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Tis the restraint, rather than the disorder, which is remarkable; and
there can be no doubt that che actions were approved by an over
‘whelming popolar consensus. ‘There is a deeply-felt conviction that
prices oupht, in times of dearth, co be regulated, and that the profteer
put himself outside of society.” On occasion the crowd attempted to
enlist, by suasion or force, 2 magistrate, parish constabie, or some
figure of authority to preside aver the taxation populaire. In 1766
at Drayton (Oxon,) members of the crowd went to John Lyford’s
house “and asked him if he were a Constable — upon his saying ‘yes"
‘Cheer said he sho'd go with them to the Cross & receive the money
for 3 sacks of flour which they had taken from one Betty Smith and
which they w'd sell for 5s 2 Bushel”; the same crowd enlisted the
constable of Abingdon for the same service. ‘The constable of
Handborough (also in Oxfordshire) was enlisted in a similar way, in
17953 the crowd sct a price — and a substantial one — of 4os a sack.
upon a waggon of floue which had been intercepted, and che money
for no fewer than fifteen sacks was paid into his hands. Ia the Isle
of Ely, in the same year, “the mob insisted upon buying mest ac 4d
per Ib, & desired Mr Gardner a Magistrate to superintend the sale,
as the Mayor had done at Cambridge on Saturday sennight™. Again
in 1795 there were a mumber of occasions when militia oF regular
troops supervised forced sales, sometimes at bayonet point, their
officers looking steadfastly the other way. A combined operation of
sofdiery and crowd forced the mayor of Chichester to accede in
‘oro, 1740 — Iemich Ferma 26 Jn 740} Dewsbury, e740 —
1, Le Rave ata five magnates; Walebeld, YovApe 74, 10 CHO SP.
sts Thames Valey, 66° txdmory of Bertlomest Fecman of Bihar
Bote, 2 Or 1955, 18 PRO, TStfopetseny Hamers Tas PRO,
8.0" seoag 9 Fare ot Bean = foen Timer Mayor of Guten,
7 Jong 1795, PRG. W.0.1)5087; Oordyall — see Toba G, Raley "Some
Social hapecs of te’ Corns indinal Revues ata end Secesy
irate Sauces, os Roger Bare (rivera ty of Eee. 970) Bo Soo‘THE ENGLISH CROWD IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 113
setting the price of bread. At Wells men of the x22nd Regiment
begun
Wy hoot thne they emt frat of pers of tuner ha
Ce ea et a ce aha
lng a rey at es ee!
Sieg ate of fd pee, hough the Ein pie ge bythe bets
eres at oe
Te woul be fois co suggest that, when so large a beach was made
inthe outworks of deference, many did not ake the opportunity to
auty off good without payment. But theres sbundant evidence the
athct way and some of ies suiking, “There are the Honiton lee
trorkes, ia 1766, who, having ten corn fmm the farmers and sod
iar he popular pice i the marker, brought back tothe farmers not
toly the moaey but aso the sacks; the Oldbam crowd, tn 1800,
‘which radoned each purchaser to two pects & head} and the many
Uecasions when carts Were stopped ou the foods thet eostens sald,
fad the money eatrusted tothe cater."
‘Moreover, in thase cases where goods were taken without peyment,
‘or where violence was committed, it is wise to enquire whether any
particular aggravation of circumstances enters into the case. The
istinon i made in an account ofan action in Portsea (Hants) in
1995. The bakers and butchers were fst offered by the crowd the
popular price: “those that complied in those demands were paid with
Exuctnest”. Dut those who refused had thet shops rifled, “vitkout
feceting any mare money thn the mab choe (0 leave”s “Again the
fQuaryeten at Por Tae (Corneal) it the seme year seized batley
Srarchoused for export, paying the reasonably high pice of 115.8
Boshel, athe seme sme waraing te owner tht if he flee to sip
th Reminder they would come & tae i without making him aay
fecompence”. Very often the motive of punihhment of serene
omer ne ‘he great rot in Neweastle tn £740, when pen and
Fetlmen swept ito the Guildhall, deioyes the towa books and
Shared ou the town’s itchy and’ pelted aldermen with, mud and
\s« Drayton, Oxog.— brit desist Won Denley and three other, ix PRO,
11S. rpgashigors Hiandvorough = Inonmaton of Rober Prot sous,
oRig 9, Bio, Rees Ge or Lord Hace, Wine
isdn hg mest hiheae, age oF Retina Contant
$e hor i79s) RON NwSG s/xoga, Wels —“Veesx"y ab Apes f795) PRO.
