¹ Hobsbawm, E.J., Primitive rebels. (Manchester, 1959)Google Scholar; Rose, R. B., ‘Eighteenth-century price riots and public policy in England’, International Review of Social History, vi (1961), 277–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rudé, George, The crowd in history, 1730–1848 (New York, 1964; revised edn, London, 1981)Google Scholar; Thompson, E. P., The making of the English working class. (London, 1963)Google Scholar; Wearmouth, Robert F., Methodism and the common people in the eighteenth century. (London, 1945).Google Scholar

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³ Rudé, , The crowd, p. 255Google Scholar, overstates the number killed and wounded at no, yet still finds nothing else to say about this riot. Stevenson, John, Popular disturbances in England 1700–1870 (New York, 1979), p. 329Google Scholar, confines his interest to a footnote expressing surprise that oyster shells were thrown by the crowd. mouth, Wear, Methodism, p. 45Google Scholar, does ascribe the riot a few descriptive lines. For casualty details see ‘A list of persons killed and wounded (at the late riots in Bristol respecting the Bridge tolls) on the memorable evening of the 30th of September’, Bristol, Oct. 1793( ?), Bristol Reference Library (here after cited as B.R.L.), B 13068.

⁴ Jones, ‘Bristol Bridge riot’, p. 74.

⁵ Ibid. pp. 75–81.

⁶ Ibid. p. 81.

⁷ Ibid. pp. 81–4.

⁸ Ibid. pp. 84–9.

⁹ Ibid. p. 92.

¹⁰ Anon., The Bristol riot (London, 1714)Google Scholar; Anon., The tryals of the rioters at Bristol (London, 1714)Google Scholar; Anon., A full and impartial account of the late disorders in Bristol (London, 1714)Google Scholar; Seyer, Samuel, Memoirs historical and topographical of Bristol and its neighbourhood (2 vols., Bristol, 1823), iiGoogle Scholar; Nicholls, J. F. and Taylor, John, Bristol past and present (3 vols., Bristol, 1882), 111Google Scholar; Hunt, W., Bristol (London, 1887)Google Scholar; Larimer, John, The annals of Bristol in the eighteenth century (Bristol, 1893)Google Scholar; Malcolmson, Robert W., ‘“A set of un governable people”: the Kings wood colliers in the eighteenth century’, in Brewer, John and Styles, John (eds.), An un governable people (London, 1980), pp. 85–127.Google Scholar

¹¹ See Malcolmson, ‘Un governable people’, p. 332, for refutation of the statement by Shelton, Walter J., English hunger and industrial disorders (London, 1973), p. 142Google Scholar, that the Kings wood colliers were active in regulating food markets in 1766. Stevenson, Popular disturbances, p. 105, does provide some evidence of intimidation by the colliers at Bitton, near Bristol, in 1756.

¹² Noble to chief constables, 9 Aug. 1792, and Noble to Dundas, 13 Aug. 1792, Bristol corporation letter book, Bristol Records Office (hereafter cited as B.R.O.), vol. 1791–1813 (hereafter cited as LB); Dundas to Noble, 17 Aug. 1792, Bristol corporation letters and miscellaneous papers (hereafter cited as LMP), B.R.O., Box 1791; Dundas to Noble, 17 Aug. 1792, Public Record Office, H.O. 434/.

¹³ Bristol Gazette and Public Advertiser (here after cited as Gazette), 30 Aug. 1792.

¹⁴ Jones, ‘Bristol Bridge riot’, p. 89, does briefly mention the possible impact of the London Gordon riots of 1780.

¹⁵ Albert, William, ‘Popular opposition to turnpike trusts in early eighteenth century England’, Journal of Transport History, v, I (1979), 10.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Shelton, Walter J., ‘The role of local authorities in the provincial hunger riots of 1766’, Albion, v, 1 (1973), 54–5Google Scholar; Williams, D. E., ‘Midland hunger riots in 1766’, Midland History, 111, 4 (1976), 258Google Scholar; mouth, Wear, Methodism, pp. 27–8, 30–6, 39, 43–5.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Stevenson, Popular disturbances, p. 38.

¹⁸ Moir, Esther, Local government in Gloucestershire 1775–1800 (Records section, Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 1969), p. 148.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Neale, R. S., Bath, a social history 1680–1850 (London, 1981), pp. 90–2, 310–13Google Scholar; mouth, Wear, Methodism, p. 41Google Scholar. There was a rumour that the Bath rioters intended to proceed to Bristol ‘ … to burn that’: see Castro, j. Paul De, The Gordon riots (London, 1926), pp. 187–8Google Scholar, and Gazette, 15 June 1780.

²⁰ Gazette, 19 May 1791, 26 May 1791, 30 Aug. 1792.

