Everything about The Priestley Riots totally explained
The
Priestley Riots (also known as the
Birmingham Riots of 1791) took place from 14 July to 17 July 1791 in
Birmingham,
England; the rioters' main targets were
religious Dissenters, most notably the religious and political controversialist,
Joseph Priestley. Both local and national issues stirred the passions of the rioters, from disagreements over public library book purchases, to controversies over Dissenters' attempts to gain full civil rights and their support of the
French Revolution.
The riots started with an attack on a hotel that was the site of a banquet organized in sympathy with the French Revolution. Then, beginning with Priestley's church and home, the rioters attacked or burned four Dissenting chapels, twenty-seven houses, and several businesses. Many of them became intoxicated by liquor that they found while looting, or with which they were bribed to stop burning homes. A small core couldn't be bribed, however, and remained sober. They burned not only the homes and chapels of Dissenters, but also the homes of people they associated with Dissenters, such as members of the scientific
Lunar Society.
While the riots were not initiated by Prime Minister
William Pitt's administration, the national government was slow to respond to the Dissenters' pleas for help. Local Birmingham officials seem to have been involved in the planning of the riots, and they were later reluctant to prosecute any ringleaders. Industrialist
James Watt wrote that the riots "divided [Birmingham] into two parties who hate one another mortally". Those who had been attacked gradually left, leaving Birmingham a more conservative city than it had been throughout the
eighteenth century.
Historical context
Birmingham
Over the course of the eighteenth century,
Birmingham became notorious for its riots. In 1714 and 1715, the townspeople, as part of a "Church-and-King" mob, attacked
Dissenters (
Protestants who didn't conform to the
Church of England) during the London trial of
Henry Sacheverell, and in 1751 and 1759
Quakers and
Methodists were assaulted. During the anti-Catholic
Gordon Riots in 1780, large crowds assembled in Birmingham. In 1766, 1782, 1795, and 1800 mobs protested high food prices. One contemporary described Birmingham rioters as the "bunting, beggarly, brass-making, brazen-faced, brazen-hearted, blackguard, bustling, booby Birmingham mob".
Up until the late 1780s, religious divisions didn't affect Birmingham's elite. Dissenter and
Anglican lived side by side harmoniously: they were on the same town promotional committees; they pursued joint scientific interests in the
Lunar Society; and they worked together in local government. They stood united against what they viewed as the threat posed by unruly
plebeians. After the riots, however, scientist and clergyman
Joseph Priestley argued in his
An Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the Birmingham Riots (1791) that this cooperation hadn't in fact been as amicable as generally believed. Priestly revealed that disputes over the local library,
Sunday schools, and church attendance had divided Dissenters from Anglicans. In his "Narrative of the Riots in Birmingham" (1816), stationer and Birmingham historian
William Hutton agreed, arguing that five events stoked the fires of religious friction: disagreements over inclusion of Priestley's books in the local public library; concerns over Dissenters' attempts to repeal the
Test and
Corporation Acts; religious controversy (particularly involving Priestley); an "inflammatory hand-bill"; and a dinner celebrating the outbreak of the
French Revolution.
Once Birmingham Dissenters started to agitate for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, which restricted Dissenters' civil rights (preventing them, for instance, from attending the Universities of
Oxford or
Cambridge, or from holding public office), the semblance of unity among the town's elite disappeared.
Unitarians such as Priestley were at the forefront of the repeal campaign, and
orthodox Anglicans grew nervous and angry. After 1787, the emergence of Dissenting groups formed for the sole purpose of overturning these laws began to divide the community; however, the repeal efforts failed in 1787, 1789, and 1790. Priestley's support of the repeal and his
heterodox religious views, which were widely published, inflamed the populace. In February 1790, a group of activists came together not only to oppose the interests of the Dissenters but also to counteract what they saw as the undesirable importation of French Revolutionary ideals. Dissenters by and large supported the French Revolution and its efforts to question the role
monarchy should play in government.
One month before the riots, Priestley attempted to found a reform society, the Warwickshire Constitutional Society, which would have supported
universal suffrage and short Parliaments. Although this effort failed, the efforts to establish such a society increased tensions in Birmingham.
In addition to these religious and political differences, both the lower-class rioters and their upper-class Anglican leaders had economic complaints against the middle-class Dissenters. They envied the ever-increasing prosperity of these
industrialists as well as the power that came with that economic success. Historian R. B. Rose refers to these industrialists as belonging to "an inner elite of magnates". Priestley himself had written a pamphlet,
An Account of a Society for Encouraging the Industrious Poor (1787), on how best to extract the most work for the smallest amount of money from the poor. Its emphasis on debt collection didn't endear him to the poverty-stricken.
