Rioting and time Collective violence in Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, 1800-1939 A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2018 Matteo Tiratelli School of Social Sciences 1 Table of contents Abstract 4 Declaration & Copyright 5 Acknowledgements 6 Chapter 1 — Rioting and time 7 Chapter 2 — Don’t call it a riot 24 Chapter 3 — Finding riots and describing them 42 Chapter 4 — Riots in space, time and society 64 Chapter 5 — The changing practice of rioting 102 Chapter 6 — The career of a riot: triggers and causes 132 Chapter 7 — How do riots sustain themselves? 155 Chapter 8 — Riots: the past and the future 177 Bibliography 187 Appendix 215 Word count: 70,193 2 List of tables Table 1: The spaces where riots started 69 Table 2: The places where riots started 70 Table 3: The number of riots happening during normal working hours 73 Table 4: The number of riots which happen during particular calendrical events 73 Table 5: The proportion of non-industrial riots by day of the week 75 Table 6: The likelihood of a given non-industrial riot being on a certain day of the week 75 Table 7: The likelihood of a given riot outside of Glasgow involving prison rescues 98 Table 8: The likelihood of a given riot involving begging or factory visits 111 Table 9: The likelihood of a given riot targeting specific individuals or people in their homes 119 List of figures Figure 1: Angelus Novus (1920) by Paul Klee 16 Figure 2: Geographic spread of rioting in Liverpool 67 Figure 3: Geographic spread of rioting in Manchester 68 Figure 4: Geographic spread of rioting in Glasgow 68 Figure 5: The number of riots per year 78 Figure 6: The number of riots involving prison rescues per year 98 3 Abstract The 19th century is seen by many as a crucial turning point in the history of protest in Britain and across the global north. In Charles Tilly’s famous history of the period, the first few decades of the 19th century mark the transition from the violent, direct action of the premodern era to our modern, respectable, social movements (Tilly 1995, 2004). A study of rioting in Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow from 1800 to 1939, therefore, allows for a unique window onto that momentous period of upheaval. But it also has a sociological aim. The last decade has seen a resurgence of rioting in Europe and the USA, prompting many to suggest that riots will be the dominant mode of protest in the coming years (e.g. Badiou 2012, Mayer et al 2016, Clover 2016). But, as I will show, our existing sociological theories of riots tend to be overly narrow, to focus exclusively on one or two master variables without paying due attention to the variety of forms and behaviours that make up rioting. These are the two challenges I take up in this thesis. My main empirical contribution is a catalogue of four hundred riots across the three cities. This was produced by searching through national and local newspaper archives, Home Office documents, local police reports and secondary literature. The catalogue is presented in the Appendix. Using the rich, narrative accounts provided by these sources, I try to analyse the riots on their own terms, as a set of interactions and behaviours, as well as to embed them in the local history of each city. This reveals that riots are not the chaotic, unpredictable moments of madness that we so often think of them as. Riots are rather patterned by people’s everyday use of time and space – they expand to fill the growing urban landscape of each city and their timing follows gradual changes to the working week. Riots are also embedded in culture and society more broadly. In fact, as those roots in local society were eroded in the last few decades of the 19th century, this led to a decline in the number of riots in Manchester, Liverpool and most of the rest of the country. Meanwhile, the actual way in which people riot also evolves over time. Riots changed from an autonomous form of protest, to one that was subordinated to the strike and the demonstration. Rioters also move away from targeting specific (often powerful) individuals to targeting people because of their identity as, for example, scabs, Irish Catholics or fascists. This history undermines the orthodox account of protest presented by Charles Tilly. Violent direct action continued to be a key part of urban life until far later than his account suggests. And those later riots are not accidental hangovers from a previous era, but in fact adapted to changing conditions. My catalogue also suggests that existing theories of riots can be synthesised and broadened by concentrating on the way that individual riots unfold over hours, weeks or months, on what I think of as their career through time. This sets up a flexible framework for analysing riots which I hope can be applied to other riots around the world. Finally, and more abstractly, this study suggests that riots have a particular relationship with time, that they are of the present but face the past, drawing on its traditions as well as their own history. This has implications for our vision of history itself, suggesting that time is not punctuated by spontaneous, era-defining events, but rather evolves gradually over the longue duree. 4 Declaration No portion of the work referred to in this thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. Copyright i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii.The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. iv. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=2442 0), in any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library’s regulations (see http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/about/regulations/) and in The University’s policy on Presentation of Theses 5 Acknowledgements Shout out to the amazing Lucy Brownridge, my supervisors Gemma Edwards and Nick Crossley, and to Charlotte Branchu, Tom Redshaw, Pete Lampard, Aydin Dikerdem, and Katrina Navickas for reading early drafts. Couldn't have done it without you. 6 Chapter 1 Rioting and time Extract from a letter published in The Times, Friday April 17, 1812:1 On perceiving them [the mob]... coming down the road, I assembled the children and nurse in the parlour, and fastened the windows and doors; the gardener presently rushing into the room and conjured us to fly that moment, if we wished to save our lives… each snatching up a child, we escaped at the great gate just in time to avoid the rabble. We proceeded to Mrs Syke’s; but before we reached our destination we saw our cottage enveloped in flames. Every thing, I have since learnt was consumed by the fire and nothing left but the shell. The mob next proceeded to the factory, where they broke the windows, destroyed the looms and cut all the work which was in progress; and having finished this mischief, they repeated the three cheers which they gave on seeing the flames first burst from our dwelling… It is now nine o’clock at night, and I learn the mob are more outrageous than ever at Edgeley. Fresh soldiers have been just sent there. Another troop of horse are expected to- night. 1 In the following chapters, I have tried to keep the text legible by not including in-line newspaper citations when I am describing individual riots (unless I am quoting directly). Instead all references for each riot are listed in the Appendix, which is arranged chronologically by city to make it easy for the reader to look up all the references for a given riot in one go. 7 Manchester Mercury, Tuesday April 21, 1812: The potatoemarket, in Shudehill, was on Saturday morning the scene of great disorder and confusion, owing to the much-increased price in that indispensable part of the sustenance of the poor. Between the hours of ten and eleven o’clock, a number of ignorant unthinking people, most of whom were women, failing in their endeavours to purchase the potatos at the reduced rate which they required them, immediately put themselves in possession of most of the produce in the Market, and never did we behold industry more conspicuous than in the seizure and conveyance of this spoil to the various abodes of the busy depredators.