The
Priestley Riots (also known as the
Birmingham Riots of 1791) took place from 14 July to 17 July 1791 in
BirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands county of England. Birmingham is the second-most populous British city, with a population of 1,006,500 ....
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
; the rioters' main targets were
religious DissentersEnglish Dissenters were English Christians who separated from the Church of England. They opposed State interference in religious matters, and founded their own communities in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries...
, most notably the politically and theologically controversial
Joseph PriestleyJoseph Priestley was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...
. Both local and national issues stirred the passions of the rioters, from disagreements over public library book purchases, to controversies over Dissenters' attempts to gain full civil rights and their support of the
French RevolutionThe French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based...
.
The riots started with an attack on a hotel that was the site of a banquet organized in sympathy with the French Revolution. Then, beginning with Priestley's church and home, the rioters attacked or burned four Dissenting chapels, twenty-seven houses, and several businesses. Many of them became intoxicated by liquor that they found while looting, or with which they were bribed to stop burning homes. A small core could not be bribed, however, and remained sober. The rioters burned not only the homes and chapels of Dissenters, but also the homes of people they associated with Dissenters, such as members of the scientific
Lunar SocietyThe Lunar Society was a dinner club and informal learned society of prominent industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals who met regularly between 1765 and 1813 in Birmingham, England. At first called the Lunar Circle, "Lunar Society" became the formal name by 1775...
.
While the riots were not initiated by Prime Minister
William PittWilliam Pitt, the Younger was a British politician of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
's administration, the national government was slow to respond to the Dissenters' pleas for help. Local Birmingham officials seem to have been involved in the planning of the riots, and they were later reluctant to prosecute any ringleaders. Industrialist
James WattJames Watt FRS was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.-Biography:James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock,...
wrote that the riots "divided [Birmingham] into two parties who hate one another mortally". Those who had been attacked gradually left, leaving Birmingham a more conservative city than it had been throughout the eighteenth century.
Birmingham
Over the course of the eighteenth century,
BirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands county of England. Birmingham is the second-most populous British city, with a population of 1,006,500 ....
became notorious for its riots. In 1714 and 1715, the townspeople, as part of a "Church-and-King" mob, attacked Dissenters (Protestants who did not adhere to the
Church of EnglandThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the oldest among the communion's thirty-eight independent national and regional churches...
or follow its practices) in the Sacheverell riots during the London trial of
Henry SacheverellHenry Sacheverell was an English High Church clergyman and politician.-Life:The son of Joshua Sacheverell, rector of St Peter's, Marlborough,...
, and in 1751 and 1759 Quakers and
MethodistsThe Methodist Church of Great Britain or British Methodist Church is the largest Wesleyan / Methodist body in the United Kingdom, with congregations across Great Britain . It is the United Kingdom's fourth largest Christian denomination, with around 330,000 members and 6,000 churches...
were assaulted. During the anti-Catholic
Gordon RiotsThe Popery Act of 1698 imposed a number of penalties and disabilities on Catholics in England. The Papists Act of 1778 eliminated some of these. The Gordon Riots of 1780 were an anti-Catholic uprising against the 1778 act...
in 1780, large crowds assembled in Birmingham. In 1766, 1782, 1795, and 1800 mobs protested high food prices. One contemporary described Birmingham rioters as the "bunting, beggarly, brass-making, brazen-faced, brazen-hearted, blackguard, bustling, booby Birmingham mob".
Up until the late 1780s, religious divisions did not affect Birmingham's elite. Dissenter and
AnglicanAnglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures...
lived side by side harmoniously: they were on the same town promotional committees; they pursued joint scientific interests in the
Lunar SocietyThe Lunar Society was a dinner club and informal learned society of prominent industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals who met regularly between 1765 and 1813 in Birmingham, England. At first called the Lunar Circle, "Lunar Society" became the formal name by 1775...
