Read about rioting in Bristol, from the 1793 Bristol Bridge riot to the Kill the Bill protest in 2021.
The new Bristol Bridge built in 1767 was paid for by a toll. Once the cost had been recouped in 1793, the bridge should have become free, but the bridge managers decided to keep the toll. The people of Bristol were angered by this and the toll gates were burnt down in September. New ones were erected but were also burnt and when the militia was brought in, 11 people were killed and over 50 injured by gunfire.
‘our streets are filled with the Murdered bodyes of the Hinabitants, the Most Wanton Cruelty have been exercised by … soldiers … we should have ad no distrubance was it not for the Corporation … We shall be murdered indeed Sir we shall. They have so enraged the people can it be wondered at? O what misery power in bad hands.’
In 1831 there were serious riots in Bristol, Derby and Nottingham. In Bristol crowds of people looted and burned down buildings, including the Mansion House, the Bishop’s Palace and the new jail. The riots were a protest at the House of Lords preventing the Reform Bill from passing through Parliament. More people would have the right to vote if the Reform Bill became law.
Before the Reform Act of 1832 just 5% of the population in England and Wales had the right to vote. The right to vote depended on a person’s wealth: if you were a 40-shilling freeholder, (a small landowner), or wealthier, you were entitled to vote. Bristol had two MPs. Its population was 100,000.
The Bristol Riots were a reaction to the statement in Parliament of Bristol’s Recorder (senior judge) Sir Charles Wetherell, that the people of Bristol were not in favour of reform. Actually, Bristol had gathered a petition of 17,000 signatures supporting the Reform Bill. Wetherell was also an MP for Boroughbridge, a ‘Rotten Borough’ in Yorkshire where just 48 men were eligible to vote.
Before Wetherell came on his annual visit to Bristol, public meetings were organised in Queen Square on 10, 11 and 12 October. Demonstrators met Wetherell on his arrival in Bristol on 29 October, then full scale rioting broke out, and angry crowds of protesters held the city for two days.
The authorities had arranged for two troops of cavalry (soldiers on horseback), the 3rd and 14th Dragoons, as well as for special volunteer constables (‘bludgeon boys’) to control the crowd. When the crowd attacked the Council House in Corn Street near midnight on the Saturday, the 14th Dragoons charged.
Two men were killed and there was a short lull during which the Dragoons were withdrawn. The officer in command of the soldiers was Lieutenant-Colonel Brereton. He believed that some of the Dragoons were actually causing more trouble and ordered them away.
Wetherell escaped dressed as a woman while the crowds stayed, looting the wine cellar of the Mansion House and becoming drunk and reckless. Over the next two days rioters broke into Bridewell Jail and Lawford’s Gate Prison and set prisoners free. The Tollhouses, the Bishop’s Palace and, in Queen Square, the Mansion House and the Custom House, were all attacked.
At dawn on Monday 31 October the destruction of the south side of Queen Square had begun when the 3rd Dragoons charged, bringing the rioting to a final and violent end.
It is uncertain how many people were killed during the Bristol Riots. Rioters were put on trial in January 1832. Seven were transported to Australia and 43 were imprisoned. Five others, Christopher Davies, Richard Vines, Joseph Kayes, William Clarke and Thomas Gregory, were sentenced to be hanged in front of the New Jail. Vines was reprieved. Lieutenant-Colonel Brereton, who had sent the 14th Dragoons away on the Saturday night, was court-martialled, believed by many to be a scapegoat. Tragically he committed suicide before the trial was concluded.
There were large crowds of spectators during the 1831 riots who supported the cause of Reform but did not participate in the rioting. Others in the city were firmly opposed to the actions of the crowd and their calls for greater social equality.
The inscription on this snuff box reads:
‘This Snuff Box was made from part of an Oak Beam dug out of the RUINS of the late Custom House in Bristol, which … was destroyed by Fire on the Night of the 30th October 1831, by a LAWLESS MOB, under the influence of Passions excited by the Watch-word of REFORM, and is preserved in melancholy remembrance of that event, and as a warning of the DANGERS to which a Community must always be exposed when Factious Demagogues find means to tamper with the People, and make them dissatisfied with “that state of Life unto which it hath pleased God to call them”. ‘
During the 1831 Reform Riots, the Customs House in Queen Square was set on fire and collapsed, trapping and killing an unknown number of people. When the rubble was cleared a year later, the remains of five or six people were found.
Amongst the fragments was this upper arm bone. The size of the bone suggests that it belonged to a man, but his identity is unknown.
The bone was presented to Richard Smith, a surgeon at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. Smith was interested in whether people who committed criminal acts shared physical characteristics. He obtained human body parts to study this.
On 2 April 1980, the St Pauls area of Bristol caught nationwide attention when it became the scene of a prolonged and intensely violent confrontation between the police and a predominantly Black crowd.
This was not a singular or isolated event however, being both anticipated and followed by similar events in almost every major city in Britain with a deprived, mostly Black population. Clearly there was a problem. But the severity and extent of the underlying issues connecting this pattern of events were still far from being acknowledged, let alone addressed at the time.
Many of the grievances felt by the people of St Paul’s were of long-standing origin, deeply rooted in decades of discrimination and social inequality, and, combined with deteriorating relationships between the community and the local police, produced a time bomb simply waiting to explode.
The trigger event would be a police raid on the Black and White Cafe, a popular meeting place for the African Caribbean community of St Paul’s.
Image: David Kirkpatrick
There were anti-capitalism and anti-corporation riots in Stokes Croft on the evening of 21 April 2011 following a raid on a squat called Telepathic Heights. Police had intelligence of petrol bombs on the premises, designated for the Tesco development opposite. Further riots broke out a week later, on 28 and 29 April. These were considered to be more violent and the theory circulated that people from outside Bristol had attended, spurred on by nationwide media coverage from the previous riots.
On 21 March 2021 a protest against a Bill which would increase police powers to restrict protest demonstrations escalated into violent clashes between demonstrators and police officers.
After a peaceful protest march, witnesses stated that disorder was sparked by the police pepper-spraying and beating demonstrators taking part in a sit-down protest outside the Bridewell police station. Protestors set police vans alight and smashed the windows of the Bridewell. Police confronted demonstrators with batons, dogs, riot shields and horses.
Over 30 people were convicted and jailed. Civil rights campaigners raised the concern that such heavy sentencing would deter lawful protest in the future.
A parliamentary inquiry found that the police used unnecessary and excessive force against demonstrators at several further protests in the following days.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave the police his full support and branded the original protest “a mob intent on violence”. The Bill was passed into law in 2022.
The background: Bristol and the world 1945-1963 The world was changing fast following the Second World War. African Americans were beginning their long fight for civil rights, the apartheid system in South Africa was being intensified and Britain’s former colonies were pressing for independence. There was a backlash by some white British which resulted in […]
In the 19th century women weren’t allowed to vote. Organised suffragist campaigns began to appear in 1866 and campaigns continued for many years, with some members becoming more militant when their views were ignored. It wasn’t until 6 February 1918 that legislation allowed all women over 30 who owned a property the right to vote. […]
Black Britons have always contributed to Britain’s history. But, time and time again, these contributions are carved out of the national narrative. We cannot overlook the importance of safeguarding and publicising stories that commemorate positive and autonomous Black contributions to British history. Promoting Black stories from British history means Black citizens are acknowledged as having […]
![Bristol Riots: The Burning of Bridewell, with St Michael's Church [Bridewell Bridge] (painting)](https://ciim-public-media-s3.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/bristol3/72318.jpg)
