The adverse weather conditions in 1766 had an almost immediate effect on the price of meat, wool and bread, further increasing the privations of the poor.1 In his detailed work on the social conflict during the first decade of George III’s reign, historian Walter Shelton, writing in 1973, identified three waves of food riots which swept across much of the West Country and southern England in 1766. The riots emerged as a response to a collection of factors, including the increases in the building of workhouses as engines and centres of poor relief in the south. The first riots, according to Shelton, were a continuation of social unrest from the previous year, while the second and third wave emerged in response to rising food prices. The typical diet of a poor country dweller at the time is described in J.C. Drummond’s The Englishman’s Food (1939). It consisted of ‘good bread, cheese, pease and turnips in winter, with a little pork or other meat when they can afford it.’2 Fresh milk was scarcely available and the actual price of meat often pushed even the cheapest cuts of pork beyond the means of a poor man’s income. This description provides insight into what was clearly a very basic diet. Bread was obviously the staple of the poor man’s diet, and fluctuations in the price of a loaf, or in the price of grain used for making bread would most certainly have a profound effect on the amount of food on his plate. The quality of drinking water too was a cause for concern, and home brewed ale was often seen as a safer alternative. Home brewing, however, fell into decline as the price of ingredients crept up and the increasing scarcity of fuel needed for the brewing process made the process more difficult. The rise of the country house breweries during the eighteenth century marked the onset of a nascent brewing industry as a whole and eventually sounded the death knell of all but the keenest of home brewers.

The 1750s witnessed a growth in commercial farming, which not only pushed prices up as a ‘keener commercial acumen’ developed among farmers, but also began to affect the structure of society as a whole. The use of turnips as a fodder crop and the introduction of clover in the crop rotation system practically eradicated the fallow year, relieving the pressure on the land through production of cereal crops. Farming was becoming more efficient, and the practises of farming families such as the Cokes of Norfolk, famed for their crop rotation practises, and sheep breeder, Robert Bakewell in Leicestershire are often cited as marking the beginnings of an agricultural revolution in England. The growth of urban areas and the need to feed armed forces engaged overseas brought lucrative contracts to large scale farmers and middlemen. New markets were developing as the Industrial Revolution began to build up a head of steam, and farmers were in a position to prosper. As a consequence, their social standing rose, putting them on a par with some of the lesser gentry of the parish. It’s fair to say that new tensions were developing in this period of social change as the farmers rose to their new positions, they formed a ‘buffer’ between the gentry and the poor, and that buffer was to play a role, arguably contributing to the spread of food riots over many counties. Much of the anger of food rioters at this time was directed at farmers and middlemen. Initially, the gentry were unaffected by the disturbances, but that was to change. In some areas of the country, the gentry had encouraged the poor to regulate markets themselves, a practise that was to get a little out of hand.

Market regulation was not uncommon at the time. Members of the public would gather at markets and fix the prices of bread and corn themselves. Such ‘committees’ would often dictate to merchants the ‘fair price’ of goods for sale. By today’s standards, this approach to the weekly shop takes some explaining, as apart from haggling with a market stall holder seeking to make a final sale as he packs away for the day, we rarely get to influence the price of our shopping basket in such a direct manner. During the middle of the eighteenth century, things were a little different. Markets in the eighteenth century served in a way, as ‘political arenas’, a venue where a dialogue could take place, which would hopefully produce a mutually satisfactory outcome. They were influenced by a dialogue between vendors and customers, which was often sanctioned by the local authorities. The customers were informed by prices and practices from recent trading, and vendors responded to this. It wasn’t the ‘market’ that set prices, that was done by people negotiating within the market place. Things, however, were beginning to change, and change rather rapidly, particularly as widespread commercial farming was on the increase. Corn merchants (sometimes larger scale land-owning farmers themselves, as well as middle men too) at the time, were beginning to see the benefits of improved transport systems; better roads, new canal and river networks were making the transportation of corn a lot easier. The market for farm produce was expanding as the Industrial Revolution gathered pace. The existing corn laws, geared towards maintaining a high price, worked largely to the benefit of the larger landowners and producers and the period saw a boom in ‘middlemen’ stepping in to facilitate the movement of grain to and between markets, as well as for export.