; and they worked together in local government. They stood united against what they viewed as the threat posed by unruly plebeians. After the riots, however, scientist and clergyman
Joseph PriestleyJoseph Priestley was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...
argued in his
An Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the Birmingham Riots (1791) that this cooperation had not in fact been as amicable as generally believed. Priestley revealed that disputes over the local library,
Sunday School"Sunday school" is the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.-Development:The first Sunday school may have been that opened in 1751 in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham...
s, and church attendance had divided Dissenters from Anglicans. In his "Narrative of the Riots in Birmingham" (1816), stationer and Birmingham historian
William HuttonWilliam Hutton was a poet and the first significant historian of Birmingham, England.A Unitarian nonconformist born in Derby, he went to school when five years old. Aged seven years he was employed in a silk mill on a seven year apprenticeship. In 1737 he took a second apprenticeship as a...
agreed, arguing that five events stoked the fires of religious friction: disagreements over inclusion of Priestley's books in the local public library; concerns over Dissenters' attempts to repeal the
TestThe Test Acts were a series of English penal laws that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Roman Catholics and Nonconformists...
and
Corporation ActsThe Corporation Act of 1661 is an Act of the Parliament of England . It belongs to the general category of test acts, designed for the express purpose of restricting public offices in England to members of the Church of England....
; religious controversy (particularly involving Priestley); an "inflammatory hand-bill"; and a dinner celebrating the outbreak of the
French RevolutionThe French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based...
.
Once Birmingham Dissenters started to agitate for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, which restricted Dissenters' civil rights (preventing them, for instance, from attending the Universities of
OxfordThe University of Oxford , located in the UK city of Oxford, is the oldest surviving university in the English-speaking world and is regarded as one of the world's leading academic institutions. Although the exact date of foundation remains unclear, there is evidence of teaching there as far back...
or
CambridgeThe University of Cambridge , located in the City of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom, is the second oldest university in the English-speaking world and the fourth oldest in Europe...
, or from holding public office), the semblance of unity among the town's elite disappeared. Unitarians such as Priestley were at the forefront of the repeal campaign, and
orthodoxThe word orthodox, from Greek orthodoxos "having the right opinion", from orthos + doxa , is typically used to mean adhering to the accepted or traditional and established faith, especially in religion.The term did not conventionally exist with any degree of formality The word orthodox, from Greek...
Anglicans grew nervous and angry. After 1787, the emergence of Dissenting groups formed for the sole purpose of overturning these laws began to divide the community; however, the repeal efforts failed in 1787, 1789, and 1790. Priestley's support of the repeal and his heterodox religious views, which were widely published, inflamed the populace. In February 1790, a group of activists came together not only to oppose the interests of the Dissenters but also to counteract what they saw as the undesirable importation of French Revolutionary ideals. Dissenters by and large supported the French Revolution and its efforts to question the role
monarchyThe person who heads a monarchy is called a monarch. It was a common form of government in the world during the ancient and medieval times. A Monarchy is a form of government in which supreme power is absolutely or nominally lodged with an individual, who is the head of state, often for life or...
should play in government.
One month before the riots, Priestley attempted to found a reform society, the Warwickshire Constitutional Society, which would have supported
universal suffrageUniversal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and noncitizens...
and short Parliaments. Although this effort failed, the efforts to establish such a society increased tensions in Birmingham.
In addition to these religious and political differences, both the lower-class rioters and their upper-class Anglican leaders had economic complaints against the middle-class Dissenters. They envied the ever-increasing prosperity of these industrialists as well as the power that came with that economic success. Historian R. B. Rose refers to these industrialists as belonging to "an inner elite of magnates". Priestley himself had written a pamphlet,
An Account of a Society for Encouraging the Industrious Poor (1787), on how best to extract the most work for the smallest amount of money from the poor. Its emphasis on debt collection did not endear him to the poverty-stricken.
British reaction to the French Revolution
The British public debate over the French Revolution, or the
Revolution ControversyThe Revolution Controversy, a British debate over the French Revolution, lasted from 1789 through 1795. A pamphlet war began in earnest after the publication of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France , which surprisingly supported the French aristocracy...
