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The British passenger liner Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland on 7 May 1915, with the loss of more than 1,200 people. It had been travelling from New York to Liverpool. Its sinking caused a huge wave of anti-German sentiment.

There were riots in London, Liverpool, Manchester and Salford. In the latter city, police recorded disturbances on three consecutive days with shops owed by Germans or with German sounding names being attacked with some being looted.

Some shops targeted in the Lower Broughton area were actually owned by Jews from Russia or Latvia and they placed posters in their windows printed by the police to ward off rioters by saying they were not German.

Police says the crowds during this time were largely composed of women and youths and although the riots were provoked by German atrocities, many harmless people who were not in the least German suffered from the rioting and in some cases private grudges and greed were the active motives.

One hundred people were arrested.

Location: Salford, Greater Manchester M7 1WE
Image: Vandalism to a shop in Cross Lance, Salford, reported in the Courier newspaper

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