British reaction to the French Revolution
The British public debate over the French Revolution, or the
Revolution Controversy, lasted from 1789 through 1795. Initially many on both sides of the Channel thought the French would follow the pattern of the English
Glorious Revolution of a century before, and the Revolution was viewed positively by a large portion of the British public. Most Britons celebrated the
storming of the Bastille in 1789, believing that France's
absolute monarchy should be replaced by a more democratic form of government. In these early, heady days, supporters of the Revolution also believed that Britain's own system would be reformed as well: voting rights would be broadened and redistribution of Parliamentary
constituency boundaries would eliminate so-called "
rotten boroughs".
After the publication of statesman and philosopher
Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), in which he surprisingly broke ranks with his liberal
Whig colleagues to support the French aristocracy, a pamphlet war discussing the Revolution began in earnest. Because Burke had supported the American colonists in their
rebellion against England, his views sent a shockwave through the country. While Burke supported
aristocracy, monarchy, and the Established Church, liberals such as
Charles James Fox supported the Revolution, and a programme of individual liberties,
civic virtue and religious toleration, while radicals such as Priestley,
William Godwin,
Thomas Paine, and
Mary Wollstonecraft, argued for a further programme of
republicanism, agrarian
socialism, and abolition of the "landed interest". Alfred Cobban calls the debate that erupted "perhaps the last real discussion of the fundamentals of politics in [Britain]". However, by December 1795, after the
Reign of Terror and war with France, there were few who still supported the French cause or believed that reform would extend to Britain, and those suspected of remaining radicals became the subject of official and popular suspicion.
The events which precipitated the Priestley Riots came less than a month after the
attempted flight and arrest of the French Royal family, and at a point when much of the early promise of the Revolution had already dissipated. However the spiralling violence of the later Revolution was still to begin.
Hints of trouble
On
11 July,
1791, a Birmingham newspaper announced that on
14 July, the second anniversary of the
storming of the Bastille, there would be a dinner at a local hotel to commemorate the outbreak of the
French Revolution; the invitation encouraged "any Friend to Freedom" to attend:
handbill, written by James Hobson (although his authorship wasn't known at the time), entered circulation. Town officials offered 100
guineas for information regarding the publication of the handbill and its author, to no avail. The Dissenters found themselves forced to plead ignorance and decry the "radical" ideas promoted by the handbill. It was becoming clear by
12 July that there would be trouble at the dinner. On the morning of
14 July graffiti such as "destruction to the Presbyterians" and "Church and King for ever" was scrawled across the town. At this point, Priestley's friends, fearing for his safety, dissuaded him from attending the dinner.
July 14
About 90 resolute sympathizers of the French Revolution came to celebrate on the 14th; the banquet was led by
James Keir, an Anglican industrialist who was a member of the
Lunar Society. When the guests arrived at the hotel at 2 or 3 p.m., they were greeted by 60 or 70 protesters who temporarily dispersed while yelling, rather bizarrely and confusingly, "no popery". By the time the celebrants ended their dinner, around 7 or 8 p.m., a crowd of hundreds had gathered. The rioters, who "were recruited predominantly from the industrial artisans and labourers of Birmingham", threw stones at the departing guests and sacked the hotel. The New Meeting chapel was burned to the ground, quickly followed by the Old Meeting, another Dissenting chapel.
The rioters proceeded to Priestley's home, Fairhill. Priestley barely had time to evacuate and he and his wife fled from Dissenting friend to friend during the riots. Writing shortly after the event, Priestley described the first part of the attack, which he witnessed from a distance:
His son, William, stayed behind with others to protect the family home, but they were overcome and the property was eventually looted and razed to the ground. Priestley's valuable library, scientific laboratory, and manuscripts were all lost in the flames.
