‘Riotous Assemblies’

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the remarkable prevalence of popular disorder in eighteenth-century England. It examines the background to the 1715 Riot Act and reasons why the authorities had such difficulty in avoiding or controlling riotous assemblies. The chapter looks at the causes and character of major disorders, such as the extensive food riots, and suggests they may be better understood by using the model of ‘moral economy’ and recognizing that many popular protests evinced a deep-rooted belief in the liberties and rights of the citizen, encompassed in the idea of the ‘free-born Englishman’. Between them, these constituted a model for social and political relations which might at times prove acceptable to their rulers, if only grudgingly. It examines how attitudes amongst the elites towards disorder hardened in the last quarter of the century, undermining the effectiveness of protest after 1800. It suggests that the transition into the nineteenth century from riotous assemblies to more peaceful popular protests demanding the vote might be seen less as a ‘modernization’ of protest but more as stemming from the realization that older, more ‘riotous’, means of redress were no longer proving effective.