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Newcastle's Mob*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2017

James L. Fitts
James L. Fitts*
Affiliation:
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California
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Extract

“I love a mob,” the aging Duke of Newcastle said in 1768, “I headed a mob once myself. We owe the Hanoverian succession to a mob.” As I read those words I wondered if the good Duke, who was 73 when he said them, had slipped into senility or into an aged-ripened concept of the past, for the textbooks tell of the Jacobite rioting at George I's accession and during and after the Rebellion of 1715, but not of mob action in support of the Hanovers. The more specific histories of the period such as George Rude's Hanoverian London show that some of the events which we interpret as riots were actually pitched battles between mobs of Jacobite sympathizers and friends of the new government. This shows the existence of rival forces but where was Newcastle's mob? This paper attempts to define that mob, to explain the reasons for its formation, to show its organization around the young Pelham-Hollis, Duke of Newcastle, and to illustrate its activities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 5 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Violence and Social Control , Spring 1973 , pp. 41 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1973

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Footnotes

*

Paper read at the Pacific Northwest Section of the Conference on British Studies, Eugene, Oregon, March 1973.

References

1 London Magazine or Gentlemen's Monthly Intelligencer, XXXVII (London, June, 17681:329.

2 Boyer, Ahel, The Political State of Great Britain (London, n.d.), IX:76 Google Scholar.

3 The St. James Post, April 26, 1715.

4 The Flying Post, April 26, 1715.

5 Public Record Office, London [PRO], State Papers Domestic, 35/6 I, Petition of John Blackwell to Lord Townshend, June 21, 1715, p. 2.

6 PRO., A Report From the Committee Appointed by the House to Examine Christopher Layer and Others. Reported on the 1st of March, 1722 by the Rt. Hon. Wm. Pulteney, Chairman. Series: Reports from Committees of the House of Commons (London: n.p., n.d.). Appendix BB.

7 The Diary of Dudley Ryder, 1715-1716, ed., Matthews, William, 2 vols. (London, 1939), 1:139 Google Scholar.

8 Rudé, George, Hanoverian London, 1714-1808 (Berkeley, 1971), p. 207 Google Scholar.

9 Copeland, Alfred, Bridewell Royal Hospital, Past and Present (London, 1888), p. 95ffGoogle Scholar.

10 O'Donoghue, Edward, Bridewell Hospital, Palace, Prison, Schools (London, 1929), p. 192 Google Scholar.

11 London Record Office [LRO], Proceedings of Committee to Examine the Disorders Caused by Bridewell Boys; Examinations of Sundry Persons at a Court of Aldermen, 1718, with Previous Reports from Former Investigations, n.p.

12 PRO., St. Papers Domestic, Townshend to Newcastle, the Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex, July, 1715.

13 Blenman, Johnathon, The Mug Vindicated (London, 1717), p. xii Google Scholar.

14 Ibid. and J. Dunton, The Mob War (London: Printed for the Author, n.d.), “The Whole Pacquet Humbly addressed to that Truly Noble and Illustrious Patriot, Hollis, Duke of Newcastle.”

15 Nulle, Stebelton H., Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle, His Early Political Career, 1693-1724. (Philadelphia, 1939), p. 69 Google Scholar.

16 Ibid. It was Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester who reported this sum.

17 The Diary of Dudley Ryder, p. 255.

18 The strategic locations of the mughouses have not been pointed out by the authors who have dealt with the subject, but are readily discernible when their locations are pin-pointed on a map of 18th Century London. The best sources of information on mughouses are Blenman, J., The Mug Vindicated (London, 1717)Google Scholar, and Tinibs, John, Club Life of London with Anecdotes of the Clubs, Coffee Houses and Taverns of I lie Metropolis During the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries, 2 vols. (London, 1866)Google Scholar, I. A large number of pamphlets appeared on the subject both pro and con, in the years 1716-1717, such as Royal Gratitude by John Dunton (London, 1716), and its opposite, Down With the Mug by H. Mackworth, (London, 1717).

19 Blenman, The Mug Vindicated, p. x.

20 Allen, Thonias, The History and Antiquities of London, 2 vols. (London, 1839), II:12Google Scholar.

21 Boyer, The Political State, XII:134.

22 LRO., Report of Disorders, the “Roebuck mob” refers to the Loyal Society which met in the Roebuck Tavern. Italics mine.

23 Boyer, The Political State, X, 588.

24 The Flying Post, Nov. 8, 1715.

25 British Museum, Add. Mss. 5832, Cole Mss. Collections of Various Kinds, 31c, 113b. A Cambridge Chronicle article dated December 3, 1768.

26 Boyer, The Political State, XI:742-743. See Middlesex Record Office, Middlesex Session Book 752, f. 18-18d for orders of the Court to the Constabulary.

27 The Flying Post, June, 1716.

28 Boyer, The Political State, XI:743.

29 LRO., City of London, Session Records, General Session, June, 1716.

30 Historical Manuscripts Commission [HMC], Calendar of Stuart Papers, II:227. Hugh Thomas to Thomas Bayard.

31 Boyer, The Political State, XI:744.

32 Timbs, Club Life of London, 1:55.

33 LRO., Repertory 120. Petition from James Davis to the Mayor for protection, p. 85, and Repertory 121. Petition of Wm. Crackson. Francis Atkins. Robert Newall. John Suffield. Wm. Wooding and Jerome Clark of Newgate Market.

34 Ibid.

35 The Weekly Journal, Nov. 16, 1716.

36 Boyer. The Political Stale, XII: 127-134. and The Diary of Dudley Ryder, pp. 317-320. The diarist reported the evidence and testimony he heard presented at the trial of the rioters.

37 HMC. 13th Report. Lennard Mss. Pt. IV:366.

38 LRO, Proceedings of the Committee to Examine the Disorders Occasioned by Bridewell, p. 1.