Gordon Riots
Gordon Riots | |||||||||
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Date | 2–9 June 1780 | ||||||||
Location | |||||||||
Caused by | Papists Act 1778, anti-Catholicism in the United Kingdom | ||||||||
Parties | |||||||||
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Casualties | |||||||||
Death(s) | 300–700 |
The Gordon Riots of 1780 were several days of rioting in London motivated by
Violence started later on 2 June 1780, with the looting and burning of Catholic chapels in foreign embassies. Local magistrates, afraid of drawing the mob's anger, did not invoke the Riot Act. There was no repression until the government finally sent in the army, resulting in an estimated 300–700 deaths. The main violence lasted until 9 June 1780.
The riots occurred near the height of the
Edmund Burke later recalled the riots as a dangerous foretaste of the 1789 French Revolution:
Wild and savage insurrection quitted the woods, and prowled about our streets in the name of reform.... A sort of national convention ... nosed parliament in the very seat of its authority; sat with a sort of superintendence over it; and little less than dictated to it, not only laws, but the very form and essence of legislature itself.[6]
Background
The stated intention of the Papists Act 1778 was, as its preamble notes, to mitigate some of the official discrimination against Roman Catholics in Great Britain. It absolved Catholics from taking the religious oath when joining the British Armed Forces as well as granting a few and limited liberties. There were strong expedient reasons for this change. British military forces at the time were stretched very thinly in what had become a global American War of Independence, with conflicts ongoing with France, Spain, and the new United States. The recruitment of Catholic people would be a significant help to address this shortfall of manpower.
The 1698 anti-Catholic laws had largely been ignored for many years and were rarely enforced. Because of this, many leading Catholics were opposed to the repeal of these laws, fearing it would stir up anti-Catholic sentiment for little practical return.[7] It was also pointed out that large numbers of Catholics, recruited in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, were already serving in the military. In spite of this, the government decided to press ahead with the Bill, and had it introduced in Parliament by Sir George Savile.
Protestant Association
The Protestant Association of London had the support of leading Calvinist religious figures, including
The political climate deteriorated rapidly. On 29 May 1780, Gordon called a meeting of the Protestant Association, and his followers subsequently marched on the House of Commons to deliver a petition demanding the repeal of the Act.
Other causes
After the first march to Parliament, further riots occurred involving groups whose grievances were nationalist, economic, or political, rather than religious. Aside from the issue of Catholic emancipation, it has also been suggested that the driving force of the riots was Britain's poor economic situation: the loss of trade during the war had led to falling wages, rising prices, and periodic unemployment. As Rudé noted, there was no general attack on the Catholic community, "the victims of the riots" being distinguished by the fact they were "on the whole, persons of substance".[11] Voting in parliamentary elections was restricted by a property threshold, so most Londoners were unable to vote and many hoped for reforms to make Parliament more representative of the people. However, Paul Monod has argued that "no matter how much one would like to interpret the Gordon Riots ... as economically motivated, they remain fundamentally anti-Catholic in character".[12]
Shortly after the riots had broken out, the
Riots
March on Parliament
On 2 June 1780 a huge crowd, estimated at 40,000 to 60,000 strong, assembled and marched on the Houses of Parliament. Many carried flags and banners proclaiming "No Popery", and most wore blue cockades which had become the symbol of their movement. As they marched, their numbers swelled. They attempted to force their way into the House of Commons, but without success. Gordon, petition in hand, and wearing in his hat the blue cockade of the Protestant Association, entered the Commons and presented the petition. Outside, the situation quickly got out of hand and a riot erupted. Members of the House of Lords were attacked as they arrived, and a number of carriages were vandalised and destroyed.[16]
Despite being aware of the possibility of trouble, the authorities had failed to take steps to prevent violence breaking out. The Prime Minister, Lord North, had forgotten to issue an order mobilising the small number of
Embassies attacked
Once the mob around Parliament had dispersed, it seemed to the government that the worst of the disorder was over. However, the same night a crowd gathered and attacked the Roman Catholic Sardinian Embassy Chapel in Lincoln's Inn Fields.[18] Bow Street Runners and soldiers were called out and made thirteen arrests, although most of the ringleaders had managed to escape. The same night the chapel of the Bavarian Embassy in Warwick Street, Soho, was destroyed[19] and crowds caused random violence in streets known to house rich Catholics[citation needed].
