Spa Fields riots

Last updated

The Spa Fields riots were incidents of public disorder arising out of the second of two mass meetings at Spa Fields, Islington, England on 15 November and 2 December 1816.

Contents

The meetings had been planned by a small group of revolutionary Spenceans, who invited the popular radical speaker Henry Hunt to address the crowd. They hoped that the meetings would be followed by rioting, during which they would seize control of the government by taking the Tower of London and the Bank of England. The first meeting ended peacefully, with Hunt being elected to deliver a petition to the Prince Regent, requesting electoral reform and relief from hardship and distress. At the second meeting some of the Spenceans harangued the crowd before Hunt arrived and led away a section of it. The rioters raided a gunsmith's shop and exchanged gunfire with troops at the Royal Exchange. Other incidents took place at Snow Hill and Minories, but after soldiers refused to hand over the Tower of London the rioters dispersed.

In the aftermath of the riots, four leading Spenceans, John Hooper, Thomas Preston, Arthur Thistlewood and James Watson, were arrested and charged with high treason. Watson was tried first and the chief prosecution witness was John Castle, a government spy who had infiltrated the Spenceans. Castle's evidence was discredited by defence counsel and Watson was acquitted, at which point the prosecution presented no evidence against the other defendants and all four were released.

Background

The ending of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 led to a sharp downturn in the British economy, bringing mass unemployment and distress. [1] [2] Radical leaders in London had organised petitions calling for parliament to relieve distress, but without success, [3] [4] and the Spenceans thought that more extreme action was needed. They called a mass public meeting at Spa Fields for 15 November 1816, with the object of marching to the Prince Regent's house to deliver their demands, which included universal (male) suffrage, annual parliaments, secret ballots and redistribution of land. [5] They invited several leading radical speakers to attend, [6] but Hunt was the only one to agree, and when he met the organisers prior to the meeting he persuaded them not to march to the house and to moderate their demands by dropping land reform. [7] Hunt was a very popular speaker and the meeting was attended by around 10,000 people. [5] He prevented any departure from the agreed plan and the meeting passed off peacefully, with Hunt and Sir Francis Burdett being elected to deliver the petition. [8] However, when Hunt proposed that the meeting be adjourned until parliament next sat, Watson's son, also called James Watson, persuaded the crowd to support the earlier date of 2 December. Young Watson, Thistlewood and some of the other Spenceans had only reluctantly agreed to Hunt's terms for the first meeting and wanted the second to end in riots. [9]

Rioting

Hunt made two attempts to present the petition to the Prince Regent (without Burdett, who had declined to participate) but had been refused admittance. [5] Meanwhile, the Spenceans advertised the second meeting with a number of inflammatory handbills, including one which quoted Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805:

ENGLAND
Expects every Man to do his Duty
___________________________
The Meeting in Spa Fields
Takes Place at 12 o'clock
On Monday, December 2nd. 1816
To receive the answer of the PETITION to the PRINCE REGENT,
determined upon at the last meeting held in the same place,
and for other important Considerations
THE PRESENT STATE OF GREAT BRITAIN
Four Millions in Distress !!!
Four Millions Embarrassed !!!
One Million-and-half fear Distress !!!
Half-a-million live in splendid Luxury !!!
Death would now be a relief to Millions –
Arrogance, Folly, and Crimes – have brought affairs to this dread Crisis.
Firmness and Integrity
can only save the Country!!! [10]

On 2 December another large crowd assembled in Spa Fields to hear Hunt. Before he arrived, however, both Watsons harangued the crowd and Watson junior picked up a tricolour flag, symbol of the French Revolution, and led off a section in the direction of the Tower. [5] [11] Most of the crowd stayed behind to listen to Hunt and the meeting passed off without incident. [12]

The rioters robbed a gunsmith's shop in Snow Hill, during which shots were fired, the gunsmith wounded and a passer-by killed. [5] [4] At the Royal Exchange troops closed the gates and exchanged shots with the rioters. [4] Further skirmishes took place at Fleet Market, Snow Hill and the Minories, which the rioters took under control for some hours. From there, Thistlewood led an armed band to the Tower of London, climbed a wall and invited the soldiers to surrender. They refused and the most serious public disturbance in London since the Gordon Riots of 1780 gradually petered out. [4]

