Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The Bristol Riots of October 29–31, 1831 were the single most serious provincial urban disturbance in modern English history and the most catastrophic since the Gordon Riots of 1780. Several public buildings were set on fire, between 100 and 250 people were killed or wounded, mostly by military action, and the cost of damage to property was estimated between £50,000 and £150,000. Eighty-one rioters were later convicted and four hanged. The cause was the House of Lords' rejection of the Reform Bill, for which there was strong cross-class support in the city. Unlike Nottingham and Derby, however, where rioting occurred immediately, disturbances at Bristol did not break out until three weeks later, when crowds mobilized to demonstrate against the arrival of Tory Recorder Sir Charles Wetherell, a notorious opponent of reform, to open the assize. There were important local causes of discontent too, however, chief of which was the unaccountable nature of the Corporation. The civic elite, still drawn predominantly from wealthy merchant dynasties, had become irretrievably unrepresentative of the growing economic influence of the commercial and industrial middling sort. Against a background of perceived decline and Corporation inactivity, a considerable proportion of the population felt alienated from the historical mythology of civic cohesion. The refusal of the middling sort to report ... log in or subscribe to read full text