Anti German sentimentOn New Years Eve 1914 at about 9.00pm in the evening a group of young men gathered outside the Gisborne Pork Butchery shop of Mr F. Wohnsiedler. When a volley of ill directed stones smashed one of the shops large plate glass windows the Police were called to calm the rabble. Mr Wohnsieldler, a naturalised German, closed his premises and turned out the lightsas the crowd number began to swell. By midnight approximately 2000 people had gathered around the shop, singing patriotic songs and throwing stones and bottles at the premises. The entire local Police force was on hand to try and calm the crowd. By 1.00 oclock in the morning the premises were completely wrecked with every pane of glass being broken. The town Mayor, Mr W. Sherratt was summoned by the police but in his attempt to calm the crowd he too was pelted with stones, breaking the windshield on his motor car. The crowd finally dispersed at 2.00pm. Several days later one offender, James Blance, was fined 8 pounds for wilful damage to the shop and for enciting others to break and enter. The Magistrate described his actions as a most cowardly attack on an in offensive citizen and not the conduct of Britishers.