²¹ See, for example, Stevenson, Popular disturbances, ch. 4; Rudé, The crowd, chs. 3 and 4; De Castro, Gordon riots, pp. 235–6 and passim; Brewer, John, ‘The Wilkites and the law, 1763–1774: a study of radical notions of governance’, in Brewer, and Styles, (eds.), An ungovernable people, pp. 128–71Google Scholar; Brown, P. A., The French revolution in English history (London, 1918), ch. 4.Google Scholar

²² Evans, John, Chronological outline of the history of Bristol (Bristol, 1824), p. 301.Google Scholar

²³ Gazette, 8 June 1780, 15 June 1780, 10 Nov. 1831. See also Emsley, Clive, ‘The London “in surrection” of December 1792: fact, fiction or fantasy ?’, Journal of British Studies, xviii, 2 (1978), 70Google Scholar, for general evidence of the lingering impression made by the Gordon riots.

²⁴ Gazette, 21 July 1791 and 28 July 1791.

²⁵ For Bristol's communications with the rest of the country, see Marcy, Peter T., ‘Bristol's roads and communications on the eve of the industrial revolution, 1740–1780’, Transactions of the Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. (1968), pp. 149–172Google Scholar; and Minchinton, W. E., ‘Bristol: metropolis of the west in the eighteenth century’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (1954), pp. 69–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁶ Johnson, James, Transactions of the Corporation of the Poor in the city of Bristol (Bristol, 1826)Google Scholar, appendix 1 (the figure for flour is distorted by the dramatic price increases during 1795); Mitchell, B. R. and Deane, Phyllis, Abstract of British historical statistics (Cambridge, 1962), p. 469Google Scholar (’consumer goods’ as defined under Schumpeter-Gilboy price indices 1661–1823).

²⁷ Gazette, 16 May 1790.

²⁸ Ibid, 19 jan. 1792.

²⁹ Ibid. 12 Jan. 1792.

³⁰ Ibid. 16 Feb. 1792, basket-makers; 16 May 1792 and 21 June 1792, boot and shoe makers; 26 July 1792, farriers; 23 Aug. 1792, bakers; 30 Aug. 1792, dressers and weavers. The farriers were the only group we know to have been successful. Amounts demanded are nowhere specified.

³¹ Gazette, 25 Oct. 1792.

³² Ibid. 15 Aug. 1793.

³³ Ward, J. R., ‘Speculative building at Bristol and Clifton, 1783–1793’, Business History, xx, 1 (1978), 3–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁴ Noble to Dundas, 13 Aug. 1792, LB. Three brick makers, for example, were convicted at Gloucestershire assizes for conspiracy and unlawful assembly: Gazette, 12 April 1792 and 3 May 1792.

³⁵ There were 94 bankruptcies in Bristol in 1793 (62% occurring between March and May), compared with 13m 1792 and 18 in 1794; indeed, 1793 accounts for more than 25 % of all Bristol bankruptcies between 1784 and 1800. (I am extremely grateful to Julian Hoppit who kindly provided me with these figures; his source was the London Gazette) The building collapse and a high number of bankruptcies were a national phenomenon: see Ward, J. R., Speculative building, pp. 13–16Google Scholar; and Marriner, Sheila, ‘English bankruptcy records and statistics before 1850’, Economic History Review, xxxiii, 3 (1980), 353.Google Scholar

³⁶ Samuel Seyer MSS, ‘Chronicle of Events 1760–1813’, B.R.L., B 4533, pp. 39–41. Only 23 of the 94 bankruptcies were of people clearly linked to the building trade.

³⁷ In 1826 John Gast wrote: ‘Bristol is now, as it has been for years, notorious for overbearing and despotic masters, which made me leave it between thirty and forty years ago’ (quoted in lorwerth Protheroe, Artisans and politics in early nineteenth century London - John Gast and his times (London, 1979), p. 16).Google Scholar

³⁸ Two masters who signed protests against the wage demands of their employees in 1792 were wounded in the 1793 riot, and one, William Powell, was killed. See below.

³⁹ Sidney and Beatrice Webb, English local government from the Revolution to the Municipal and Corporations Act: the manor and the borough, part 2, vol. iii, 457–8. ‘Common council’ was used by Bristolians to denote those who attended common council, that is, the aldermen, mayor, late mayors, sheriffs, common councillors, and the recorder. The common council and the corporation were sometimes regarded as synonymous. In fact the corporation also contained numerous minor officials, listed in full in Matthews, W., Matthews’ directory 1793–4 (Bristol, 1794), pp. 45–6Google Scholar. Because all the aldermen were magistrates, and the mayor was ‘chief magistrate’, the corporation, or the common council, and the magistrates were also often viewed as essentially the same body.