, lasted from 1789 through 1795. Initially many on both sides of the Channel thought the French would follow the pattern of the English
Glorious RevolutionThe Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, was the overthrow of King James II of England in 1688 by a union of Parliamentarians with an invading army led by the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau who, as a result, ascended the English throne as William III of England...
of a century before, and the Revolution was viewed positively by a large portion of the British public. Most Britons celebrated the
storming of the BastilleThe Storming of the Bastille in Paris occurred on 14 July, 1789. The medieval fortress and prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the center of Paris. While the prison only contained seven prisoners at the time of its storming, its fall was the flashpoint of the French...
in 1789, believing that France's
absolute monarchyAbsolute monarchy is a monarchical form of government where the king or queen has absolute power over all aspects of his/her subjects' lives. Although some religious authorities may be able to discourage the monarch from some acts and the sovereign is expected to act according to custom, in an...
should be replaced by a more democratic form of government. In these early, heady days, supporters of the Revolution also believed that Britain's own system would be reformed as well: voting rights would be broadened and redistribution of Parliamentary
constituencyA constituency is any cohesive body of people bound by shared identity, goals, or loyalty. Constituency can be used to describe a business's customer base and shareholders, or a charity's donors or those it serves...
boundaries would eliminate so-called "rotten boroughs".
After the publication of statesman and philosopher
Edmund BurkeEdmund Burke PC was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who, after relocating to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom as a member of the Whig party. He is mainly remembered for his opposition to the French Revolution...
's
Reflections on the Revolution in FranceReflections on the Revolution in France , by Edmund Burke, is one of the best-known intellectual attacks against the French Revolution...
(1790), in which he surprisingly broke ranks with his liberal
WhigThe Whigs are often described as one of the two original political parties in England and later the United Kingdom from the late 17th to the mid-19th centuries. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
colleagues to support the French aristocracy, a pamphlet war discussing the Revolution began in earnest. Because Burke had supported the American colonists in their
rebellion against EnglandThe American Revolution is the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen of Britain's colonies in North America at first rejected the governance of the Parliament of Great Britain, and later the British monarchy itself, to become the sovereign United States of...
, his views sent a shockwave through the country. While Burke supported
aristocracyAristocracy is a form of government, in which a few of the most prominent citizens rule. This may be a hereditary elite, or it may be by a system of cooption where a council of prominent citizens add leading soldiers, merchants, land owners, priests, and lawyers to their number...
, monarchy, and the Established Church, liberals such as
Charles James FoxCharles James Fox was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and who was particularly noted for being the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger...
supported the Revolution, and a programme of individual liberties,
civic virtueCivic virtues are personal habits and attitudes that are conducive to social harmony and group well-being. The identification of the character traits that constitute civic virtue has been a major concern of political philosophy....
and religious toleration, while radicals such as Priestley,
William GodwinWilliam Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and one of the first modern proponents of anarchism...
,
Thomas PaineThomas Paine was an author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Born in England, Paine emigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 in time to participate in the American Revolution...
, and
Mary WollstonecraftMary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and feminist. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...
, argued for a further programme of
republicanismRepublicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of Republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context. The sometimes contrary definitions are all covered in...
, agrarian
socialismSocialism refers to various theories of economic organization advocating public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a method of compensation based on...
, and abolition of the "landed interest". Alfred Cobban calls the debate that erupted "perhaps the last real discussion of the fundamentals of politics in [Britain]". However, by December 1795, after the
Reign of TerrorThe Reign of Terror , also known as the The Terror was a period of violence that occurred four years and two months after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of the...
and war with France, there were few who still supported the French cause or believed that reform would extend to Britain, and those suspected of remaining radicals became the subject of official and popular suspicion.
The events which precipitated the Priestley Riots came less than a month after the
attempted flight and arrestThe Flight to Varennes was a significant episode in the French Revolution during which King Louis XVI of France and his immediate family were unsuccessful in their attempt to escape, disguised as the servants of a Russian baroness, from the radical agitation of the Jacobins in Paris...
of the French Royal family, and at a point when much of the early promise of the Revolution had already dissipated. However the spiralling violence of the later Revolution was still to begin.