By the autumn of 1766, however, a series of poor harvests, exacerbated by unusually inclement weather, had reduced the availability of fodder crops, thus pushing up the price of meat as well as that of grain. Poor harvests across Europe meant there was already a market for English grain abroad, though in times of scarcity, people were less than happy to see shipments of grain being prepared for export. In January 1766, a crowd of some 600 people gathered at Winchester, threatening to sink corn barges destined for export abroad.3 A great deal of anger was directed towards the ‘middlemen’ as they were seen as a legitimate target, and were often perceived as dishonest since some were given to forestalling (withholding stocks of food in order to gain a better price at market), or adulterating food and offering up short measures. ‘The miller’s thumb’, which throughout most of my life I took to describe a particular species of small freshwater fish with an over-size head, was also a reference to a surreptitious device employed by less than scrupulous millers. In weighing out flour for customers, some of the less honest millers were given to tipping the scales with a deft press of the thumb, as a means of adjusting the transaction in their favour. Butchers too occasionally gained a reputation as employing deception in their methods of increasing the takings of the till by bulking out sausages with rusk as an example. In times of food shortage such as was prevalent in 1766, the temptation on behalf of traders to eek out their wares and increase their profits must have been particularly strong and difficult to resist.

The practise of food adulteration was by no means a new phenomenon at the time, and could indeed often have a far more harmful effect on the customer than the mere offering of short measures. Since 1266, and for more than 500 years following, the price and quality of bread and ale were controlled by the system of Assizes.4 The system was administered by local inspectors, and offences dealt with in regularly held courts, or Assizes. Offenders were subject to hefty fines or pillory in public. Though there is little evidence to suggest that food adulteration might have been a widespread practise during the early part of the eighteenth century, millers, grain merchants, brewers and other food producers were not averse to adding small quantities of ground alum to flour, adding sugar to beer to mask the effects of dilution, or bulking out a load of grain with the odd fistful of tiny pebbles. Enforcement of the system of bread Assizes was beginning to wane by the mid 1700s. Social historian, John Burnett, has observed, however, that by the closing decades of this century, the quality of many foods was becoming more and more suspect. Largely as a result of increasing urbanization, and the migration of people from the countryside to the rapidly growing towns, the practice of food adulteration was becoming a lucrative business. The risks of being exposed as a dodgy dealer were greatly reduced while operating in a town or city, rather than a smaller community where word could get around more easily. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that the issue of food adulteration was more thoroughly researched, and the potentially murderous consequences of tampering with food were exposed. The first Food Adulteration Act was not passed until 1860.

In an atmosphere of uncertainty, brought on by a series of bad harvests, an enduring war abroad, exceptional flooding and growing doubts about the integrity of what little food there was available to the poor in the English countryside, the food riots of 1766 kicked off with a trip to the market. In actual fact, it was several trips by large numbers of hungry and angry people, to several markets across the south west of England that ushered in a series of food riots which would stretch the resources of law and order to breaking point.

Historian John Bohstedt has identified over 160 food riots occurring in the Midlands and across southern England during 1766.5 Fuelled and reassured by a strong sense of communal action, people took it upon themselves to fix prices which they and others could afford. Grain seized from merchants and millers was brought to the market and distributed at an affordable price. In many cases, the carts and sacks used for transporting the grain were returned to the rightful owners, together with the revenue raised from the sale. This was not robbery, rather a tool by which the rioters could exhort some form of control over prices. Acts of seizure and distribution were described as riots by the aggrieved merchants and the authorities tasked with dealing with them. Shelton has observed that as many magistrates failed to suppress the initial disorders, they were seen to sanction the acts of the rioters. They faced a truly difficult task, as John Bohstedt puts it:

The Riot Act was read so many times in 1766, it must have made it on to the bestseller list for that year. From Cornwall to the Midlands and beyond, rio...