⁴⁰ Underdown, P. T., ‘The political history of Bristol 1750–90’, unpublished Bristol University M.A. thesis (1948), p. 23Google Scholar; Webbs, , Local government, iii, 456–7Google Scholar; Johnson, James, Transactions, pp. 120–1.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Gazette, 7 jan. 1790, 18 Mar. 1790, 7 June 1792, 12 July 1792, 26 july 1792, 26 July 1792. Parish opposition to the bill: Gazette,12 July 1792, 19 July 1792, 2 Aug. 1792, 9 Aug. 1792, 27 Aug. 1792; Latimer, Annals, pp. 488 9. For a selection of handbills and broadsides in opposition to the bill, see Jefferies collection, B.R.L., vol. viii, B 7952.

⁴² ‘Justitia’ and ‘Bristoliensis’, in Gazette, 26 July 1792.

⁴³ Gazette, 10 Nov. 1791, derived from The Star (London). Who these citizens were is unknown.

⁴⁴ ‘Speech of Balaam's beast’, Bristol, 18 June 1792, B.R.L., B 13111, accuses the mayor of being a Painite. Also see Anon., Free thoughts on the offices of mayor, aldermen and common council of Bristol with a constitutional proposition for their annihilation (Bristol, 19 Sept. 1792)Google Scholar; and printed notice from ‘Civis’, Jefferies collection, vol. viii (n.d., 1790?).

⁴⁵ Common Council proceedings (here after cited as CCP), B.R.O., 9 Mar. 1791, 15 Sept. 1791, 14 Mar. 1792, 13 Sept. 1792; Latimer, Annals, p. 507.

⁴⁶ 18 July 1791, LMP, Box 1791. Also, 22 july 1791, 28July 1791 (two letters), 31 July 1791, LMP, Box 1791. Harris was a delegate for the Bristol Dissenters Committee in opposition to the Test and Corporations Act, Gazette, 25 Feb. 1790. For a discussion of the rationale of anonymous letters see Thompson, E. P., ‘The crime of anonymity’, in Thompson, E. P.et al., Albion's fatal tree (Harmondsworth, 1977), pp. 255–308.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Harris to Dundas, 21 July 1791, LMP, Box 1791, and LB. For other correspondence surrounding these letters: Dundas to Harris, 22 July 1791, LMP, Box 1791, and LB; Nepean to Harris, 23 July 1791, LMP, Box 1791; Harris to Dundas 23 July 1791, LB; Harris to Nepean, 24 july 1791, LB; Harris to Dundas, 10 Sept. 1791, LB.

⁴⁸ Dundas to Noble, 13 Aug. 1792, LB; Dundas to Noble, 17 Aug. 1792, LMP, Box 1791, and P.R.O., H.O. 434/; Noble (?) to Nepean, 19 Aug. 1792, LMP, Box 1791.

⁴⁹ Dundas to Noble, 12 Sept. 1792, LMP, Box 1791. It may be significant that Noble's son, Richard H. Noble, was a clerk in Dundas’ office, see Nelson, R. R., The Home Office 1782–1801 (Durham, N. C, 1969), p. 105.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ A powerful case for the separation of the two functions of power and authority is made by Calhoun, C.J., ‘Community: towards a variable conceptualisation for comparative research’, Social History, v, 1 (1980), esp. 121–4.Google Scholar

⁵¹ CCP, 1793; Merchants Hall book of proceedings, B.R.L., Book 12, 1789–97; Matthew's Directory, p. 3; Minchinton, W. E. (ed.), Politics and the port of Bristol in the eighteenth century (Bristol Record Society, 1963), pp. xi v-xvii; ‘A list of the present Bridge trustees’, in Gazette, 24 Oct. 1793; James Johnson, Transactions, pp. 26–9.Google Scholar

⁵² Gazette, 20 Dec. 1792 and 7 Mar. 1793.

⁵³ Ibid. 21 June 1792, 13 Dec. 1792, 20 Dec. 1792.

⁵⁴ Bengough to Harris, 30 Jan. 1793, LB; Gazette, 20 Dec. 1792.

⁵⁵ 13 Dec. 1793, LMP, Box 1792; 11 Dec. 1792, LMP, Box 1793; Gazette,13 Dec. 1792, 10 Jan. 1793, 7 Feb. 1793.

⁵⁶ Norfolk Chronicle, 23 June 1792 and 30 June 1792.

⁵⁷ Gazette, 6 Dec. 1792.

⁵⁸ Ibid. 27 Oct. 1791 and 1 Nov. 1792, accession; 29 Sept. 1791, coronation; 6 June 1793, birthday; 24 Jan. 1793, Queen's birthday.

⁵⁹ M Seyer MSS, p. 37; Mayor of Bath to Home Office, 9 Feb. 1794, P.R.O., H.O. 4228/278/. French refugees, although usually’ aristocratic’, were frequently suspected of being French agents. Lord Sheffield, the Whig M.P. for Bristol, feared that the refugees would suffer hostility from the ‘common people’: Dundas to Sheffield, 22 Sept. 1792, P.R.O., H.O. 434/100/–1.

