Title

Otmoor Riot, Oxfordshire, 6 September 1830

Description

The images are taken from two magistrates reports of the Otmoor Riot of 6 September 1830 and the subsequent arrest and detention of some forty or more of those involved. The roots of the riots lay in the enclosure, hedging, ditching, dredging, and drainage of land on Otmoor which had previously been held and used in common. Following a series of floods in 1829, blamed on the ditching and dredging of parts of the moor, an increasingly hostile population began to break down hedges, fences, and ditches so as to return the land to common use. On 6 September, some 400 people congregated on the moor, and some began to damage the signs of enclosure. Magistrates, coupled with support from the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Yeomanry Cavalry, and the arrival of four troops of Dragoon Guards arrested some 60-70 persons and took them to Islip for a preliminary examination. Some 40 or more were subsequently dispatched to Oxford Gaol to await trial.

The events of 6 September are only one part of a longer running confrontation between workers in and around Otmoor and the political and social elites who were the principal intended beneficiaries of the enclosures (although, in fact, there was a poor return on the investment). Signs of the continuing struggles can be seen in the poster from 1 March 1833 - and there is documentation from the local authorities writing to the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, asking for the stationing of troops more permanently in the area in the first half of the 1830s.

In 1830 September 6 was a Monday. Indeed, it was the first Monday in September, and thus was the first day of St Giles's Fair in Oxford.

As the prisoners were carried in wagons toward the gaol in Oxford Castle, the revelers in the fair set upon the accompanying escort, with stones and cudgels, and forced them to flee towards the castle, whereupon the prisoners were set free by the crowds.

Concern at events is registered in the two newspaper accounts:
The short account in Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser (Dublin, Ireland), Friday, September 10, 1830, taken from the Globe (London); and the lengthy local account given in Jackson's Oxford Journal (Oxford, England), Saturday, September 11, 1830.

Contributor

Mark Philp

Spatial Coverage

Oxford, England

Temporal Coverage

1815-1840

Date

06/09/1830

Subject

enclosure

groups

practices

riots

rural

workers