Moorfields
The area of Moorfields, one of the poorest parts of the city, was the home of many Irish immigrant workers and had a large area of open ground where crowds could assemble. Despite the appeal of a prominent Irish merchant, James Malo, to the Lord Mayor, Brackley Kennett, no additional protection was offered to the area. During 3 June a crowd had gathered in Moorfields, and by nightfall it began to go on the rampage. Malo's house was amongst the many to be sacked and burned.[20]
Newgate Prison, where rioters arrested on 2 June were being held, was attacked and largely destroyed, as was The Clink.[21] This allowed large numbers of prisoners to escape, many of whom were never recaptured. Severe destruction was inflicted on Catholic churches and homes and chapels on the grounds of several embassies, as well as on New Prison, Fleet Prison, and the house of the Lord Chief Justice, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield. On 7 June, called "Black Wednesday" by Horace Walpole, the riot reached its climax. An attempt on the Bank of England was narrowly averted when a combination of the London Military Association and regular troops repulsed rioters, resulting in heavy casualties.[22]
Army repression
The army was called out on 7 June and given orders to fire upon groups of four or more who refused to disperse. About 285 people were shot dead, with another 200 wounded. Around 450 of the rioters were arrested. Of those arrested, about twenty or thirty were later tried and executed. Gordon was arrested and charged with high treason but was acquitted. Brackley Kennett, the Lord Mayor, was convicted of
Aftermath
The riots damaged the reputation of Britain across Europe, where many saw British constitutional monarchy as an inherently unstable form of government. This came at a time when Britain was searching for allies, particularly Catholic Austria, in the American War of Independence to challenge the strong coalition the French had built.[25] Britain had also initiated secret negotiations with Catholic Spain to end Spanish support of the United States. After learning of the riots, the Spanish government pulled back from peace negotiations with Britain, concerned that the disorder would lead to a widespread collapse of the current British administration.[26]
The riots highlighted the problems Britain faced by not having a professional police force, a notion which was opposed as foreign and absolutist. The day after the riots broke out, the Earl of Shelburne shocked many by proposing in parliament that Britain should consider forming a force modelled on the French police.[27][28]
The riots destroyed the popularity of the radical politician John Wilkes, who led citizen militia against the rioters. Many of his followers saw this as a betrayal; some of them may have been among the rioters. A pamphlet and a book of poems defending the role of Gordon were written and published by the polemicist and hymn-writer Maria De Fleury.[29]
The events at the Bank of England started a tradition where a detachment of soldiers, usually from the
In fiction and film
Maria Edgeworth's 1817 novel Harrington contains a vivid evocation of the Gordon Riots, with two unsympathetic characters taken for Papists and finding refuge in the home of the rich Spanish Jew, the father of the young Jewish woman at the centre of the love story.
Charles Dickens' 1841 novel Barnaby Rudge depicts the Gordon Riots and features Lord George in a prominent role.
John Creasey's 1974 novel The Masters of Bow Street depicts the Gordon Riots and the recalcitrance of Lord North to the establishment of a police force.
In Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels (1981–2007), the protagonist Richard Sharpe's mother was killed during the riots while he was still a child.
Miranda Hearn's 2003 historical novel A Life Everlasting depicts the main protagonists caught up in the riots as innocent Londoners.
In the film
BABYLONdon, a novel by English SF/Fantasy author John Whitbourn (2020), blends a detailed depiction of the Gordon Riots with supernatural plot elements and an apocalyptic denouement.
The Invisibles, a comic series by Grant Morrison features a principal character mostly known as King Mob.
Mentioned by Peter O'Toole's character to Aldo Ray in The Day They Robbed The Bank of England, referencing that he and his men had been guarding the titular bank in a certain fashion since "the Gordon Riots in 1780."
See also
- Anti-Catholicism in the United Kingdom
- Philadelphia Nativist Riots
References
Notes
- ^ Brayley, Edward Wedlake; James Norris Brewer; Joseph Nightingale (1810). London and Middlesex. Printed by W. Wilson, for Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe.
- ^ "Lord George Gordon". Archived from the original on 1 June 2009. Retrieved 25 July 2009.
- ISBN 978-0-415-14372-1.
- ^ Ian Haywood (11 March 2013). "The Gordon Riots of 1780: London in Flames, a Nation in Ruins". Gresham College. Retrieved 20 September 2021.
- ^ Dorothy Marshall, Eighteenth Century England (1974) pp. 469–472.
- ^ Burke, Edmund (1796). A Letter to a Noble Lord. The Harvard Classics.
- ^ Hibbert pp. 24–27
- ISBN 978-0-19-160677-9. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
- ^ Hibbert pp. 31–32
- ^ Howell, Thomas Bayly (ed.) A complete collection of state trials and proceedings for high treason and other crimes and misdemeanors from the earliest period to the year 1783, with notes and other illustrations, Vol. 21. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown (1816), p. 563
- ^ Rudé, (1974), p. 287
- ^ Paul Kleber Monod, Jacobitism and the English People, 1688–1788 (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 163.