Hints of trouble
On 11 July 1791, a Birmingham newspaper announced that on 14 July, the second anniversary of the
storming of the BastilleThe Storming of the Bastille in Paris occurred on 14 July, 1789. The medieval fortress and prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the center of Paris. While the prison only contained seven prisoners at the time of its storming, its fall was the flashpoint of the French...
, there would be a dinner at a local hotel to commemorate the outbreak of the French Revolution; the invitation encouraged "any Friend to Freedom" to attend:
Alongside this notice was a threat: "an authentic list" of the participants would be published after the dinner. On the same day, "an ultra-revolutionary" handbill, written by James Hobson (although his authorship was not known at the time), entered circulation. Town officials offered 100
guineaThe guinea is an obsolete coin that was minted in the Kingdom of England between 1663 and 1813. It was the first English machine-struck gold coin, originally worth one English Pound sterling, equal to twenty shillings; but rises in the price of gold caused the value of the guinea to increase, at...
s for information regarding the publication of the handbill and its author, to no avail. The Dissenters found themselves forced to plead ignorance and decry the "radical" ideas promoted by the handbill. It was becoming clear by 12 July that there would be trouble at the dinner. On the morning of 14 July graffiti such as "destruction to the Presbyterians" and "Church and King for ever" were scrawled across the town. At this point, Priestley's friends, fearing for his safety, dissuaded him from attending the dinner.
July 14
About 90 resolute sympathizers of the French Revolution came to celebrate on the 14th; the banquet was led by
James KeirJames Keir FRS was a Scottish chemist, geologist, industrialist, and inventor, and an important member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham.- Life and work :...
, an Anglican industrialist who was a member of the Lunar Society. When the guests arrived at the hotel at 2 or 3 p.m., they were greeted by 60 or 70 protesters who temporarily dispersed while yelling, rather bizarrely and confusingly, "no popery". By the time the celebrants ended their dinner, around 7 or 8 p.m., a crowd of hundreds had gathered. The rioters, who "were recruited predominantly from the industrial artisans and labourers of Birmingham", threw stones at the departing guests and sacked the hotel. The crowd then moved on to the Quaker meeting-house, until someone yelled that the Quakers "never trouble themselves with anything, neither on one side nor the other" and convinced them instead to attack the New Meeting chapel, where Priestley presided as minister. The New Meeting chapel was burned to the ground, quickly followed by the Old Meeting, another Dissenting chapel.
The rioters proceeded to Priestley's home, Fairhill. Priestley barely had time to evacuate and he and his wife fled from Dissenting friend to friend during the riots. Writing shortly after the event, Priestley described the first part of the attack, which he witnessed from a distance:
His son, William, stayed behind with others to protect the family home, but they were overcome and the property was eventually looted and razed to the ground. Priestley's valuable library, scientific laboratory, and manuscripts were all lost in the flames.
July 15, 16, and 17
The
Earl of AylesfordHeneage Finch, 4th Earl of Aylesford , son of Heneage Finch, 3rd Earl of Aylesford, was a British peer. From 1757 until his accession in 1777, he was styled Lord Guernsey....
attempted to stem the mounting violence on the night of the 14th, but despite having the help of other magistrates, he was unable to control the crowd. On the 15th, the mob liberated prisoners from the local gaol. Thomas Woodbridge, the Keeper of the Prison, deputized several hundred people to help him quell the mob, but many of these joined in with the rioters themselves. The crowd destroyed John Ryland's home, Bakerville House, and drank the supplies of liquor which they found in the cellar. When the newly appointed constables arrived on the scene, the mob attacked and disarmed them. One man was killed. The local magistrates and law enforcement, such as it was, did nothing further to restrain the mob and did not read the
Riot ActThe Riot Act was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which authorised local authorities to declare any group of more than twelve people to be unlawfully assembled, and thus have to disperse or face punitive action...
until the military arrived on 17 July.