‘OF tisaBs andthe Rev. J. Yume 28 Ar HO. a2 For aa tamole a
espeae wh ae enced for pct det in Rael 5,
see, $.
ate cits ps 4353 Edwin Butterworth, Historical hatchet
of Otani (Ohdbam, 8565 OS CaN.14 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 50
stones, came only afier two phases of aggravation: frst, when an
Ugreerient between tbe ptmea’s leaders andthe merchant (vith a
flferman acing a arbitratr) sting the prices of grain hod been
broken, sccondy when panic authorities had heed lato the cowd
from the Guildhall siege, "At one house in Gloucestershire a. 1768
Shots were fied athe sowed which Covtes he sheriff} —
they hires fang are te nese and devroyng 2 he ur
Sea epee aft theta as otis Soa the toe
Site aah Rome eed ope then maser
Im 179s the tinners mounted an atack upon a Peneyn {Cornwall
merchant who as contracted 9 snd them barley, but who had seat
them spoiled and sprouting grain. When mill wete wacked, and
their machinery damaged, i wa often in furtherance of 9 fonge
standing warning, or as punishment for some notorious practice.'**
Indeed, if we wish to call in question the unilinear and spasmodic
view of food riots, we need only point to this continuing motif of
popular intimidation, when men and women near to starvation:
Fevertcless eeacked ils aed pranares, ott teal the ood, but to
Punish the propriees, Repeatedly corn or flour was steewn along
the roads and hedges; dumped into the river; mill machinery was
damaged end milan lt OH To exarples of such bekavioue the
futhoritesretted both wh indignron tnd atoniahment. Tt was
Symplomacc (ast secmed then) of te "antc™ and dienipeed
Humours ota people whove bean ws inflamed by hunger. Th 1795
both the Lord Clit Justice and Arthur Young delivered lectures to
the poor, pong out that the destruction of pain was not the best
‘eay'to improve the supply of bread, Homa Move added Fa}
penny Homily. An anonymous verifier of t8e0 gives usa ather
thoe lively extmple of thete admonitions to the lower erder
UA IGH ase et Spe a
paola trae me oc
“icy at sel nite iad ehh ough
SOPRA ASS el
SQUAT ee ad ly
we eke aac Sate ak
ee er ae
Oe ane han suet ete acs
4 Poresea — Garaleman's Magazine, lv (1795), 3433 Port Tanac — Si
{W. Moesworih, 23 March 1795, 6.8.0 HLO. 43/4; Neveage — Genclonan’
Macazine, © (C740), Pe 456, aad Vieidus sources fa PALO, SB. g6/Sty IN
‘Nagthumberiard Ret. Ov and Neweaste Cty Archives Od; Gloucestershire,
1765 PRO., PC. 1/84gt; Paneyn, £795 = PRO. HO. 43/34‘THE ENGLISIC CROWD IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 115
‘Het eura Squce Hoardun’s gamer, 4 he wil,
Hie Ss ers Ta
Now teen the Prong and Pitchfork taey prepare
‘An al me iiplemetes of est war
‘el he runrldee ed
‘Pes Gorning bam and Pull dawn smal
Wiltnetber orm proce nor belies i
But were the poor really so silly? One suspects thet the mallers
and dealers, who kept one wary eye on the people andthe other on the
‘uaximization oftheir profits, knew better then the poctastes at chele
ssericires, For the poor had their owa sources of information, ‘They
‘worked on the docks. They moved the barges on the canals. They
Grove the carts and manned the wollgatss. They worked in the
‘ranatics and the mills. They often knew the local facts far better
than the gentry; in many actions they went unerringly to hidden
supplics of grain whose exiseence the J.P, in good faith, denied.