Arrests and trials

Watson was arrested on evening of 2 December, but his son and Thistlewood escaped. Young Watson fled to the United States but Thistlewood was arrested as he tried to escape on a boat at Gravesend, [4] Hooper and John Cashman, a sailor, had been arrested during the Royal Exchange skirmish. Cashman was found guilty of theft of firearms and hanged on 12 March 1817. [4] Hooper was acquitted but subsequently re-arrested and charged with high treason, along with Watson senior, Thistlewood and Preston. [4] Young Watson's name was included on the charge sheet. [13]

Watson was tried first and the hearing took over a week. The chief prosecution witness was Castle, who had been on the organising committee for both meetings. Hunt appeared as a defence witness and accused Castle of trying to make him commit treasonable acts on at least two occasions. [14] Defence counsel exposed previous instances where Castle had entrapped others into committing crimes and, without naming him as a spy, presented him to the jury an agent provocateur. [5] The jury accepted the defence's case and Watson was found not guilty. No further evidence was presented against the other defendants and they were also acquitted.

Aftermath

The riots marked the start of a period of mass anti-government meetings, marches and riots, including the march of the Blanketeers (March 1817), the Pentrich rising (June 1817) and the Peterloo Massacre (August 1819) and ending only after the failure of the Cato Street Conspiracy (February 1820) [4] and the Radical War in Scotland later that year.

Notes

  1. Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (Penguin Books, 1963) p. 693.
  2. Protheroe, Iorwerth, Artisans & Politics in Early Nineteenth-Century London, (Dawson and Son, 1979) pp. 63–67
  3. Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (Penguin Books, 1963) p. 693
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Sutton, David C. (2009). "The Spa Fields Riots of 1816" (PDF). Retrieved 29 March 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Bloy, Marjie. (2003). "The Spa Fields Riots, 2 December 1816" . Retrieved 29 March 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  6. Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (Penguin Books, 1963) p. 694
  7. Protheroe, Iorwerth, Artisans & Politics in Early Nineteenth-Century London, (Dawson and Son, 1979) p. 90
  8. Protheroe, Iorwerth, Artisans & Politics in Early Nineteenth-Century London, (Dawson and Son, 1979) p. 90
  9. Protheroe, Iorwerth, Artisans & Politics in Early Nineteenth-Century London, (Dawson and Son, 1979) p. 90
  10. Gurney, William Brodie, The Trial Of James Watson For High Treason At The Bar Of The Court Of King's Bench On Monday 9th June to Monday 16th June 1817 (London, 1817) Vol. II, pp. 11–25
  11. Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (Penguin Books, 1963) p. 694
  12. Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (Penguin Books, 1963) p. 694
  13. Gurney, William Brodie, The Trial Of James Watson For High Treason At The Bar Of The Court Of King's Bench On Monday 9th June to Monday 16th June 1817 (London, 1817) Vol. II, pp. 11–25
  14. Gurney, William Brodie, The Trial Of James Watson For High Treaso'At The Bar Of The Court Of King's Bench On Monday 9th June to Monday 16th June 1817 (London, 1817) Vol. II, pp. 258–275

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peterloo Massacre</span> 1819 killing by British troops in Manchester

The Peterloo Massacre took place at St Peter's Field, Manchester, Lancashire, England, on Monday 16 August 1819. It was the largest ever political gathering of working class people. Eighteen people died and 400–700 were injured when cavalry charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gordon Riots</span> Event in London in 1780

The Gordon Riots of 1780 were several days of rioting in London motivated by anti-Catholic sentiment. They began with a large and orderly protest against the Papists Act 1778, which was intended to reduce official discrimination against British Catholics enacted by the Popery Act 1698. Lord George Gordon, head of the Protestant Association, argued that the law would enable Catholics to join the British Army and plot treason. The protest led to widespread rioting and looting, including attacks on Newgate Prison and the Bank of England and was the most destructive in the history of London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cato Street Conspiracy</span> 1820 planned assassination attempt on UK Government ministers

