On the evening of 30 November 1888, a crowd gathered on the platform of St Pancras Station in London to bid farewell to Mrs. Lucy Parsons. She was the widow of American anarchist Albert Parsons and had been visiting Great Britain for various commemorative events marking the first anniversary of the execution of her husband and the other “Chicago Martyrs.” She had been invited to Great Britain by the Socialist League and had been hosted by William Morris, editor of the Commonweal: The Journal of the Socialist League, a journal which for several years had been denouncing the execution of the Chicago anarchists as a miscarriage of justice and an attack on civil liberties. There had been huge publicity around Lucy's visit within radical circles, although her firebrand, anarchist-inflected rhetoric had also created some tension with her socialist hosts. Nonetheless, the visit seems to have been a success and the report of her leave-taking, as she set off for home through the port of Liverpool, makes no mention of any visible rifts between her and her hosts.

According to the Commonweal (8 December 1888) the platform was crowded “with Socialists of all opinions and nationalities” who, among other expressions of allegiance to Mrs. Parsons and the workers’ cause, sang “Annie Laurie” together. Subsequently, as the train left the station “amid cheers” the “strains of the Marseillaise” could be heard.