stays safe.’

Mary tried to shake him off. ‘Let me go. It’s not far to the Star. I don’t need any help from thee.’

As more of the men from inside the theatre began to surge out she was caught in the flood of bodies and swept along. Hargreaves lost his grasp on her, for which she was thankful, but she soon realised that she had no choice but to run in the same direction as the men and women who were heading up the street towards the Old Bull or be trampled underfoot. She thought she’d never been so afraid.

The mob slowed as it reached the pub where most of Mr Turner’s friends were gathered. It seemed that every person bent to pick up a rock or other missile from the floor and hurl it towards the windows. The sound of shattering glass filled the air and it hardly paused as the bugles of the dragoons sounded as they rode up from their barracks on King Street.