Society in Britain in the eighteenth century underwent a rapid transformation from a mainly agricultural economy to one based on the manufacturing industry. The gap between the rich and the poor widened with new migrants to the towns living in squalor referred to as slum housing, which led to discontent and anger at the middle and upper classes.
From 1785 the wages of the working-classes in Nottingham were on a decline and food prices were high due to failed and poor harvests, this led to anger within the slums with people suffering from near starvation. In 1800 large groups of people, reportedly of around a thousand strong would visit the villages and plunder farmers’ stocks; within the city it was common for the poor to steal from places like butchers and bakeries.[1] The staple diet of Nottingham’s poor consisted of bread, potatoes, milk and herrings, but during certain periods, items like potatoes were far out of the reach of their budgets. It was commented in the Review that in 1829, the gap between wages and food prices meant that a man would need to work three times as long to maintain the standard of living existing in 1790.[2] In the eighteenth century, Nottingham was regarded as the most beautiful garden town in Europe, but it was in the early part of the nineteenth century that it began to ‘sink into slime’, a slum ‘second only to Bombay’.[3]
There were 8000 back-to-back slum houses in Nottingham and although not uncommon in Britain, Nottingham’s were arguably the worst with exceptionally small courts and narrow tunnels to enter them.[4] It was the most deathly and overcrowded town in Britain with the average life expectancy of twenty-two, seven years below that of other towns; the worst life expectancy being in the St. Ann’s area of Nottingham at just eleven years, lower than anywhere in the whole Empire.[5] Nottingham’s population exploded from 11000 in 1750 to 29000 by 1800 and with limited space to expand, the maximum amount of slum properties had to be squeezed onto the same amount of land as before. The reason for this was the strict ring of property rights around the town, the Duke of Newcastle’s park was on the west, Colwick Hall owned by the Muster’s family on the east and on the north and south were the 1000 acres of common fields and meadows which were controlled by the Corporation and owned by freemen, upheld by mediaeval privileges.[6]
Nottingham was no stranger to unrest coordinated by the mob; historian Malcolm Thomis describes Nottingham as being ‘led by a combustible and dangerous mob’ during political agitation which erupted regularly during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in the form of election riots, recruiting riots and most commonly food riots.[7] Throughout Britain unrest grew in 1830 as it entered another economic slump, the July Revolution in Paris helped to make Parliament nervous and its solution was to offer concessions to the working classes without upsetting the aristocracy too much and ‘maintaining the essential character of the Constitution’.[8][9] The Prime Minister Earl Grey proposed the Reform Bill, the main points of which were to disfranchise many of the small populated areas and rotten boroughs, take away the second seat from larger towns and give the seat to unrepresented newly industrial ones, and give some to Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Although it appears that the Whig government had offered a radical proposal, the strict property requirements to vote remained out of reach of the working classes, and it is widely speculated that the Whig’s motive was to soothe the public’s unrest.[10] The bill was passed in the House of Commons, but when it reached the House of Lords it was defeated which created public outcry across the country as well as widespread anger and violence across Nottingham. The people of Nottingham hoped that reform within parliament would bring “an alleviation of suffering” of the economic crashes they were enduring after the small boom of the 1820s.[11]
The violence that proceeded the news of this defeat is widely referred to as the first experience of mob violence on a wide scale that the country had ever witnessed.[12] On Sunday 9th October 1931, the mail coach arrived at The White Lion hotel and a passenger told the crowd of the bill’s defeat and that people “were beating to arms” in London.[13] This led people to join in with the rioting to protest their anger. A few weeks before the defeat of the bill, one of the local Nottingham newspapers, the Review, published the names of “respectable” residents of the town who had petitioned against the bill, this led them to become the targets of anger from the mob.[14]
A letter from Dr Manson to the mayor describes the abuse he received and the fear he suffered.
Sir.
I beg leave to acquaint you as Chief Magistrate of this town that there are considerable bodies of the lower classes of this town, from ten to one hundred, going about the streets and behaving in a riotous and disorderly manner.- They hooted at and abused me in a shameful manner this morning, … in Pelham Street a Brick Bat was thrown at me, which struck my servant … and did him personal injury. I have good private information that personal injury is intended me should I appear in public. I have no doubt that the present mob clamour and violence against me has been excited by a paragraph in Suttons Review… reflecting upon myself and others for having signed a petition against what is commonly called “The Reform Bill”, and this without giving a copy of the petition, which Mr Sutton thought proper to scandalize myself and others for signing….