⁶⁰ Meares to Dundas, 15 Sept. 1793, P.R.O., H.O. 4226/529/.

⁶¹ Seyer MSS, p. 39.

⁶² ‘ Notice by Order of Common Council’, Bristol, Dec. 1792, in Printed orders, B.R.O., 04217.

⁶³ Jones, ‘Bristol Bridge riot’, pp. 81–4.

⁶⁴ ‘ To the citizens and inhabitants of Bristol, from a citizen’, Bristol, 22 Jan. 1790, in Jefferies collection, vui; Gazette, 5 Apr. 1792 and 4 Apr. 1793.

⁶⁵ ‘ An act for rebuilding and enlarging the bridge over the Avon (Bristol Bridge), 33 Geo. II, c.52’(1759).

⁶⁶ Rose, John, An impartial history of the late disturbances (Bristol, 14 Oct. 1793), p. 6Google Scholar; ‘ To the public, a notice from Abraham Hiscoxe’, Bristol, Oct. 1793 (?), B.R.L., B 13084; deposition of Abraham Hiscoxe, in ‘ The minutes of the committee for investigating the Bridge affairs’ (hereafter cited as ‘C'ttee of investigation’), B.R.L., 13065 (MS), pp. 5–8; deposition of G. Webb, in ‘C'ttee of investigation’, pp. 19–20. Unfortunately the broker had since died.

⁶⁷ Deposition of A. Hiscoxe, ibid.

⁶⁸ Gazette, 5 Sept. 1793; Sarah Farley's Bristol Journal, Felix Farley's Bristol Journal, Banner and Middleton's Bristol Journal (here after cited as Bonner and Middleton),5 Sept. 1793. The advertisement appeared for three consecutive weeks. The circulation of each of Bristol's papers was around 1,000 (weekly), except Bonner and Middleton at around 1,300 - see note from William Pine, editor of Gazette, in Bonner and Middleton, 26 Oct. 1793.

⁶⁹ Gazette, 26 Sept. 1793; Sarah Farley's Bristol Journal, 28 Sept. 1793 (same report as Gazette); Felix Farley's Bristol Journal, 21 Sept. 1793; Bonner and Middleton, 21 Oct. 1793.

⁷⁰ Gazette,26 Sept. 1793 (and other newspapers).

⁷¹ ‘Minutes of the Bridge Trustees, 1763–1794’, 23 Sept. 1793, B.R.L., B 5014 (MS).

⁷² The main sources are: ‘A plain and circumstantial narrative of the proceedings of yesterday in the city of Bristol, published by order of the mayor and aldermen’, Bristol, 1 Oct. 1793, in Printed orders; Bonner and Middleton, 5 Oct. 1793; The Times (London), 2 Oct. 1793Google Scholar and 3 Oct. 1793; ‘Olde Worlde Gleanings’, 1, 46 (Bristol Times Extracts 1883–4?; incomplete), B.R.L., B 24009; Seyer MSS, pp. 41(1)-3(3); Anon., An impartial history of the late riots (Bristol, Oct. 1793)Google Scholar; Rose, John, A reply to a Bridge Trustee (Bristol, 26 Oct. 1793); ‘C'ttee of investigation’; ‘Minutes of the Bridge Trustees’Google Scholar; Annual Register (London, 1793), xxxi, 45–6; Felix Farley's Bristol Journal, 5 Oct. 1793.Google Scholar

⁷³ ‘C'ttee of investigation’, pp. 26–9, 43–4. The Times, 2 Oct. 1793, claims all the constables attended.

⁷⁴ There is little evidence on what happened after the shooting. According to the Annual Register, pp. 45–6, ‘the city was in a ferment the whole night’.

⁷⁵ The Times, 2 Oct. 1793, estimated 10,000. This is almost certainly a gross exaggeration. From the range of figures giyen by other sources it seems there were hundreds rather than thousands of people present.

⁷⁶ There is a lack of evidence of arrests. We know of only five: 29 Sept. 1793 and 2 Oct. 1793, Quarter Sessions records, B.R.O. Only one of these was committed: 12 April 1794, Court of Oyer and Terminer, gaol delivery, B.R.O. Some reports claim there were attempts to free prisoners on their way to gaol.

⁷⁷ Bengough to Dundas, 29 Sept. 1793, LB.

⁷⁸ An excellent example of the confusion over the Riot Act. The magistrates were, in fact, entitled by common law to take action at any time if they believed the crowd were acting violently. Hayter, Tony, The army and the crowd in mid Georgian England (London, 1978)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 1, explains the popular, magisterial, and governmental confusion over the law of riot. See also Radzinowicz, Leon, A history of English criminal law (London, 1948), 1, 619–20.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ John Rose, Reply to Bridge Trustee, claims it was 20 boys with 200 onlookers singing ‘God save the king’. An impartial history of the late riots puts the crowd at 100. Other estimates claim up to 12,000 (The Times) This reveals the problem of differentiating between ‘the mob’ (active) and ‘ the crowd’ (active and passive).