- ^ Hibbert pp. 63–64
- ^ Simms p. 633
- ^ "The Gordon Riots of 1780: London in Flames, a Nation in Ruins".
- ^ Hibbert pp. 47–53
- ^ Hibbert p. 56
- ^ Riley, W. Edward; Gomme, Laurence, eds. (1912). "Lincoln's Inn Fields: The Church of SS. Anselm and Cecilia". Survey of London, volume 3: St Giles-in-the-Fields, pt I: Lincoln's Inn Fields. Institute of Historical Research. pp. 81–84. Retrieved 16 February 2013.
- ISBN 9781405049252.
- ^ Hibbert pp. 66–71
- ^ "Southwark – Winchester House and Barclay's Brewery". British History Online. Retrieved 25 July 2009.
- ^ George Rudé, "The Gordon Riots: A Study of the Rioters and Their Victims: The Alexander Prize Essay," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Vol. 6 (1956), pp. 97–98
- ^ Babington p. 27
- ISBN 0-7043-2424-5
- ^ Simms p. 640
- ^ Richard Morris, The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), pp. 59–60.
- ^ Hibbert pp. 64–65
- Metropolitan Police Service—was not established until 29 September 1829. The City of London Policewould not be established until 1839.
- ^ The Feminist Companion to Literature in English, eds Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy (London: Batsford, 1990), p. 276.
- ^ p. 113 Lindsay, Oliver Once a Grenadier: The Grenadier Guards 1945–1995 Pen and Sword, 14 Mar 1996
- ^ Haywood, Ian (2006). Bloody Romanticism: Spectacular Violence and the Politics of Representation, 1776–1832. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 196–198.
Sources
- Babington, Anthony (1990). Military intervention in Britain: from the Gordon riots to the Gibraltar Incident. Routledge.
- Black, Eugene Charlton (1963). "The Tumultuous Petitioners: The Protestant Association in Scotland, 1778–1780". Review of Politics. 25 (2): 183–211. S2CID 146502784.
- Boeker, Uwe. The Gordon Riots. Dresden University of Technology – TU Dresden, Institute for English and American Studies.
- ISBN 978-0-7546-5592-3.
- Green, Dominic (2013). "The Making of a "Protestant Rabbin". The Cultural Transfers of Lord George Gordon, 1781–1793". In Schulze, Thies (ed.). Grenzueberschreitende Religion. Vergleichs- und Kulturtransferstudien zur neuzeitlichen Geschichte. Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. pp. 165–184.
- Haydon, Colin (1993). Anti-Catholicism in Eighteenth-Century England, C. 1714–80: A Political and Social Study.
- Haydon, Colin (2013). "Eighteenth-Century English Anti-Catholicism: Contexts, Continuity and Diminution.". In Wolffe, John (ed.). Protestant-Catholic Conflict from the Reformation to the Twenty-first Century. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 46–70.
- Hibbert, Christopher (1990). King Mob: The Story of Lord George Gordon and the Riots of 1780. Dorset Press. ISBN 0-88029-399-3.
- Jones, Brad A. (2013). "'In Favour of Popery': Patriotism, Protestantism, and the Gordon Riots in the Revolutionary British Atlantic". Journal of British Studies. 52 (1): 79–102. .
- McDonagh, Patrick (2006). "Barnaby Rudge, 'idiocy' and paternalism: Assisting the 'poor idiot'". Disability & Society. 21 (5): 411–423. S2CID 144804564.
- Pollen, John Hungerford (1909). "Gordon Riots". In Herbermann, Charles George (ed.). The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Co.
- Rudé, George (July 1955). "The Gordon Riots". History Today. 5 (7): 429–437.
- Rudé, George (1956). "The Gordon Riots: A Study of the Rioters and their Victims". Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. 5th (6): 93–114. S2CID 155720228.
- Rudé, George (1974). The Gordon Riots, in Paris and London in the Eighteenth Century. London: Fontana/Collins.
- Rudé, George (2005). "'Church and King' Riots". The Crowd in History. London: Serif.
- Rogers, Nicholas (1998). "The Gordon Riots". Crowds, Culture and Politics in Georgian Britain. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 152–175.
- Nicholson, John (1985). The Great Liberty Riot of 1780. Bozo. ISBN 0-904063-16-X.
- Simms, Brendan (2008). Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire. Penguin Books.