1831 Bristol riots

In early 19th-century Britain there were large discrepancies in the size of constituencies of the lower house, the House of Commons. Some seats, so called rotten boroughs returned up to two Members of Parliament (MPs) from a small number of electors, while seats in new urban centres, such as Manchester, had no MPs. Bristol, a city of 100,000 people, was represented by just two members of parliament. The rejection of the bill and the second resignation of Grey resulted in a period of political upheaval which has since been characterised as "the closest that Britain came to revolution". The disturbances in Birmingham were so severe that the British Army's Scots Greys cavalry regiment was deployed to the city. The Bristol Recorder (senior judge) Charles Wetherell was a noted opponent of the Reform Bill. Wetherell himself was MP for the Yorkshire rotten borough of Boroughbridge. Wetherell was due to attend the court of assizes in Bristol at the end of October. == Preceding days ==

The Mayor of Bristol and head of its local authority, the Bristol Corporation, was Charles Pinney, a Whig and a supporter of the Reform Bill. His election, in September, may have been arranged by the other aldermen of the city, who were mainly anti-reform Tories, to curry favour with pro-reform elements and to reduce the likelihood of unrest. Pinney, by virtue of his office, was responsible for leading the response of the civil authorities to the riots. The citizens were angered as they regarded Pinney, who had not publicly supported electoral reform since taking office, as having abandoned the cause to join the Establishment. The Bristol Political Union (BPU), under William Herapath, was a key organisation in the city supporting reform. On 18 October the BPU broke up a meeting of sailors who were discussing forming a bodyguard for Wetherell's arrival. On 24 October a riot was narrowly averted when pro-reform citizens protested the arrival of George Henry Law, Bishop of Bath and Wells for the consecration of a new church in Bedminster. Law had voted against the Reform Bill in the House of Lords (from 22 present Lords Spiritual 21 voted against the bill). The Bristol under-sheriff had command of only 100 constables and estimated that at least 300 would be required to deal with the anticipated size of the protests against Wetherell. During the course of the riots men of this regiment, recognisable in their distinctive blue uniforms, would be jeered by the crowd while those of the 3rd, a regiment based locally, were cheered. He was a supporter of reform and, after the riots, would be accused of having sympathies with the mob. When the troops arrived in the city the aldermen and magistrates refused to ride at the head of the troops as they crossed the city boundary, as tradition demanded. The officials were fearful that doing so would cause the mob to single out their businesses for looting and arson. == 29 October ==

The location of Wetherell's entrance into the city had been changed for security reasons but soon became common knowledge and he was met with a mob upon his arrival on 29 October. The carriage carrying Wetherell and Pinney was stoned and they sought refuge at the corporation's Mansion House. Violence escalated, particularly after the special constables carried out a number of charges into the crowd, one of which led to the death of a member of the public. There were disputes between the dragoons and the constables over the perceived heavy-handedness of the latter. Pinney twice spoke to the crowd to attempt to regain control, but felt he had no option but to read the Riot Act at dusk, by which time many of the special constables had abandoned their posts. The rioting continued into the night and the Mansion House was stormed, the 14th Light Dragoons attempted to halt the riot and shot one man dead whilst doing so. Wetherell fled the Mansion House via the rooftop to an adjacent building and Pinney escaped to seek refuge at a friend's house where he spent much of the following day. == 30 October ==