⁸⁰ Seyer MSS, p. 41(5), suggests 40 or 50 troops. Others suggest a full force (unlikely, since it was 500 at this time - ‘Proposed distribution of troops in south Britain, January 1793’, P.R.O., H.O. 4224/307/), with Lord Bateman in attendance.

⁸¹ ‘A list of killed and wounded’, Seyer MSS, p. 41 (6), suggests bodies were carried away, and puts the total dead at around forty. Some sources suggest that the military threw bodies into the river, e.g. ‘Cain and Abel tavern near Bristol Bridge’, Bristol, 1 Oct. 1793, B.R.L., B 13070; and ‘Extraordinary gazette published by authority’, Bristol, 2 Oct. 1793, B.R.L., B 13072. The Annual Register, p. 46, reported that three bodies were retrieved from the river.

⁸² ‘C'ttee of investigation’, pp. 15–16; ‘Old Worlde Gleanings’.

⁸³ An impartial history of the late riots.

⁸⁴ Gazette,10 Oct. 1793 and 17 Oct. 1793.

⁸⁵ This might explain the belief of some, including Samuel Seyer (Seyer MSS, p. 4.1(3)), that Abbott was ‘killed by a bayonet’.

⁸⁶ A ball was found lodged firmly in his backbone, ‘C'ttee of investigation’, pp. 29–30.

⁸⁷ ‘C'ttee of investigation’, pp. 10–11, 16–19, 23–4 28–41, 44–51, 53–4, 66–7, 71.

⁸⁸ See Nelson, R. R., Home Office; Cyril Mattheson, Life of Hemy Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville (London, 1933), ch. 9Google Scholar; Emsley, ‘London insurrection’; idem, ‘An aspect of Pitt's “terror”: prosecutions for sedition during the 1790s’, Social History, vi, 2 (1981), 155–84Google Scholar. For the conduct of central government in another major provincial dispute at this time, see McCord, Norman and Brewster, David E., ‘Some labour troubles of the 1790s in north east England’, International Review of Social History, xiii, 3 (1968), 366–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸⁹ ‘A plain circumstantial narrative.’

⁹⁰ It certainly was not peculiar to the eighteenth century: Smith, David, ‘Tonypandy 1910: definitions of community’, Past and Present, LXXXVII (1980), 166–9Google Scholar, and ’Hunt for “the four horsemen’”, Daily Telegraph (London), 11 July 1981, are just two examples.Google Scholar

⁹¹ John Rose, Reply.

⁹² Morgan to Dundas, 7 Oct. 1793, LB, and P.R.O., H.O. 4226/685/. And see below.

⁹³ Seyer MSS, p. 43(2). 1,000 French prisoners arrived at Stapleton gaol a few miles from Bristol in July 1793; Gazette, 4 July 1793.

⁹⁴ Ferguson to Dundas, 10 Nov. 1793, P.R.O., H.O. 4227/104/.

⁹⁵ Seyer MSS, p. 43(3); The Times, 2 Oct. 1793 and 3 Oct. 1793.

⁹⁶ Malcolmson, ‘Ungovernable people’, p. 123.

⁹⁷ Evans, Chronological outline, pp. 299–301. The book is dedicated to the corporation. Evans wrote to them after it was published thanking them for the money they had given him as a ‘token of esteem’, Evans to Bristol corporation, 18 Aug. 1824, LMP, Box 1825.

⁹⁸ Seyer MSS, p. 43(2).

⁹⁹ ‘Minutes of Bridge Trustees’, 23 Aug. 1793.

¹⁰⁰ Bengough to Dundas, 29 Sept. 1793, LB.

¹⁰¹ Morgan to Duke of Beaufort, 1 Oct. 1793, LB.

¹⁰² Morgan to Dundas: 4 Oct. 1793, LB; 7 Oct. 1793, LB, and P.R.O., H.O. 4226/; 11 Nov. ‘793. LB, and PRO., H.O. 4227/102/; 19 Nov. 1793, LB, and P.R.O., H.O. 4227/207/. The November request for troops was refused by ‘the Commanding Officer of the regiment’.

¹⁰³ Dundas to Morgan, Oct. 1793, P.R.O., H.O. 4226/900/.

¹⁰⁴ Dundas to Morgan, 20 May 1794, LMP, Box 1794; Morgan to Dundas, 21 May 1794, LB; Report of the committee of secrecy journals of the House of Commons, 1794, xlix ), 726–7.

