Last semester, the New History Lab
played host to John Butler, the frontman of the Leicester-based band Diesel
Park West. Whilst discussing the
Leicester music scene of his youth, he described his hometown as ‘an obedient
city’ – a phrase that caught the attention of more than one member of the
audience. Drawing upon my own (albeit
more limited) experience as someone born in Leicester and raised nearby, I
would be inclined to agree with him.
Although the past year saw rioters take to the streets of Leicester and
the ‘Occupy Leicester’ camp, both of these events lacked originality and scale. However, my recent reading has led me to
believe that Leicester, and indeed Leicestershire, has not always been as
submissive as John suggested. In keeping
with the Lab’s theme of ‘Crime and Punishment’ for this term, I thought I would
share some stories of Leicester’s more rebellious past.
I picked up James Thompson’s History of Leicester in the Eighteenth
Century (published in 1871) out of pure curiosity, fully expecting it to be
a eulogistic description of Leicester’s civic progress to please the
considerable number of eminent citizens listed as patrons in its first pages
(ranging from the Duke of Rutland to plain old Mr. H. Wale of Belvoir
Street). On the contrary, a brief glance
over the contents suggests that both the city and the county were a hotbed of
crime and disaffection during the 1700s.
Chapter III, for example, describes the predominant Jacobite feeling in
the city upon the accession of the Hanoverian King George I, the insolvency of
the Mayor, a number of murders, a bout of ‘extensive hosiery robberies’, the
subsequent discovery and execution of the thieves, a petition by the city
Corporation against the Government’s South Sea Company Scheme, and the arrival
of a cavalry regiment to ensure public order was maintained. All these events took place over a 13 year
period and can be considered a fair illustration of the whole century, at least
according to Thompson. We should allow
for a certain degree of selective reporting and perhaps exaggeration on the
author’s part, but it nevertheless raises the question of why Thompson chose to
focus on these less than respectable episodes in Leicester’s history.
With regards to the continuing
debate over the extent of popular sympathy towards the exiled Stuart monarchs
during this period, I found the assertion of Leicester’s Jacobite sympathies particularly
fascinating. Even the slightest hint of
suspicion would have marked Leicester as a dangerous city in the eyes of the
Whig government; a fear that is reflected in their decision to station dragoons
here. I was equally surprised and
interested to read about the provocatively named ‘Revolution Club’. Founded in 1782, and meeting fortnightly in
the Lion and Lamb Inn, the 240 members dedicated themselves to promoting Parliamentary
reform and preserving the ‘rights of man’.
Coincidentally, a club called ‘Revolution’ still exists in Leicester and
can be found on New Walk, though the only revolutionary spirit to be found
there comes in bottles.
While the radicals of the Revolution
Club wined and dined to affect political change, their less prosperous neighbours
took to the streets to protest against the price of food, leading to incidents
such as the intriguingly and aptly named ‘Cheese Riots’ of 1766. Beginning in Shilton and Hinkley, the violence
soon spread to the city itself. A large
group of people set upon a group of wagons loaded with cheese, which they took
and distributed amongst themselves. In
Leicester, a group of women stopped and ransacked a cart in Humberstone Gate
before proceeding to a nearby warehouse and breaking down its doors. Troops were called in the escort the cheese
on its way to market, and after attempts by the crowd to free prisoners from the
local gaol, they were eventually dispersed.
Meanwhile, at Cavendish Bridge on the border between Leicestershire and
Derbyshire, shots were exchanged between those guarding a warehouse and the
besieging protestors, leading to a pitched battle in which mounted farmers routed
the cheese-hungry mob. A similar
incident would occur in 1795 when cavalrymen charged with protecting a wagon
loaded with corn opened fire on their assailants near Barrow-on-Soar. Three were killed and eight injured in what
became known as the infamous ‘Barrow Butchery’.
In addition to these popular protests,
Leicester also saw a fair number of bizarre and often brutal crimes. By far my favourite story is of a
‘Resurrection Man’, or body snatcher, named Condit. After successfully scaring off the accomplice
who had helped him to exhume a corpse, Condit then hid the body under his
mattress. When his wife complained of a
lump in the bed, he told her that it was a stolen sack of potatoes, ‘with which
explanation she was perfectly satisfied’.
Upon delivering the body to a surgeon, it was found to be unfit for the
purpose of dissection, leaving Condit with the problem of disposing the
body. He solved this by cutting open a
pack of wool awaiting transport to Yorkshire, placing the corpse inside, and
sewing the pack up again. The package
was forwarded to its destination and the discovery of the body is unfortunately
not recorded.
These few examples are only a sample
of the more memorable incidents described in Thompson’s book, but I hope they
have demonstrated that Leicester was anything but law-abiding or subservient,
at least during the eighteenth century.
This is not to suggest that Leicester and Leicestershire were more
rebellious or crime-ridden than any other city or county at this time, as the
social and political issues that drove people to form radical clubs and steal
cheese affected the entire country. Nevertheless, Thompson’s account of
Leicester offers an interesting juxtaposition to the characterisation of
Leicester as an ‘obedient’ city.
