The Gordon Riots: Politics, Culture and Insurrection in Late Eighteenth-Century BritainIan Haywood, John Seed The Gordon riots of June 1780 were the most devastating outbreak of urban violence in British history. For almost a week large parts of central London were ablaze, prisons were destroyed and the Bank of England attacked. Hundreds of rioters were shot dead by troops and for many observers it seemed that England was on the verge of a revolution. The first scholarly study in a generation, this book brings together leading scholars from historical and literary studies to provide new perspectives on these momentous events. The essays include new archival work on the religious, political and international contexts of the riots and new interpretations of contemporary literary and artistic sources. For too long the significance of the Gordon riots has been overshadowed by the impact of the French revolution on British society and culture: this book restores the riots to their central position in late eighteenth-century Britain. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Part i The political moment of 1780 | 19 |
chapter 2 The 1780 Protestant petitions and the culture of petitioning | 46 |
plebeian Dissenters and antipopery in the Gordon riots | 69 |
city nation and empire in the Gordon riots | 93 |
Part ii Representing the unrepresentable | 115 |
Ignatius Sancho witnesses the Gordon riots | 144 |
Romantic revisionings | 162 |
politics social order and cultural memory | 183 |
the geography and social politics of public execution after the Gordon riots | 204 |
the Gordon riots and conservative memory | 226 |
Part iv Afterword | 243 |
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Common terms and phrases
Advertiser American anti-Catholic attacks Barnaby Rudge Britain British Burke Burney burning carriage Catholic Relief Act century chapel church civil congregation court criminal crowd culture debate defendants destruction Dissenters E. P. Thompson eighteenth Eighteenth-Century England empire English executions eye-witness Fire of London French George Rudé Gordon riots History Horace Walpole Ibid Ignatius Sancho imperial James John July June justice king late letter liberty London Chronicle London Courant London Evening Post Lord George Gordon minister Morning Chronicle Newgate prints Newgate prison newspaper Old Bailey Parliament parliamentary patriots petitioners Plain and Succinct political popery popular Porteus prison Protestant Association published Quebec Act radical reform religion religious repeal Representation Revolution rioters roehampton University Samuel social Society Southwark spectators St James's Chronicle Street sublime Succinct Narrative Thomas Holcroft tion toleration trial violence visual Walpole Westminster Wilkes William Vincent Wyvill