¹⁰⁵ Smith to Windham, 22 Dec. 1794, LB; King to Smith, 16 Mar. 1795, LMP, Box 1794, and P.R.O., H.O. 436/; Smith to King, 17 Mar. 1794, LB; Gazette,26 Mar. 1795; Smith to Duke of York, 8 May 1795, LB. For the usual procedure, see Hayter, The army, pp. 52 3.

¹⁰⁶ E.g. Impartial history of the late riots, and ‘Corporation notice’, Bristol, 3 Oct. 1793, B.R.L., B 13075, which also denies rumours that the secretary of state recommended the continuing of the toll.

¹⁰⁷ E.g., ‘Speech of alderman Twig Pigeon’, B.R.L., 3 13069; ‘Cain and Abel tavern’; ‘Extraordinary gazette’; ‘The auction: a capital selection of Bristol worthies’, B.R.L., B 13081; ‘A tragedy called cowardice and murder’, B.R.L., B 13082; ‘Plain truth’, B.R.L., B 13083; ‘A chapter out of the book of Morgan’, B.R.L., B 13096; ‘The lamentation of Bristolia’, B.R.L., B 13106; ‘Daniel's dream’, B.R.L., B 13079; ‘Inquisition for blood shall be made’, B.R.L., B 13077; ‘Lord B[ateman] otherwise Lord Bodadil’, B.R.L., B 13078; ‘About 400 couples of bloodhounds, the property of L[or]d B[atema]n’, B.R.L., B 13079; ‘Statement of bridge account, by Civis’, B.R.L., B 13085. All Bristol, Oct. 1793.

¹⁰⁸ The number of different people responsible for the leaflets, and who financed the printing, is unknown. Daubeny and Noble were widely held to have been the two most’ active’ magistrates.

¹⁰⁹ ‘Inquisition for blood’.

¹¹⁰ ‘Speech of Twig Pigeon.’

¹¹¹ ‘About 400 couples’; ‘Plain truth’.

¹¹² Anon., An address to the citizens on occasion of the present melancholy state of Bristol (Bristol, 1 Oct. 1793).Google Scholar

¹¹³ ‘The book of Morgan.’.

¹¹⁴ Anon., Strictures on a pamphlet called ‘Impartial history’ (Bristol, Oct. 1793 ?), p. 9Google Scholar. With regard to the ‘theatre’ of authority, see Hay, Douglas, ‘Property, authority and the criminal law’, in Thompson et al., Albion's fatal tree, pp. 17–63.Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ ‘A plain and circumstantial narrative’; The Times, 3 Oct. 1793; Impartial history of the late riots.

¹¹⁶ Bonner and Middleton, 5 Oct. 1793.

¹¹⁷ The Times, 3 Oct. 1793.

¹¹⁸ N.J., Elegy on the late riots in Bristol (Bristol, 1793 ?).Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ MS extract from ‘Prose and poetry on religious, moral and entertaining subjects by Mrs Rueful’, in Bristol Bridge collection, B.R.L., B 11539.

¹²⁰ Betty Bishop, diary 1779–1801, B.R.L., B 22250 (MS). Powell, along with David Bishop and William Davis (both wounded), put his name to an uncompromising notice opposing the wage demands of his employees in August 1792.

¹²¹ Rudé, The crowd, ch. 13, and Paris and London in the eighteenth century (London, 1952), p. 21.Google Scholar

¹²² ‘List of killed and wounded.’

¹²³ ‘Minutes of the Bridge Trustees’, 7 Oct. 1793.

¹²⁴ 2 Oct. 1793, 3 Oct. 1793, 4 Oct. 1793, LMP, Box 1793.

¹²⁵ Gazette, 10 Oct. 1793; other newspapers, 12 Oct. 1793.

¹²⁶ Gazette, 24 Oct. 1793; ‘Notice from E. L. Fox to the citizens of Bristol’, MS draft, B.R.L., B 13088, and printed version, B.R.L., B 13090; Fox, E. L., To the inhabitants of Bristol (Bristol, 31 Oct. 1793). Little is known about the 12-man committee. Two were tobacconists, one a linen draper, one a stationer, and one a tea dealer.Google Scholar

¹²⁷ ‘C'ttee of investigation’, 23 Dec. 1793, 30 Dec. 1793, 20 Dec. 1793, 3 Mar. 1794; ‘List of killed and wounded’.

¹²⁸ ‘C'ttee of investigation’, 9 Dec. 1793, 20 Dec. 1793, 3 Mar. 1794. And see above.