On the 16th, the homes of Joseph Jukes, John Coates, John Hobson, Thomas Hawkes, and John Harwood (the latter a blind
BaptistA Baptist is a Christian who subscribes to a theology and may belong to a church that, among other things, is committed to believer's baptism and, with respect to church polity, favors the congregational model...
minister) were all ransacked or burned. The Baptist Meeting at
Kings HeathKings Heath is a suburb of Birmingham, England, three miles south of the city centre. It is the next suburb south from Moseley on the Alcester Road.-History:...
, another Dissenting chapel, was also destroyed. William Russell and
William HuttonWilliam Hutton was a poet and the first significant historian of Birmingham, England.A Unitarian nonconformist born in Derby, he went to school when five years old. Aged seven years he was employed in a silk mill on a seven year apprenticeship. In 1737 he took a second apprenticeship as a...
, tried to defend their homes, but to no avail—the men they hired refused to fight the mob. Hutton later wrote a narrative of the events:
When the rioters arrived at John Taylor's home, they carefully moved all of the furniture and belongings of its current occupant, the Dowager Lady Carhampton, a relative of George III, out of the house before they burned it: they were specifically targeting those whose disagreed with the king's policies and who, in not conforming to the Church of England, resisted state control. The homes of George Russell, a
Justice of the PeaceA justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice and deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...
, Samuel Blyth, one of the ministers of New Meeting, Thomas Lee, and a Mr. Westley all came under attack on the 15th and 16th. The manufacturer, Quaker, and member of the Lunar Society
Samuel GaltonSamuel "John" Galton Jr. FRS , born in Duddeston, Birmingham, England. Despite being a Quaker he was an arms manufacturer. He was a member of the Lunar Society and lived at Great Barr Hall.He married Lucy Barclay...
only saved his own home by bribing the rioters with
aleAle is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a top-fermenting brewers' yeast. This yeast ferments the beer quickly, giving it a sweet, full bodied and fruity taste. Most ales contain hops, which impart a bitter herbal flavour that helps to balance the sweetness of the malt and preserve the...
and money.
By 2 p.m. on 16 July, the rioters had left Birmingham and were heading towards
Kings NortonKings Norton is an area of Birmingham, England. It is also a Birmingham City Council ward within the formal district of Northfield.-History:...
and the Kingswood Chapel; it was estimated that one group of the rioters totalled 250 to 300 people. They burned Cox's farm at
WarstockWarstock is a district of the city Birmingham. It lies in the south-eastern inner suburbs and is roughly 1km east of the A435.The housing is mostly terraced with a few extensions dotted around, almost all built in and around the 1930s, to house the result of the first baby boom. Normally a peaceful...
and looted and attacked the home of a Mr. Taverner. When they reached Kingswood, Warwickshire, they burned the Dissenting chapel and its
manseA manse is a house inhabited by, or formerly inhabited by, a minister, usually used in the context of a Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist or United Church....
. By this time, Birmingham had shut down—no business was being conducted.
Contemporary accounts record that the mob's last sustained assault was around 8 p.m. on the 17th. About 30 "hard core" rioters attacked the home of
William WitheringWilliam Withering was an English botanist, geologist, chemist, physician and the discoverer of digitalis.-Introduction:...
, an Anglican who attended the Lunar Society with Priestley and Keir. But Withering, aided by a group of hired men, managed to fend them off. When the military finally arrived to restore order on the 17th and 18th, most of the rioters had disbanded, although there were rumours that mobs were destroying property in
AlcesterAlcester is an old market town of Roman origin at the junction of the River Alne and River Arrow in Warwickshire, England, and situated approximately
8 miles west of Stratford-upon-Avon...
and
BromsgroveBromsgrove is a town in Worcestershire, England. The town is about north east of Worcester and south west of Birmingham city centre. It had a population of 29,237 in 2001 and is in Bromsgrove District....
.
All in all, four Dissenting churches had been severely damaged or burned down and twenty-seven homes had been attacked, many looted and burned. Having begun by attacking those who attended the Bastille celebration on the 14th, the "Church-and-King" mob had finished up by extending their targets to include Dissenters of all kinds as well as members of the Lunar Society.
