Several techniques were employed by the "Skeletons" to disrupt Salvation Army meetings and marches these included throwing rocks and dead rats, marching while loudly playing musical instruments or shouting, and physically assaulting Salvation Army members at their meetings.Īlthough George Scott Railton, second in command of the Salvation Army, claimed the Skeleton Army first started in Weston-super-Mare in 1881, contemporary press reports show that it first appeared in Exeter in October 1881.
Skeletons further published so-called "gazettes" considered libellous as well as obscene and blasphemous.
Banners also had pictures of monkeys, rats and the devil. Skeletons used banners with skulls and crossbones sometimes there were two coffins and a statement like, "Blood and Thunder" (mocking the Salvation Army's war cry "Blood and Fire") or the three Bs: "Beef", "Beer" and " Bacca" – again mocking the Salvation Army's three S's – "Soup", "Soap" and "Salvation". The "Skeletons" recognised each other by various insignia used to distinguish themselves. In 'Blood on the Flag', Major Nigel Bovey identifies 21 north-of-London towns and cities, three of them in Scotland, in which the Skeleton Army opposed The Salvation Army. Membership was predominantly lower to middle working-class.
In 1881, Skeleton Armies were raised in Whitechapel, Exeter and Weston-super-Mare, and the name was quickly taken up elsewhere as other groups were formed in the south of England there are no records of Skeleton Armies north of London. The earliest reference to an organised opposition to The Salvation Army was in August 1880 in Whitechapel, when The Unconverted Salvation Army was founded with its flag and motto of "Be just and fear not".
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