The Cato Street Conspiracy was a plot to murder all the British cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool in 1820. The name comes from the meeting place near Edgware Road in London. The police had an informer; the plotters fell into a police trap. Thirteen were arrested, while one policeman, Richard Smithers, was killed. Five conspirators were executed, and five others were transported to Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Thistlewood</span> English radical activist and conspirator

Arthur Thistlewood was an English radical activist and conspirator in the Cato Street Conspiracy. He planned to murder the cabinet, but there was a spy and he was apprehended with 12 other conspirators. He killed a policeman during the raid. He was executed for treason.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Spence</span> English Radical

Thomas Spence was an English Radical and advocate of the common ownership of land and a democratic equality of the sexes. Spence was one of the leading revolutionaries of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was born in poverty and died the same way, after long periods of imprisonment, in 1814.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Despard</span> Irish officer in the service of the British Crown

Edward Marcus Despard, an Irish officer in the service of the British Crown, gained notoriety as a colonial administrator for refusing to recognise racial distinctions in law and, following his recall to London, as a republican conspirator. Despard's associations with the London Corresponding Society, the United Irishmen and United Britons led to his trial and execution in 1803 as the alleged ringleader of a plot to assassinate the King.

The Blanketeers or Blanket March was a demonstration organised in Manchester in March 1817. The intention was for the participants, who were mainly Lancashire weavers, to march to London and petition the Prince Regent over the desperate state of the textile industry in Lancashire, and to protest over the recent suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. The march was broken up violently and its leaders imprisoned. The Blanketeers formed part of a series of protests and calls for reform that culminated in 1819 with the Peterloo Massacre and the Six Acts.

Events from the year 1816 in the United Kingdom.

William J. Oliver, (?1774–1827) also known as Oliver the Spy, W. J. Richards and W. O. Jones, was a police informer and supposed agent provocateur at a time of social unrest, immediately after the Napoleonic Wars.

Peter Finnerty was an Irish printer, publisher, and journalist in both Dublin and London associated with radical, reform and democratic causes. In Dublin, he was a committed United Irishman, but was imprisoned in the course of the 1798 rebellion. In London he was a campaigning reporter for The Morning Chronicle, imprisoned again in 1811 for libel in his condemnation of Lord Castlereagh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ely and Littleport riots of 1816</span> Civil unrest in Cambridgeshire, England

The Ely and Littleport riots of 1816, also known as the Ely riots or Littleport riots, occurred between 22 and 24 May 1816 in the Isle of Ely. The riots were caused by high unemployment and rising grain costs, similar to the general unrest which spread throughout England following the Napoleonic Wars.

The Rotunda radicals, known at the time as Rotundists or Rotundanists, were a diverse group of social, political and religious radical reformers who gathered around the Blackfriars Rotunda, London, between 1830 and 1832, while it was under the management of Richard Carlile. During this period almost every well-known radical in London spoke there at meetings which were often rowdy. The Home Office regarded the Rotunda as a centre of violence, sedition and blasphemy, and regularly spied on its meetings.

The Hampden Clubs were political campaigning and debating societies formed in England in the early 19th century as part of the Radical Movement. They were particularly concentrated in the Midlands and the northern counties, and were closely associated with the popular movements for social and political reform that arose in the years following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. They were forced underground, and eventually disbanded in the face of legislation and pressure from the authorities.

Joseph Gurney (1744–1815) was an English shorthand-writer and evangelical activist.

Vincent George Dowling (1785–1852) was an English journalist. He was an influential figure in the development of sports journalism, who also worked covertly as a government informer.

The labour movement is the collective organisation of working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the trade union or labour union movement, as well as political parties of labour. It can be considered an instance of class conflict.

Edward Davis Protheroe, known as Edward Protheroe until 21 January 1845, was a British Radical and Whig politician.

Thomas Evans was a British revolutionary conspirator. Active in the 1790s and the period 1816–1820, he is otherwise a shadowy character, known mainly as a hardline follower of Thomas Spence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Watson (Spencean)</span> British radical

James Watson was a British Spencean radical.

References