Reading the Riot

Abstract

This chapter examines why riots and social protests were so frequent in 18th-century England and what they suggest about the conditions, attitudes, and motivation of those involved and of the nature of 18th-century English society. The prevalence of popular disorder in 18th-century England amazed and shocked many foreign visitors, as did the apparent insouciance with which the country's elite faced it. Until the 1960s, historians tended to regard riots and other forms of popular protest in 18th-century England as unworthy of serious attention. They were dismissed either as simple emanations of economic distress or as the work of the ‘hired mob’. However, this chapter argues that overt protest was not the first response to hardship and to exploitation and oppression, but often the final stage of what may be describe as ‘community micro-politics’ in which different forms of pressure, persuasion, and sanction might long precede direct action.