The Siege of Sydney Street is the subject of a new book published on March 1 that provides a thrilling account of this iconic East End event.

On January 3, 1911, in the heart of the mainly Jewish East End, police discovered Latvian revolutionaries wanted for the murder of three officers.

A six-hour gunfight ensued, with a fire consuming the besieged building.

Winston Churchill, then Home Secretary, arrived at the scene and ordered the blaze not to be extinguished.

Afterwards two charred bodies were found; the elusive Peter the Painter, believed to have been the ringleader, remained at large.

This gripping episode, known as the 'Siege of Sidney Street', was a nationwide sensation and ignited fierce debates on immigration to Britain, political extremism and law enforcement.

This book unravels the full story of the siege, the Latvian émigrés and their ties to the vibrant anarchist movement in London's East End.

The author, Andrew Whitehead, is an accomplished historian, lecturer and freelance journalist who spent 35 years at the BBC as a correspondent, presenter and editor of BBC World Service News.

His new book, A Devilish Kind of Courage: Anarchists, Aliens and the Siege of Sidney Street (ISBN: 9781789148442), is being published by Reaktion Books (https://reaktionbooks.co.uk} in hardback at £15.99.