On 4 and 5 March 1919 Kinmel Park in

Bodelwyddan Bodelwyddan () is a village, Wards and electoral divisions of the United Kingdom, electoral ward and community (Wales), community in Denbighshire, Wales, approximately 5 miles (8 km) South of Rhyl. The Parish includes several smaller hamle ...

, near

Abergele Abergele (; ; ) is a market town and community, situated on the north coast of Wales between the holiday resorts of Colwyn Bay and Rhyl, in Conwy County Borough and in the historic county of Denbighshire. Its northern suburb of Pensarn lies on ...

, North

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

, experienced two days of riots in the Canadian sector of the local military complex,

Kinmel Camp Kinmel Park Training Area is an army training ground in what was once the grounds of Kinmel Hall, near Abergele, in Conwy county borough, Wales. The camp was built in 1915 to train troops during the First World War and was later used to house tro ...

. The riots are believed to have been caused by delays in repatriation and by the Canadian soldiers' resentment at being used by their British officers as forced labour. About 15,000 Canadian troops were stationed at Kinmel Camp for a period after the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and were kept in poor conditions while their officers received pay and were free to leave the camp. Noel Barbour writes in ''Gallant Protesters'' (1975):

The mutineers were our own men, stuck in the mud of North Wales, waiting impatiently to get back to Canada four months after the end of the war. The 15,000 Canadian troops that concentrated at Kinmel didn't know about the strikes that held up the fuelling ships and which had caused food shortages. The men were on half rations, there was no coal for the stove in the cold grey huts, and they hadn't been paid for over a month. Forty-two had slept in a hut meant for thirty, so they each took turns sleeping on the floor, with one blanket each.

In ''The Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War''

G. W. L. Nicholson Colonel Gerald William Lingen Nicholson (6 January 1902 – 28 February 1980) was a British-Canadian soldier, historian, author, and teacher. From 1943 until his retirement in 1961, Nicholson served in the Historical Section, Canadian Army, wher ...

describes the Kinmel mutiny as one of a series of events that occurred during the post war redeployment of Canadian troops:

In all, between November 1918 and June 1919, there were thirteen instances or disturbances involving Canadian troops in England ic The most serious of these occurred in Kinmel Park on 4th and 5th March 1919, when dissatisfaction over delays in sailing resulted in five men being killed and 23 being wounded. Seventy-eight men were arrested, of whom 25 were convicted of mutiny and given sentences varying from 90 days' detention to ten years' penal servitude.

Bibliography

Notes References * * *{{cite web , last=Leroux, first=Marc, date=2020, url = http://www.canadiangreatwarproject.com/index.asp, title =Kinmel Park, publisher = Canadian Great War Project, access-date = 7 March 2020 Canada in World War I Mutinies in World War I Riots and civil disorder in Wales 1919 in Wales 1919 riots in the United Kingdom Abergele Wales in World War I March 1919 events