I have the honor to be
Sir your most obident servant
Signed – Alex Manson
To
H. Barber Esq[ui]re
Mayor Of Nottingham.[15]
The common description of the manifestation of the angry citizens is that they were in a ‘mob’, intent on protesting their fury towards those that caused the defeat of the bill. Blaming those who directly opposed the bill they were displaying anger within the slums of Nottingham. From physical assault to damage of property, on the following day they progressed to Colwick Hall, the house of John Muster, the magistrate who was widely hated by the poor for his ruthless enforcement of Game Laws; the property was pillaged and almost burnt to a cinder.[16] The gates of Nottingham castle, the unoccupied property of the Duke of Newcastle, were stormed and the building was burnt to a shell. On the third day of the riots the final main subject of the mobs’ fury was Mr Lowe a formidable Tory and anti-reformer, the owner of Beeston silk mill, the mob was reportedly made up of two to three thousand rioters. The mill was successfully burnt down in a unique way as it was done in the light of day, showing how confident the mob had become, and executed with ‘military precision’.[17]
This engraving is of Nottingham Castle on fire. Two of the people in this image are depicted celebrating with each other as the fury of the flames rips through the building. [18]
The riot of 1831 was the expression of anger that the people of Nottingham felt after the defeat of the Reform Bill and the Lord’s rejection of a more equitable proportionate political representation. Rioting allowed them to show their feelings and publicly display their anger which was otherwise being overlooked by the ruling classes.
Bibliography
[1] Thomis, M. I., Politics and Society in Nottingham 1785-1835, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969). p. 17-21
[2] Thomis, M. I., Politics and Society in Nottingham 1785-1835, p. 25
[3] Bryson, E., Portrait of Nottingham, 2nd edn (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1978), p. 83
[4] Bryson, E., Portrait of Nottingham, p. 98
[5] Bryson, E., Portrait of Nottingham, p. 99
[6] Bryson, E., Portrait of Nottingham, p. 83
[7] Thomis, M. I., Politics and Society in Nottingham 1785-1835, pp. 1-7 and Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class, (London: Penguin Group, 2013). p. 69
[8] Dinwiddy, J. R., From Luddism to the First Reform Bill, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1986), p. 46
[9] Wright, D. G., Democracy and Reform 1815-1885, (Harlow: Longmans, 1970), p. 33
[10] Wright, D. G., Democracy and Reform 1815-1885, p. 34-35
[11] People’s Histreh., To the Castle! Nottingham’s crowds in the Reform Riots, (2010), https://peopleshistreh.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/tothecastle_paper_final_a4.pdf, [1/11/17], p. 15
[12] Thomis, M. I. and Holt, P., Threats of Revolution in Britain 1789-1848, (London: The Macmillan Press LTD, 1977) , p. 87
[13] People’s Histreh., To the Castle! Nottingham’s crowds in the Reform Riots, p. 19
[14] People’s Histreh., To the Castle! Nottingham’s crowds in the Reform Riots, p. 19
[15] Ne C 4998 – Copy letter from Dr. Alexander Manson, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, to J. H. Barker, Mayor of Nottingham; 9 Oct. 1831 [Accessed 30/11/17] http://mssweb.nottingham.ac.uk/elearning/view-image.asp?resource=DukeofNewcastle&theme=2&subtheme=RiotsandReform&view=image&page=1&ref=nec4998
[16] Thomis, M. I. and Holt, P., Threats of Revolution in Britain 1789-1848, p. 226
[17] People’s Histreh., To the Castle! Nottingham’s crowds in the Reform Riots, p. 26
[18] Allom, Thomas., Nottingham Castle (Bridgeman Images) Engraving, 1804-72, [Accessed 1/12/17] http://www.bridgemaneducation.com.ezproxy.derby.ac.uk/en/asset/665101/summary?context=%7B%22route%22%3A%22assets_search%22%2C%22routeParameters%22%3A%7B%22_format%22%3A%22html%22%2C%22_locale%22%3A%22en%22%2C%22filter_text%22%3A%22nottingham+castle%22%7D%7D
Bibliography
Allom, Thomas., Nottingham Castle (Bridgeman Images) Engraving, 1804-72, [Accessed 1/12/17] http://www.bridgemaneducation.com.ezproxy.derby.ac.uk/en/asset/665101/summary?context=%7B%22route%22%3A%22assets_search%22%2C%22routeParameters%22%3A%7B%22_format%22%3A%22html%22%2C%22_locale%22%3A%22en%22%2C%22filter_text%22%3A%22nottingham+castle%22%7D%7D
Bryson, E., Portrait of Nottingham, 2nd edn (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1978).
Defoe, D., A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, (Hong Kong: Yale University Press, 1991).
Dinwiddy, J. R., From Luddism to the First Reform Bill, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1986)
Gray, D., Nottingham Through 500 Years: A Short History of Town Government, (Nottingham: Nottingham Corporation, 1949)
Rogers, A (ed)., Approaches to Nottingham’s History, (Nottingham: The Department of Adult Education University of Nottingham, 1972).
People’s Histreh., To the Castle! Nottingham’s crowds in the Reform Riots, (2010), https://peopleshistreh.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/tothecastle_paper_final_a4.pdf, [1/11/17]
Thomis, M. I., The Luddites: Machine-Breaking in Regency England, (Devon: David & Charles Archon Books, 1970)
Thomis, M. I., Politics and Society in Nottingham 1785-1835, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969).
Thomis, M. I. and Holt, P., Threats of Revolution in Britain 1789-1848, (London: The Macmillan Press LTD, 1977)
Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class, (London: Penguin Group, 2013).
Wright, D. G., Democracy and Reform 1815-1885, (Harlow: Longmans, 1970)
Exploring the Slum 