¹²⁹ Report of committee of secrecy, pp. 726–7Google Scholar; Address of the Bristol Society for Constitutional Information to the people of Great Britain (Bristol, 14 Apr. 1794); Gazette, 9 Oct. 1794.Google Scholar

¹³⁰ A. W., A letter to Edward Long Fox, M.D (Bristol, 11 Dec. 1795)Google Scholar; Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, An answer to ‘A letter to E. L. Fox, M.D.’ (Bristol, 1795 ?)Google Scholar; Gazette, 26 Nov. 1795. Fox, E. L., Cursory reflections on the causes and some of the consequences of the stoppage of the Bank of England (Bristol, 16 Mar. 1797), describes Paine's writings as ‘highly seditious’. According to his son, Fox ‘regretted to the latest hours of his life’ his involvement in the bridge affair. It ‘prejudiced his interests as a medical man, and created enemies for life’. See letter from Edwin F. Fox to Francis F. Fox, 4 June 1872, B.R.L., B 13064 (MS).Google Scholar

¹³¹ He was returned for Bletchingley and entered Parliament in Feb. 1797 to become a prominent critic of William Pitt; ’Mr Hobhouse’, extract from Public characters of 1807 (London, 1807), B.R.L., B 15516.Google Scholar

¹³² Printed orders. And see S. and Webb, B., ‘The assize of bread’, The Economic Journal, xiv (1904), 196–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹³³ CCP, 1793–1835.

¹³⁴ Gazette, 11 May 1797 and 1 June 1797.

¹³⁵ Anon., Statement of the facts relative to the riot…in Union Street (Bristol, 1797).Google Scholar

¹³⁶ E.g. Gazette, 7 May 1807, 14 May 1807, 9 june 1812, 22 Oct. 1812; handbill signed ‘James Harvey, mayor’, 20 June 1796, Jefferies collection, x; Gazette, 19 Apr. 1810.

¹³⁷ For an introduction to the 1831 riots see Thomas, Susan, The Bristol riots (Bristol branch of the Historical Association, 1974).Google Scholar

¹³⁸ ‘The mock volunteers, or Bristol heroes, a satire by Peter Pickle jnr., London’, Bristol, Bath and London, 1794, B.R.L., B 26635 (MS copy). Probably Charles Court, a member of the Committee for Clothing British Troops, Gazette, 21 Nov. 1793.

¹³⁹ Harvey to Duke of York, 19 Sept. 1797, LB.

¹⁴⁰ Seyer MSS, p. 49.

¹⁴¹ ‘Alderman Noble, or, a peep behind the curtain’, Jefferies collection, X, 236.

¹⁴² Hunt, Bristol, p. 202.

¹⁴³ This point is particularly emphasized by Ellis, Joyce, ‘Urban conflict and popular violence: the Guildhall riots of 1740 in Newcastle upon Tyne’, International Review of Social History, xxv, 3 (1980), 346.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁴ There is mention of the magistrates being ‘roughly handled’ while attempting to collect the toll, although it seems they did some rough handling themselves; Bonner and Middleton, 5 Oct. 1793. See The Times,2 Oct. 1793, for details of one alderman's overzealous attempt to collect the toll. The hurling of oyster shells and stones was a general assault (mainly at the military) and not directed at any individual.

¹⁴⁵ In particular see Williams, D. E., ‘Midland hunger riots’, pp. 256–97Google Scholar; Wells, Roger, “The revolt of the south-west 1800–1: a study in English popular protest’, Social History, ii, 4 (1977), 713–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McCord and Brewster, ‘Some labour troubles’; David J. V.Jones, ’Law enforcement and popular disturbance in Wales, 1793–1835’, Journal of Modem History, xlii, 4 (1970), 496–523Google Scholar (the credibility of Jones's article is undermined, however, by the total absence of notes or references). See also Walter, John and Wrightson, Keith, ‘Dearth and social order in early modern England’, Past and Present, LXXI (1976), 22–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Walter, John, ‘Grain riots and popular attitudes to the law: Maldon and the crisis of 1629’, in Brewer, and Styles, (eds.), An ungovernable people, pp. 47–84, which carry these generalizations back into the seventeenth century.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁶ Hayter, The army, pp. 9–19.

¹⁴⁷ See Clive Emslcy, ‘Pitt's “terror”’; and Darvall, F. O., Popular disturbance and public order in Regency England (London, 1934), ch. xii.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁸ See Williams, D. E., ‘Were “hunger” rioters really hungry? Some demographic evidence’, Past and Present, LXXI (1976), 70–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Midland hunger riots’, pp. 280–90.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁹ Shelton, , English hunger, pp. 15–16Google Scholar, idem, ‘The role of local authorities’, pp. 51, 64. For criticisms of Shelton, see Williams, ‘Midlands hunger riots’, pp. 289–90; and Thompson, E. P., review of Shelton, English hunger, in Economic History Review, XXVII, 3 (1974), 480–4.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁰ Impartial history of the late riots.

¹⁵¹ Seyer MSS, p. 43(2).

¹⁵² Rudé, The crowd, p. 4.

