Title

Nottingham and the Reform Act Riots

Description

After being elected with a majority in the House of Commons, Charles Grey, the second Lord Grey, introduced a bill for Parliamentary Reform. The Bill went through the required readings in the Commons and was passed to the House of Lords, where it was defeated on 8 October 1831. The result produced rioting in several towns - especially Bristol (see Bristol Riots 1831), but also Nottingham (where the Duke of Newcastle's Nottingham Castle was burned), Derby (where the jail was attacked), and Birmingham (where disturbances necessitated the calling out of the resident Scots Greys cavalry regiment). There were lesser riots in London, Exeter, Yeovil, Leicester, Bath and Worcester. The riots indicate a dramatic level of discontent - so much so, that it has been claimed that it was the closest Britain had yet come to revolution. The riots were mainly targeted to the people and property of those seen as most resistant to the proposals for reform.
See Steve Poole, 'Some Examples Should Be Made": Prosecuting Reform Bill Rioters in 1831-32, in M. T. Davis et al (eds.), Political Trials in the Age of Revolutions (London, Palgrave/Macmillan, 2019), pp. 237-261.

Contributor

Mark Philp

Spatial Coverage

Nottingham

Temporal Coverage

October 1831

Bibliographic Citation

Nottingham Castle on Fire, 10 October 1831 by Henry Dawson. Image:

Creator

Henry Dawson

Rights Holder

Nottingham City Museums/Art UK
Licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC)

Rights

perm

Subject

practices

riots