Now that I have taken possession of a bound volume of The Observer 1816-1818 I am having fun digging out stories from the pages. Occasionally, I will post a ‘This Week in History’ – and this entry concerns the Spa Fields riots of late 1816.
At this great distance of time, it is easy to forget that this period was very politically unstable and that rioting was a frequent occurrence not just confined to the summer when over-warm weather makes disgruntled people even more jumpy.
There were very real political and social grievances behind the Spa Fields meetings, which were called by the Spenceans, a radical organisation which advocated revolution and the reorganisation of land-ownership. To orient you, Spa Fields is near Clerkenwell in the east of London.
About 10,000 people attended the first Spa Fields meeting on the 15 November 1816. The radical speaker Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt addressed the meeting, which called for electoral reform and relief from hardship and distress. Hunt and Francis Burdett, a revolutionary MP, were delegated to deliver a petition to the Prince Regent. Burdett refused to go and Hunt was refused access to the Prince, so a second meeting was called. 20,000 people attended that one but disorder broke out when some of the protestors decided to accompany James Watson and his son on a march towards the Tower of London. Along the way, they looted a gun shop. A man was stabbed during the disturbances. James Watson, a radical publisher, was tried for conspiracy but acquitted after John Cashman, possibly an agent provocateur, gave discredited evidence.
The Spa Fields riots along with the throwing of a missile at the Prince Regent’s coach and the march of the Blanketeers in early 1817 contributed to the decision of the government to pass the Gagging Acts in early 1817, which included the suspension of Habeas Corpus.
The second riot dominated the 9 December 1816 edition of The Observer. Listed separately, in the column devoted to cases at the Old Bailey, I found two small footnotes to the narrative.
The first concerns John Severn, 29, who was charged with entering the house of J. Morrison in Green Street, Leicester Square on the day of the first Spa Fields meeting on 15 November, and stealing two loaves of bread.
…a mob of boys paraded the streets, and having assembled before the proseuctor’s shop, cried out, “Give us a loaf, and we will be gone.” While doing so, some squares of glass were broken, and bread taken out. The mob then retired, and the prosecutor, who had before seen the prisoner, learned he was in custody. None of the prosecutor’s people recollected having seen the prisoner. The evidence against the prisoner were, Joseph Esherby, Jeremiah Maidman, and J. Wilson, police officers; the two former deposed that the prisoner took an active part in the disturbance. The prisoner received an excellent character. The Jury, after a very short consultation, returned a verdict of – Not Guilty. The prisoner bowed and retired, bathed in tears.
The defendant in the second case was Patrick Kean, who was 13. He was charged with burgling the house of a baker, George Cornish, in Holborn, on “Monday last” – that is, the day after the second Spa Fields riots.
About eight o’clock in the evening there was a considerable crowd in Holborn… the prisoner was one of the foremost, and advanced to the windows, which he broke with his elbows, put in his hand, and took out some biscuits. He was secured with biscuits in his hand… The prisoner made no defence, and Mr. Baron Richards having summed up the evidence, the Jury instantly found him Guilty – Death. He was recommended to mercy on account of his youth.
Patrick Kean’s sentence was commuted to transportation to Australia on board The Ocean. The ship’s surgeon George Fairfowl made the following entry in his records:
Patrick Kean, Convict, aged 15; disease or hurt, severe griping and purging of shiny matter with tenesmus and straining while at stool. Taken ill, 14 December 1817. Dismissed 22 December 1817.
Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 7.0, 13 December 2014), December 1816, trial of JOHN SEVERN (t18161204-57).
Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 7.0, 13 December 2014), December 1816, trial of PATRICK KEAN (t18161204-55).
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