Aftermath and trials
Priestley and other Dissenters blamed the government for the riots, believing that
William PittWilliam Pitt, the Younger was a British politician of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
and his supporters had instigated them; however, it seems from the evidence that the riots were actually organized by local Birmingham officials. Some of the rioters acted in a co-ordinated fashion and seemed to be led by local officials during the attacks, prompting accusations of premeditation. Some Dissenters discovered that their homes were to be attacked several days before the rioters arrived, leading them to believe that there was a prepared list of victims. The "disciplined nucleus of rioters", which numbered only thirty or so, directed the mob and stayed sober throughout the three to four days of rioting. Unlike the hundreds of others who joined in, they could not be bribed to stop their destructions.
If a concerted effort had been made by Birmingham's Anglican elite to attack the Dissenters, it was more than likely the work of Benjamin Spencer, a local minister, Joseph Carles, a
Justice of the PeaceA justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice and deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...
and landowner, and
John Brooke (1755-1802)John Brooke was a Warwickshire politician who developed the Ashted estate near Birmingham and is principally known for his role during and after the Priestley Riots of 1791....
, an attorney, coroner, and under-sheriff. Although present at the riot's outbreak, Carles and Spencer made no attempt to stop the rioters, and Brooke seems to have led them to the New Meeting chapel. Witnesses agreed "that the magistrates promised the rioters protection so long as they restricted their attacks to the meeting-houses and left persons and property alone". The magistrates also refused to arrest any of the rioters and released those that had been arrested. Instructed by the national government to prosecute the riot's instigators, these local officials dragged their heels. When finally forced to try the ringleaders, they intimidated witnesses and made a mockery of the trial proceedings. Only seventeen of the fifty rioters who had been charged were ever brought to trial; four were convicted, of whom one was pardoned, two were hanged, and the fourth was transported to
Botany BayBotany Bay is a bay in Sydney, New South Wales, a few kilometres south of the Sydney central business district. The Cooks River and the Georges River are the two major tributaries that flow into the bay...
. But Priestley and others believed that these men were found guilty not because they were rioters but because "they were infamous characters in other respects".
Although he had been forced to send troops to Birmingham to quell the disturbances, King George III commented, "I cannot but feel better pleased that Priestley is the sufferer for the doctrines he and his party have instilled, and that the people see them in their true light." The national government forced the local residents to pay restitution to those whose property had been damaged: the total eventually amounted to
£The pound sterling , often simply called the pound, is the currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and British Antarctic Territory...
23,000. However, the process took many years, and most residents received much less than the value of their property.
After the riots, Birmingham was, according to industrialist
James WattJames Watt FRS was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.-Biography:James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock,...
, "divided into two parties who hate one another mortally". Initially Priestley wanted to return and deliver a sermon on the Bible verse "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," but he was dissuaded by friends convinced that it was too dangerous. Instead, he wrote his
Appeal:
The riots revealed that the Anglican gentry of Birmingham were not averse to using violence against Dissenters whom they viewed as potential revolutionaries. They had no qualms, either, about raising a potentially uncontrollable mob. Many of those attacked left Birmingham; as a result, the town became noticeably more conservative after the riots. The remaining supporters of the French Revolution decided not to hold a dinner celebrating the
storming of the BastilleThe Storming of the Bastille in Paris occurred on 14 July, 1789. The medieval fortress and prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the center of Paris. While the prison only contained seven prisoners at the time of its storming, its fall was the flashpoint of the French...
the next year.
See also
- Joseph Priestley and Dissent
Joseph Priestley was a British natural philosopher, political theorist, clergyman, theologian, and educator...
- Joseph Priestley and education
Joseph Priestley was a British natural philosopher, Dissenting clergyman, political theorist, and theologian. While his achievements in all of these areas are renowned, he was also dedicated to improving education in Britain; he did this on an individual level and through his support of the...
- List of works by Joseph Priestley
External links