The looting of the Mansion House continued from 7 am on 30 October, a Sunday. Part of the problem was that the civic authorities moved their headquarters between a number of different buildings. This meant that their leaders were hard to locate at key times, for example on 30 October a force of 57 men from the Dodington yeomanry arrived in the city but were withdrawn by their officer when no magistrate could be found to requisition lodgings. Brereton may have been affected by the criticism the armed forces received for its actions in Manchester in 1819, in which 18 people were killed when cavalry charged a crowd in the so-called Peterloo Massacre. Further destruction was inflicted upon houses, warehouses, tollhouses and civic buildings, particularly on Queen Square, Prince's Street and King Street. There was an attempt to attack the Bristol Corporation's dock company and the dock gates were burnt. Fires set at the Bishop's Palace, the Custom House, the excise office and at other buildings were reportedly visible from Newport, Wales. Chants from the crowd included "Oh! It's only Corporation property!" to justify the destruction of civic buildings and "Down with the churches and mend the roads with them". It is known that a number of "fireballs" of flammable tow and pitch were manufactured for use by rioters; though otherwise they were armed only with improvised sticks, railings, and tools looted from blacksmiths. The arrival of military reinforcements further strained the city’s resources, and a detachment sent from Cardiff found the city center in such disarray that no standard accommodation was available. After initially seeking shelter in the Guildhall and the White Lion on Broad Street, the troops were relocated outside the center. In November 1831, the Bristol Corporation of the Poor offered the use of the former Georgian armoury in Easton, then in the process of being converted into a poorhouse, to the civic authorities. The military began renting the facility as a temporary barracks on 21 December 1831, which eventually led to the abandonment of the poorhouse scheme and instead development of the terraces of Armoury Square. == 31 October ==

The destruction caused during the night of 30/31 October, in which many private houses were attacked, shocked the citizens of the city. The middle classes were provoked into action and some 3,000 men reported for duty in the posse comitatus on the following morning. An additional 100 soldiers from the 14th Light Dragoons arrived in the city later that day. Their officer, Major Beckwith, and a War Office liaison officer, Major Mackworth, took control of the situation, without regard for Brereton's seniority. They responded to a rush of rioters on the southern side of Queen Square with a charge by the 3rd Dragoon Guards that effectively quelled the riot. The posse comitatus had largely restored order across the city by the time General Sir Richard Downes Jackson arrived from London with several hundred soldiers to do so. == Aftermath ==

The riots were the worst in an English city since the 1780 Gordon Riots in London. Pinney was eventually brought to trial before the Court of King's Bench in October 1832 and acquitted. Clemency was granted to all bar four of those sentenced to death after a petition of 10,000 names was presented, which included the names of people whose houses had been destroyed in the riot. Some 22 people were transported to Australia and 43 imprisoned. The colonel himself was arraigned before a court-martial in January 1832. During the proceedings he offered to plead guilty to charges of failing to control the riot if the court agreed not to call any more witnesses. The court refused this request and Brereton killed himself before his trial was concluded. It was alleged that the riots were directed by an external party; allegations were made of French involvement (revolutionaries there had overthrown Charles X in July 1830) and of members of the Birmingham Political Union travelling to the city, but not substantiated. Another common misconception of the time was that troublemakers had come from the Kingswood collieries; though the pit owners stated that their men had largely remained at work throughout the riots. The Third Reform Bill, known afterwards as the Great Reform Act, finally passed in 1832 after a political crisis known as the Days of May. Pinney returned to the corporation that year as an alderman, a position he held for 18 years, Wetherell lost his Boroughbridge seat as one of the rotten boroughs abolished by the Reform Act and did not sit in parliament again. Beyond the immediate physical destruction, the riots imposed a severe financial burden on the city, which was forced to raise an additional £10,000 per year to fund reconstruction and compensation efforts. This strain led to the immediate postponement and eventual abandonment of several civic improvement projects, including the plans to convert the Easton Armoury into a poorhouse. The Bristol Corporation of the Poor instead pivoted to purchasing the old Admiralty prison at Stapleton as it became more cost-effective as a result. ==W. J. Müller's 1831 depictions of the riots==

The artist William James Müller, an artist of the Bristol School, witnessed the rioting and recorded some of the scenes in a series of "raw and brilliant oil and watercolour sketches". File:Bristol burns 1831.jpg|Bristol Burns File:Burning of bishops palace.jpg|''The Burning of the Bishop's Palace'' File:Burning of mansion house.jpg|The Burning of the Mansion House, Queen Square File:Burning of the new gaol 2.jpg|''The Burning of the New Gaol from Canon's Marsh'' File:Burning of the new gaol.jpg|The Burning of the New Gaol with St. Paul’s Church, Bedminster File:Burning custom house.jpg|The Burning of the Custom House, Queen Square File:Warehouse ruins queen street.jpg|Ruins of Warehouse in Prince Street == See also ==