If rumours often grew beyond all bounds, they were always rooted in
atleast some shallow soil office. ‘The poor knew thatthe one way ta
‘make the rich yield was co twist cheir arms.
WI
Initiators of the riots were, very often, the women. In 1693 we
learn of @ great nuraber of women going to Northampton market,
“with Knives stuck in theie girdles to force corn at their own rates"
In an export riot in £737 at Poole (Dorset) it was reported: “The
Numbers consist in so many Women, & the Men supporting them,
& Swear, if any one offers 10 molest any of the Women in their
Proceedings they will raise a Great Namber of Men & destroy both
Ships & Cargoes”. The mob was raised in Stockton (Durham)
im 1740 by 2 “Lady with a stick and a horn”. At Haverfordwest
(Pembroke) in 1795 an old-fashioned J.P. who attempced, with the
help of his curate, to do bartle with the colliers, complained that “tae
‘women were putting the Men on, & wete perfect furies, Thad some
strokes from some of them on my Back..." A Birmingham paper
described the Saow Hill riots as the work of “a rabble, urged on by
fucious women”. In dozens of cases it is the same — the women
pelting an unpopular desler with his own potatoes, or cunningly
combiaing fury with the calculation that they had slightly greater
jgwmunity than the men from the retaliation of the authorities: “the
‘women told the common men”, the Haverfordwest magistrate said of
1 Anan, Gontansnent: oF Histo Sercancs, on the Praunt Searesy (broad-
sheet, 1880).6 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 50
the soldiers, “that they fnew they were in their Hearts for them &
‘would do them no hurt."
‘These women appear to have belonged to some pre-history of
their sex before its Fall, and to have been unaware that they should
hhave waited for some two hundred years for their Liberation,
(Southey could write as a commonplace, in 1807: “Women are more
disposed to be mutinous; they stand less in fear of law, partly from
ignorance, partly because they presume upon the privilege of their
sex, and therefore in all public tumults they are foremost in violence
and ferocity”,)""* They were also, of course, thase most involved in
face-to-face marketing, most sensitive to price significancies, most
experienced in detecting short-weight or inferior quality.” Ic is
probable that the women most frequently precipitated the spontaneous
actions. But other actions were more carefully prepared. Sometimes
notices were nailed to church or ina doors. In 1740 “a Mach of
Fuarball was Cried at Ketring of five Hundred Men of «side, bucthe
desighn was to Pull Down Lady Betey jesmaine’s Mills”. At the
end of the century the distribution of hand-written notices may have
become more common, From Wakefield (Yorks.), 1795.
"To Give Notice
‘To ail Women & inbabitance of Wakefeld they are desired to moet atthe
‘New Churct s+ on Friday nose st Nine O'Clock. ta state the price af
By desire ofthe inhabitants of Halifax
‘Who wel mest thers there
From Stratton (Cornwall) 1802
“To all the aboucing, Men and Tradegmien ithe Mundeed of Swaton that
2g ling to tae there Wife gel Cid fom the Desa onion
of being STARVED ro DEATH by the unfecling and Griping Farmner
‘Assemble all emeadiacely and match In Dreadhll Areay to the labiaio:
4 Northampton ~~ Coleadar Stave Papers, Domestic, 1693, p. 3373 Poole —
rpeporal of Chit ead Ketebares merhamty exceed ip ins Newest,
41/104 Stockton ~ Ealwaed Goddard, 24 May ¢740,
seMay t737.
Baty SB clea Ake ess hady wh « Suck d's hors goog owe
Norton t ste hie people took the hoon from her, She wing ery i antage
Zi she while a flowed igo due Towgytssing a he People she col
Grdered dhe Woman tobe ulken up.» Sheall she way Croing out, Darn fos
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