History Group Meeting

Professor Alan Jocelyn  The Bristol Riots of 1831

The next History Group meeting will be on 20 September at 7:00 for 7:30pm with a talk by Professor Alan Jocelyn on the Bristol Riots of 1831.The provisional venue is Sir Bernard Lovell Academy, Oldland Common. As soon as the venue is confirmed I’ll let you know.

There has been much publicity recently about a less significant event than the Bristol Riots – the Peterloo Massacre, in part because this year has been the bicentenary of the death of the poet Percy Shelley. He was incensed to hear of the Peterloo Massacre in 1819 and wrote his famous poem The Masque of Anarchy with the well-known verse, which has been used at protests from Chartism to the Suffragettes:

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you –
Ye are many – they are few.

At the Peterloo Massacre about fifteen people died when cavalry charged the crowd. Arguably the Bristol Riots of 1831 were more important, with possibly 500 deaths, (including the four people hanged for taking part). In both cases the numbers were downplayed and the history of the events was covered over. In his talk, Professor Jocelyn will answer some of the questions raised – why did the normally peace-loving Bristolians riot? Did they have any aims or objectives and, if so, were any of them realised? Why was the riot so ruthlessly quashed?

Please join us on 20^th September. Refreshments will be available, there will be no entrance charge, and everyone is welcome.