Shrewsbury, like many other Midlands towns, was the scene of
severe rioting in the earlier part of the eighteenth century. Although the
motivation of the rioters may have been partly economic, their slogans and
impact were political and religious. This is the story of the 1715 Shrewsbury
riot.
The German prince, George, Elector of Hanover, was proclaimed King
of England immediately following the death of Queen Anne in August 1714. His
succession to the throne had been guaranteed by the Act of Settlement, passed
in 1701. Many, however, did not accept this, believing that the true king
should be the exiled James Stuart (known to his opponents as “the Pretender”),
whose father, King James II, had been driven from the throne in the “Glorious
Revolution” of 1688. The situation was complicated by international politics:
George was a good Protestant and had been Britain’s ally against France in the
War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13), whereas James was a Catholic and backed
by France. James’s supporters were known as Jacobites; from the French
“Jacques”, Latin “Jacobus”.
Politics at the time was
dominated by two parties, the Whigs and the Tories. The Whigs were entirely
Hanoverian, but some Tories were Jacobites. A Tory government had brought the
war to an end in 1713, but had then disintegrated and collapsed, just days
before the death of Queen Anne, largely because of the Jacobite split, and the
Whigs had returned to power and summoned George to England. He was crowned in
October; Tories and Jacobites being too disorganised and demoralised to take
any action. The Whigs cemented their position by winning a large majority in
the election held in 1715; remaining Tories were purged from the administration
and several of the party leaders were arrested or fled abroad.
The other great division
between the parties was on the issue of religion. The Whigs favoured religious
toleration, but the Tories were strongly identified with the Church of England.
Until 1689 non-Anglicans were excluded from public life and occasionally
persecuted. In 1689 an Act of Toleration allowed freedom of worship to
Protestant non-Anglicans (known as dissenters or non-conformists), though they
were still officially excluded from public life. In fact this exclusion was
often ignored, and to many Anglicans things had gone too far, and they demanded
a proper clampdown. Following the Toleration Act, Shrewsbury dissenters
purchased land in what is now the High Street and opened a meeting-house there
in 1691, with John Bryan as Minister.
In the West Midlands and the west country the coronation of George
I brought widespread disturbances. Meeting-houses were attacked by mobs in
several towns, and in Bristol a Quaker was killed when he tried to prevent
this. Trouble in Shrewsbury was limited to demonstrators shouting “High Church
and Sacheverell for ever!” a reference to an extreme Tory clergyman. Those
involved were mostly craftsmen and shopkeepers of the town, including a draper,
a butcher, a baker, two tailors and five cordwainers: only one was described as
a “labourer”, and another was a Justice of the Peace! No farmworkers from the
countryside were involved. The Whig press blamed local landowners and Anglican
clergy for stirring up trouble.
Things turned much more
serious in July 1715. Meeting-houses were attacked by mobs in towns all over
the west midlands, leading to about 500 people being arrested for rioting in
Staffordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire, including several landowning
gentry. In Shropshire, there were disturbances and attacks on Dissenting
chapels in Whitchurch, Wem and Cleobury Mortimer. In Shrewsbury on the night of
July 6th 1715 a mob swept down the street to attack the
meeting-house, crying, “The Church for ever!”, and, for the Dissenters, “Down
with them! Down with them!” The building was almost completely demolished. The
Mayor and the town magistrates were unable, or unwilling, to intervene to stop
the carnage. The mob was said to have been headed by one “Captain Ragg”;
otherwise Harry Webb, a skinner. As before, no country people were involved. A
paper was posted around Shrewsbury, carrying these words:-
“We gentlemen of the
Loyal Mob of Shrewsbury do issue this Proclamation to all Dissenters from the
Church of England, of what kind or denomination soever, whether Independents,
Baptists or Quakers: if you, or any of you, do suffer any of that damnable
faction called Presbyterians to assemble themselves amongst you, in any of your
conventicles, at the time of Divine Worship, you may expect to meet with the
same that they have been treated with. Given under our hands and seals the 11th
day of July 1715. God save the King”.
The fact that the King
was not named indicates that it was the so-called “James III” who was meant,
known to Hanoverians as “the Pretender”.
Soon after this, as the
meeting-house in Whitchurch was being rebuilt, a local carpenter named Samuel
Ratcliffe, who had participated in its demolition, was heard to damn all
Presbyterians and to vow that “all the Dissenters in a little time will be
flying for their lives”. However, after this the Shropshire towns were
generally quiet; in contrast with the situation in Staffordshire, where endemic
disturbances and riots continued in many towns.
The government responded
to these events by passing the Riot Act, which brought in the death penalty for
rioters who refused to disperse when ordered to by a magistrate. Magistrates
could also authorise troops to open fire on rioters. This Act has never been
repealed.
Neither of the two great
Jacobite revolts of 1715 and 1745 got anywhere near Shrewsbury, though some of
the Jacobite leaders did plan to advance into north Wales, where the great
landowner and M.P. Sir Watkin Williams Wynn was believed to be a staunch
supporter. All the Shrewsbury Jacobites contributed was a tradition of holding
celebrations to drink James’s health on his birthday: June 10th. In
1750 this led to clashes with the authorities, and the posting of a notice by
Jacobite sympathisers the next day:-
“Honest lads of Shrewsbury, do not be frightened at the insult you
received last night it was base and cruel it was contrary to the Laws of God
and Nature therefore stand on your own defence you have as great a right to
wear a broadsword as any man whatever wear your swords and use them as men as
Englishmen as men of courage ….”
Despite this grammatically erratic proclamation, nothing much
followed, and after this things fizzled out.
Why did all this trouble occur? It was probably in part economic
in origin. Riots were very common in the 18th century, usually
linked with a sudden rise in food prices, caused by shortages. British rioters
seldom killed anyone, though they did enormous damage to property. The end of
the War of the Spanish Succession caused widespread unemployment, as munitions
works closed and thousands of soldiers were demobilised; but understanding of
economic forces was in its infancy, there was as yet no concept of social
class, and the very word “unemployment” had yet to be invented. All the
demonstrators had to shout were political and religious slogans. Most of Shropshire
had been strongly Royalist in the Civil War, and was thereafter Tory. The most
likely explanation of the riots is that discontented men of the West Midlands
towns were supplied with slogans by the local landowning elites, angry at the
Tory eviction from political power. But, as was shown in the two Jacobite
revolts, these elites had no intention of risking their lives and property by
outright rebellion. As Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the romantic leader of the
1745 revolt, said of the English Jacobites who had completely failed to rise in
his support, “I will do for them what they did for me: I will drink their health”.
As for the Shrewsbury meeting-house; a later minister wrote, “By
the care and contribution of the government, the chapel was soon rebuilt and
our liberties confirmed and fixed on a solid foundation”. The new building is
still there in the High Street, and is now the Unitarian meeting-house; its
loyalty to the Hanoverian regime still proclaimed by the painting of the royal
coat of arms of King George I on the wall.
(Note: Much of the information here is taken from “Jacobitism and
the English People”, by Paul Monod)
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