Popular Protest and Public Order

Six Studies in British History, 1790–1920

R. Quinault, J. Stevenson, R. Quinault, J. Stevenson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781032033587
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000424409
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book, first published in 1974, examines the diverse nature of popular protest in Britain. Movements varied immensely from one another in their objectives, their social composition, their tactics and the geographical milieu.

1
Food Riots in England, 1792–1818

J. STEVENSON

In eighteenth-century England the most characteristic form of popular protest was riot, and riots occurred on a wide range of issues, including elections, religion, politics, recruiting, and enclosures. However, the most persistent and widespread riots were those associated with food, for it has been calculated that two out of every three disturbances in the eighteenth century were of this type.¹ Food riots covered a wide range of activities, such as stopping the movement of grain, forcible seizure and resale of food, and various types of tumultuous assembly to force dealers or local authorities to reduce prices. On other occasions disturbances took the form of attacks upon mills, or the shops, warehouses, and houses of prominent dealers. In its classic form the food riot could be found in many parts of western Europe. It was usually marked by a high degree of discipline amongst the rioters, concentration upon those specifically concerned with the trade in foodstuffs, and by the resale of food at ‘fair’ prices.²

Recent work has shown that food riots became common in England in the latter part of the seventeenth century, occurred with increasing frequency during the eighteenth century, and began to die out in the first decades of the nineteenth century. A number of the major waves of eighteenth-century food riots have been identified and related to periods of serious harvest failure or trade depression, for example the disturbances of 1727, 1756–7, 1766–8, and 1773–4.³ The aim here is to examine the major food disturbances of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in an attempt to discover their incidence, location, and causes. From these findings it should be possible to discover whether disturbances tended to be concentrated in particular areas or towns, why some towns were affected and others were not, and finally how food rioting related to other forms of popular protest that were emerging in the first decades of the nineteenth century.

The pre-conditions for the frequent appearance of food rioting in this period were the dependence of the majority of the population upon a limited range of staple foods, of which the most important was bread. The budgets for this period make it plain that bread formed the most important part of the budget and diet of ordinary people.⁴ The amount of bread consumed varied between different areas and income groups, but at least a pound of bread per day appears to have been the average per capita consumption by the 1790s.⁵ Even though other foods were important, particularly in urban areas, such as meat, dairy products, and vegetables, bread remained the staple foodstuff in the absence of a cheap and filling alternative. The bread consumed was largely wheaten bread by the opening of this period, and only in poorer areas, such as the Pennines or south-west, were other cereals important, principally barley and oats. Potatoes were only coming into common use as a staple food at the beginning of this period, and this was largely restricted to northern England.⁶

As well as forming the staple part of the diet in this period, a considerable degree of status value had become attached to bread by the end of the eighteenth century, particularly to white bread. There had been continuous pressure throughout the eighteenth century for both finer and whiter bread, a demand which had been met by developments within the milling and baking industries.⁷ Paradoxically the whitest bread was eaten in the poorest areas, such as the ‘rookeries’ of London, where it was often adulterated with alum to whiten it.⁸ Even for the prosperous artisan or town worker, periods of high prices tended to increase dependence upon bread by forcing other items out of the budget in order to procure the customary quantity of bread.⁹ The result was to heighten sensitivity to the price of bread, not only among the poorest sections of the community, but also among quite prosperous artisans.

There were four major outbreaks of food disturbances in this period, and they all occurred in periods of harvest failure and high prices. These were 1795–6, 1800–1, 1810–13, and 1816–18 (see Table 1). The shortage of 1795–6 started with the harvest of 1794 which was about 25 per cent below average. As a result of this prices began to rise sharply in the pre-harvest months of 1795. By July wheat had reached an average of 108 shillings per quarter. The harvest of 1795 was also deficient, with the result that high prices were maintained through the winter of 1795–6, reaching a peak in the spring of 1796, when heavy imports of foreign grain broke the price spiral.¹⁰ It is this crisis which Professor Williams has called the ‘English crise des subsistances’; and E. P. Thompson has described 1795 as the ‘climactic’ year for food riots in England.¹¹ In the face of such claims it is necessary to obtain a clear view of the number and distribution of food riots in these years. I have found evidence of seventy-four food disturbances in England in these two years; these were distributed geographically as shown in List I.¹²

TABLE 1
Average price of wheat per quarter in England and Wales, 1792–1818

1792	43S	od	1801	119s	6d	1810	106s	5d
1793	49S	3d	1802	69s	10d	1811	95S	3d
1794	52s	3d	1803	58s	10d	1812	126s	6d
1795	75S	2d	1804	62s	3d	1813	109s	9d
1796	78s	7d	1805	89s	9d	1814	74s	4d
1797	53s	9d	1806	79s	1d	1815	65s	7d
1798	65s	78d	1807	75S	4d	1816	78s	6d
1799	69s	od	1808	81S	4d	1817	96s	1d
1800	113s	lod	1809	97s	4d	1818	86s	3d

Source: Mitchell and Deane

Geographical distribution of food disturbances, 1792–1818

LIST 1: FOOD DISTURBANCES IN 1795–6

South-West: Bristol, Bath, Chudleigh, Bideford, Frome, Honiton, Topsham, Exeter, Ashburton, Totnes, Dartmouth, Plymouth, Launceston, Callington, Okehampton, Truro, Penryn, Penzance.

South-East and East Anglia: London, Portsmouth, Chichester, Southampton, Seaford, Lewes, Newhaven, Canterbury, Hastings, Rye, Chatham, Croydon, Guildford, Windsor, Potters Bar, Aylesbury, Gosfield, Buntingford, Halstead, Hitchin, Bedford, Cambridge, Sudbury, Norwich, Yarmouth, Ely, Wisbech, Welk, Blakeney, Ipswich.

Midlands: Oxford, Deddington, Handborough, Burford, Witney, Tewkesbury, Mitcheldean, Ross-on-Wye, Ludlow, Coalbrookdale, Dudley, Coventry, Birmingham, Shackerstone, Nottingham.

North: Liverpool, Sheffield, Heath, Pontefract, Brough, Carlisle, Manchester, Hull.

LIST 2: FOOD DISTURBANCES IN 1800–1

South-West: Bristol, Bath, Honiton, Blandford, Wimborne, Plymouth.

South-East and East Anglia: London, Southampton, Alresford, Midhurst, New Romney, Tunbridge Wells, Great Marlow, Sheerness, Chatham, Rochester, Luton, Gosfield, Attleborough, Norwich, St. Ives, Huntingdon.

Midlands: Abingdon, Oxford, Witney, Banbury, Stony Stratford, Leicester, Hinckley, Nuneaton, Coventry, Worcester, Kidderminster, Derby, Birmingham, Somerford, Bilston, Stafford, Longton, Nottingham.

North: Wigan, Blackburn, Leeds, Mansfield, Chesterfield, Sheffield, Chester-le-Strcet, Knottingly, Castleford, Methley.

LIST 3: FOOD DISTURB...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• Maps
• Introduction
• 1 Food Riots in England, 1792–1818
• 2 Patterns of Highland Discontent, 1790–1860
• 3 The General Strike of 1842: A Study in Leadership, Organisation and the Threat of Revolution during the Plug Plot Disturbances
• 4 Riots and Public Order in the Black Country, 1835–1860
• 5 The Warwickshire County Magistracy and Public Order, c. 1830–1870
• 6 Popular Protest and Public Order: Red Clydeside, 1915–1919