July 15, 16, and 17
The
Earl of Aylesford attempted to stem the mounting violence on the night of the 14th, but despite having the help of other magistrates, he was unable to control the crowd. On the 15th, the mob liberated prisoners from the local gaol. The crowd destroyed John Ryland's home, Bakerville House, and drank the supplies of liquor which they found in the cellar. When the newly appointed constables arrived on the scene, the mob attacked and disarmed them. One man was killed. The local magistrates and law enforcement, such as it was, did nothing further to restrain the mob and didn't read the
riot act until the military arrived on
17 July.
On the 16th, the homes of Joseph Jukes, John Coates, John Hobson, Thomas Hawkes, and John Harwood (the latter a blind
Baptist minister) were all ransacked or burned.}}
When the rioters arrived at John Taylor's home, they carefully moved all of the furniture and belongings of its current occupant, the Dowager Lady Carhampton, a relative of
George III, out of the house before they burned it: they were specifically targeting those whose disagreed with the king's policies and who, in not conforming to the Church of England, resisted state control. The homes of George Russell, a
justice of the peace, Samuel Blyth, one of the ministers of New Meeting, Thomas Lee, and a Mr. Westley all came under attack on the 15th and 16th. The manufacturer, Quaker, and member of the Lunar Society
Samuel Galton only saved his own home by bribing the rioters with
ale and money.
By 2 p.m. on
16 July, the rioters had left Birmingham and were heading towards King's Norton and the Kingswood Chapel; it was estimated that one group of the rioters totalled 250 to 300 people. They burned Cox's farm at Warstock and looted and attacked the home of a Mr. Taverner. When they reached Kingswood, Warwickshire, they burned the Dissenting chapel and its
manse. By this time, Birmingham had shut down—no business was being conducted. When the military finally arrived to restore order on the 17th and 18th, most of the rioters had disbanded, although there were rumors that mobs were destroying property in
Alcester and
Bromsgrove.
All in all, four Dissenting churches had been severely damaged or burned down and twenty-seven homes had been attacked, many looted and burned. Having begin by attacking those who attended the Bastille celebration on the 14th, the "Church-and-King" mob had finished up by extending their targets to include Dissenters of all kinds as well as members of the Lunar Society.
Aftermath and trials
Priestley and other Dissenters blamed the government for the riots, believing that
William Pitt and his supporters had instigated them; however, it seems from the evidence that the riots were actually organized by local Birmingham officials. Some of the rioters acted in a co-ordinated fashion and seemed to be led by local officials during the attacks, prompting accusations of premeditation. Some Dissenters discovered that their homes were to be attacked several days before the rioters arrived, leading them to believe that there was a prepared list of victims. The "disciplined nucleus of rioters", which numbered only thirty or so, directed the mob and stayed sober throughout the three to four days of rioting. Unlike the hundreds of others who joined in, they couldn't be bribed to stop their destructions.
If a concerted effort had been made by Birmingham's Anglican elite to attack the Dissenters, it was more than likely the work of Benjamin Spencer, a local minister, Joseph Carles, a
justice of the peace and landowner, and John Brooke, an attorney, coroner, and under-sheriff. Although present at the riot's outbreak, Carles and Spencer made no attempt to stop the rioters, and Brooke seems to have led them to the New Meeting chapel. Witnesses agreed "that the magistrates promised the rioters protection so long as they restricted their attacks to the meeting-houses and left persons and property alone". The magistrates also refused to arrest any of the rioters and released those that had been arrested. Instructed by the national government to prosecute the riot's instigators, these local officials dragged their heels. When finally forced to try the ringleaders, they intimidated witnesses and made a mockery of the trial proceedings. Only seventeen of the fifty rioters who had been charged were ever brought to trial; four convicted, of whom one pardoned, two were hanged, and the fourth was transported to
Botany Bay. But Priestley and others believed that these men were found guilty not because they were rioters but because "they were infamous characters in other respects".
Although he'd been forced to send troops to Birmingham to quell the disturbances, the King
George III commented: "I can't but feel better pleased that Priestley is the sufferer for the doctrines he and his party have instilled, and that the people see them in their true light." The national government forced the local residents to pay restitution to those whose property had been damaged: the total eventually amounted to
£23,000. However, the process took many years, and most residents received much less than the value of their property.
After the riots, Birmingham was, according to industrialist
James Watt, "divided into two parties who hate one another mortally". Initially Priestley wanted to return and deliver a sermon on the Bible verse "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," but he was dissuaded by friends convinced that it was too dangerous. Instead, he wrote his
Appeal:
The riots revealed that the Anglican gentry of Birmingham were not averse to using violence against Dissenters whom they viewed as potential revolutionaries. They had no qualms, either, about raising a potentially uncontrollable mob. Many of those attacked left Birmingham; as a result, the town became noticeably more conservative after the riots.
[ The remaining supporters of the French Revolution decided not to hold a dinner celebrating the storming of the Bastille the next year.][
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