¹⁵³ Holmes, Geoffrey, ‘The Sacheverell riots: the crowd and the Church in early eighteenth century London’, Past and Present, LXXII (1976), 70–1Google Scholar. Rudé’s definition has been criticized by Holton, Robert J., ‘The crowd in history: some problems of theory and method’, Social History, iii, 2 (1978), 219–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁵⁴ A fact not lost on contemporaries: Impartial history of the late riots; Strictures on a pamphlet, p. 7; ‘A plain and circumstantial narrative’.

¹⁵⁵ An address…on…the present melancholy state, p. 3.

¹⁵⁶ Jones, ‘Bristol Bridge riot’, pp. 84–5.

¹⁵⁷ Thompson, E. P., ‘The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century’, Past and Present, L (1971), 78.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁸ Gareth Stedman Jones criticizes the use of the term in ’Class expression vs. social control? A critique of recent trends in the social history of “leisure”’, History Workshop Journal, iv (1977), 167.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁹ Philip D. Jones asserts both that the riot was not an expression of long-held social grievances, and that the rioters were informed by ‘ the legitimizing notion’ as described by Thompson: Jones, ‘Bristol Bridge riot’, pp. 74, 84–5.

¹⁶⁰ Concepts of the Norman Yoke are described in Christopher Hill, , ‘The Norman Yoke’, in Puritanism and revolution (London, 1958), pp. 50–122Google Scholar. See Thompson, , ‘The moral economy’, pp. 108–10, for discussion of the position of the Book of Orders in the moral economy.Google Scholar

¹⁶¹ Strictures on a pamphlet, p. 7; ‘The lamentation of Bristolia’.

¹⁶² For this notion, see E. P. Thompson, The Making, preface; idem, Whigs and Hunters (Harmondsworth, 1977), pp. 258–69Google Scholar; Linebaugh, Peter, ‘Conference report: eighteenth century crime, popular political movements, and social control’, Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, xxv (1972), 11–15.Google Scholar

¹⁶³ Jones, ‘Bristol Bridge riot’, p. 74.

¹⁶⁴ See Stedman Jones, ‘Class expression’, pp. 164–5; and Eley, Geoff and Nield, Keith, ‘Why does social history ignore politics?’, Social History, v, 2 (1980), 252Google Scholar. To describe social control in this way is to eschew both the ‘casual’ use of the term in which social control is (often assumed to be) continuously ‘imposed’ by the ruling class; and the episodic use of the term argued for by Thompson, F. M. L., ‘Social control in Victorian Britain’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, xxxiv, 2 (1981), 206Google Scholar. Thompson feels the term ‘is perhaps of most service when given a special application to periods that were felt to be ones of particularly alarming social turbulence, flux, and disintegration’. See also Donajgrodzki, A. P. (ed.), Social control in nineteenth century Britain (London, 1977).Google Scholar

¹⁶⁵ David Smith, ‘Tonypandy 1910’, describes such a state of affairs.

¹⁶⁶ Anon, to Pitt, 3 Oct. 1793, P.R.O., H.O. 4226/673/.

¹⁶⁷ Bristol Bridge is located in the heart of the city. In the late eighteenth century it was surrounded by the homes of working-class people. A great number crossed the bridge on their way to and from work.

¹⁶⁸ For an examination of different ‘discursive positions’ with regard to a very different set of riots see Ignatieff, Michael, ‘It's a riot: “civil disturbance”, Hansard, vol. 8, 16 July 1981 - 17 July 1981’, London Review of Books, iii, 15 (1981), 19.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁹ Stedman Jones, ‘Class expression’, p. 164.

¹⁷⁰ Tilly, Charles, ‘Collective violence in European perspective’, in Graham, Hugh Davis and Gurr, Ted Robert (eds.), The history of violence in America: historical and comparative perspectives (New York, 1969), pp. 4–45.Google Scholar

¹⁷¹ Evans, Richard J., ‘“Red Wednesday” in Hamburg: social democrats, police and lumpenproletariat in the suffrage disturbances of 17 January 1906’, Social History, iv, 1 (1979), esp. pp. 28–9Google Scholar; Hammerton, Elizabeth and Cannadine, David, ‘Conflict and consensus on a ceremonial occasion: the Diamond Jubilee in Cambridge in 1897’, Historical Journal, xxiv, 1 (1981), esp. p. 145Google Scholar; Walter, , ‘Grain riots’, esp. p. 48.Google Scholar

¹⁷² Evans, ‘Red Wednesday’, pp. 28–9.

¹⁷³ Hammerton and Cannadine, ‘Conflict and consensus’, p. 146. The resolution is the end product of a lengthy course of conflict. Yet an approach such as Neil Smelser's (Theory of collective behaviour (London, 1962), pp. 15–17, 222–67)Google Scholar, which may use the presence of precipitating factors’ in order to identify more general areas of conflict, is eluded by a final resolution such as that described by Hammerton and Cannadine.

¹⁷⁴ Stedman Jones, ‘Class expression’, p. 167.