Viscount Barrington who, as Secretary at War, anticipated the riots and pre-positioned troops to deal with them
The 1766 food riots took place across England in response to rises in the prices of wheat and other cereals following a series of poor harvests. Riots were sparked by the first largescale exports of grain in August and peaked in September–October. Around 131 riots were recorded, though many were relatively non-violent. In many cases traders and farmers were forced by the rioters to sell their wares at lower rates. In some instances, violence occurred with shops and warehouses looted and mills destroyed. There were riots in many towns and villages across the country but particularly in the South West and the Midlands, which included the Nottingham cheese riot.
The Whig government of the Marquess of Rockingham implemented tax cuts on imported grain and prohibited exports in an attempt to lower the price of food. Rockingham's successor William Pitt the Elder went further, prohibiting the use of grains in distilling and suspending more import duties. The public responded to the riots by raising subscriptions to provide charitable relief. These were used mainly to subsidise food for the poor but some subscriptions sought to build public mills and granaries. The Secretary at War, Viscount Barrington, had anticipated trouble and positioned troops at key points across the country. These acted as a deterrent and to support local magistrates, who read the Riot Act seven times in 1766 to attempt to compel rioters to disperse. Eight people were shot dead in the course of quelling the riots.
The riots were largely over by October due to the effects of charitable relief and the use of military force. Hundreds of arrests were made with 59 convicted at special commissions of assize and 68 at the January 1767 court of quarter sessions. Many were sentenced to death at the assizes, but most of these sentences were commuted to penal transportation or the defendant pardoned; only eight men were hanged. Many of the following years also experienced poor harvests and further rioting occurred, though on a much reduced scale.
The 1766foodriots took place across England in response to rises in the prices of wheat and other cereals following a series of poor harvests. Riots were...
Nottingham cheese riot (also known as The Great Cheese Riot) started on 2 October 1766 at the city's Goose Fair. The riot came at a time of food shortages and...
The Riot Act 1714 was introduced during a time of civil disturbance in Great Britain, including the Sacheverell riots of 1710, the Coronation riots of...
Tottenham: the Broadwater Farm riots of 1985". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 August 2021. As north London is gripped by riots, we take a look at the events...
The Esquilache Riots (Spanish: Motín de Esquilache) occurred in March 1766 during the rule of Charles III of Spain. They were directly sparked by a series...
The Newlyn riots occurred in Newlyn, Cornwall, UK in May 1896. Cornish fishermen did not believe in landing fish on a Sunday, so other fleets exploited...
markets and bakeries. Foodriots took place in many European cities. Though riots were common during times of hunger, the foodriots of 1816 and 1817 were...
The Ely and Littleport riots of 1816, also known as the Ely riots or Littleport riots, occurred between 22 and 24 May 1816 in the Isle of Ely (now in Cambridgeshire)...
The Priestley Riots (also known as the Birmingham Riots of 1791) took place from 14 July to 17 July 1791 in Birmingham, England; the rioters' main targets...
sovereign authority to tax its colonies, in accordance with the Declaratory Act 1766. The British government continued to tax the American colonies without providing...
War of the Regulation, was an uprising in Provincial North Carolina from 1766 to 1771 in which citizens took up arms against colonial officials whom they...
many protests at the removal of rights from the common people. Enclosure riots are seen by historians as 'the pre-eminent form' of social protest from...
battling for the honor of burning the pope's effigy. By the mid-1760s these riots had subsided, and as colonial America moved towards the American Revolution...
The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-375-40642-3. Bergeron, Léandre (1974). Why There Must...
Thomas Robert Malthus FRS (/ˈmælθəs/; 13/14 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English economist, cleric, and scholar influential in the fields of...
These were often accompanied by rioting, suggested as proof of popular pro-Jacobite sympathies. Others argue riots were common in 18th-century urban...
because only those loyal to the British crown settled in Nova Scotia. In 1766, planters from Pennsylvania founded Moncton, and English settlers from Yorkshire...
Serbian Patriarchate of Peć was once-again abolished by the Ottomans in 1766. In 1718–39, the Habsburg monarchy occupied much of Central Serbia and established...
1765 was passed. The Sugar Act 1764 was repealed in 1766 and replaced with the Revenue Act 1766, which reduced the tax to one penny per gallon on molasses...
Britain with effect from 1 May 1707 with popular opposition and anti-union riots in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and elsewhere. The union also created the Parliament...
"Act of Oppression" and celebrated its repeal the following year. In March 1766, Parliament passed the Declaratory Act asserting that Parliamentary law superseded...
by the policies of the British under Amherst (April 25, 1763 – July 25, 1766) King George's Royal Proclamation of 1763 establishes administration in territories...
1781–1797). Catherine agreed to a commercial treaty with Great Britain in 1766, but stopped short of a full military alliance. Although she could see the...
The American Historical Review. 120 (5). Oxford University Press: 1753–1766. doi:10.1093/ahr/120.5.1753. JSTOR 43697075. Retrieved July 29, 2022. Pennsylvania...
is locked just south of the city. This fault caused the earthquakes in 1766 and 1894, and a quake of at least magnitude 7.0 is very likely in the 21st...
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