Papists Act 1778, anti-Catholicism in the United Kingdom
Parties
Protestant Association
Government of Great Britain
British Army
County Militia & London Militia
Bow Street Runners
Casualties
Death(s)
300–700
The Gordon Riots of 1780 were several days of rioting in London motivated by anti-Catholic sentiment. They began with a large and orderly protest against the Papists Act 1778, which was intended to reduce official discrimination against British Catholics enacted by the Popery Act 1698. Lord George Gordon, head of the Protestant Association, argued that the law would enable Catholics to join the British Army and plot treason. The protest led to widespread rioting and looting, including attacks on Newgate Prison and the Bank of England[1][2][3] and was the most destructive in the history of London.[4]
Violence started later on 2 June 1780, with the looting and burning of Catholic chapels in foreign embassies. Local magistrates, afraid of drawing the mob's anger, did not invoke the Riot Act. There was no repression until the government finally sent in the army, resulting in an estimated 300–700 deaths. The main violence lasted until 9 June 1780.
The riots occurred near the height of the American War of Independence, when Britain, with no major allies, was fighting American rebels, France, and Spain. Public opinion, especially in middle-class and elite circles, repudiated anti-Catholicism and lower-class violence, and rallied behind Lord North's government. Demands were made for a London police force.[5] There appeared painted on the wall of Newgate Prison a proclamation that the inmates had been freed by the authority of "His Majesty, King Mob". The term "King Mob" afterwards denoted an unruly and fearsome proletariat.
Edmund Burke later recalled the riots as a dangerous foretaste of the 1789 French Revolution:
Wild and savage insurrection quitted the woods, and prowled about our streets in the name of reform.... A sort of national convention ... nosed parliament in the very seat of its authority; sat with a sort of superintendence over it; and little less than dictated to it, not only laws, but the very form and essence of legislature itself.[6]
^Brayley, Edward Wedlake; James Norris Brewer; Joseph Nightingale (1810). London and Middlesex. Printed by W. Wilson, for Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe.
^"Lord George Gordon". Archived from the original on 1 June 2009. Retrieved 25 July 2009.
^Horn, David Bayne; Mary Ransome (1996). English Historical Documents 1714–1783. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-14372-1.
^Ian Haywood (11 March 2013). "The Gordon Riots of 1780: London in Flames, a Nation in Ruins". Gresham College. Retrieved 20 September 2021.
^Dorothy Marshall, Eighteenth Century England (1974) pp. 469–472.
^Burke, Edmund (1796). A Letter to a Noble Lord. The Harvard Classics.
The GordonRiots of 1780 were several days of rioting in London motivated by anti-Catholic sentiment. They began with a large and orderly protest against...
Lord George Gordon (26 December 1751 – 1 November 1793) was a British politician best known for lending his name to the GordonRiots of 1780. An eccentric...
the attack. The riots, in response to a parliamentary bill revoking sanctions against Roman Catholicism, became known as the GordonRiots and provoked a...
press invented by George Phineas GordonGordon RFC, Sydney rugby union club GordonRiots, in 18th-century Britain "Gordons" (Orange Is the New Black), a...
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...
serial Master Humphrey's Clock. Barnaby Rudge is largely set during the GordonRiots of 1780. Barnaby Rudge was the fifth of Dickens's novels to be published...
2011 England riots, more widely known as the London riots, were a series of riots between 6 and 11 August 2011. Thousands of people rioted in cities and...
1780, however, he commanded militia forces which helped put down the GordonRiots, damaging his popularity with many radicals. This marked a turning point...
to 1782. His ministry oversaw the Falklands Crisis of 1770, the 1780 GordonRiots and the outbreak of the American War of Independence. Volo 2012. Thomas...
During the 1780 GordonRiots in London, the blue cockade became a symbol of anti-government feelings and was worn by most of the rioters. During the American...
duke's heir apparent: Charles Henry Gordon-Lennox (b. 1994), the 11th Duke's eldest son Gordon Highlanders GordonRiots Duke of Richmond Duke of Lennox Ordnance...
George Gordon of Gight (1741–1779), maternal grandfather of poet George Gordon Byron Lord George Gordon (1751–1793), politician, leader of Gordonriots George...
its name from Christopher Hibbert's 1958 book on the GordonRiots of June 1780, in which rioters daubed the slogan "His Majesty King Mob" on the walls...
George Gordon for high treason occurred on 5 February 1781 before Lord Mansfield in the Court of King's Bench, as a result of Gordon's role in the riots named...
of Aberdeen and Temair Duke of Gordon Lord Byron {George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron} Gordon Highlanders GordonRiots "Bydand". Dictionaries of the Scots...
his time in office the GordonRiots broke out and his response to the rioting proved controversial. He failed to read the Riot Act, or to offer additional...
I 1196: William with the long beard causes riots when he preaches for the poor against the rich 1221: Riots occur after London defeats Westminster in an...
townhouse was ransacked and destroyed during the GordonRiots. The Earl and Countess fled, then the rioters targeted Kenwood next due to its proximity. His...
York City draft riots during the American Civil War, and it was not surpassed until the 1992 Los Angeles riots 25 years later. The riot was prominently...
and to inherit land. Reaction against this led to riots in Scotland in 1779 and then the GordonRiots in London on 2 June 1780. Further relief was given...
led by Lord George Gordon marches on Parliament leading to the outbreak of the GordonRiots in London. 7 June – the GordonRiots are ended by the intervention...
Cabal Valley Forge Entry of France into war Carlisle Peace Commission GordonRiots Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1781 Sint Eustatius Newburgh Conspiracy Pennsylvania...
there was little public order. Several decades later, the anti-Catholic GordonRiots swept through London and claimed hundreds of lives; at the time, a proclamation...
Global Information