Trafalgar Square Riots of 1848

The first serious disturbance of 1848 took place at Trafalgar Square – then still under construction, with newly laid roads and hoardings around Nelson’s Column.

A planned protest against the then relatively novel idea of income tax had been called by Charles Cochrane for Monday 6 March. Under pressure from the police, however, he reluctantly withdrew and made efforts to cancel the open air meeting. London ‘s workers were having none of it, and a crowd estimated at 10,000 strong gathered anyway, with the Chartist activist GWM Reynolds in the chair. Though observers later commented that barely a man in the crowd would have been liable to pay income tax, the meeting duly condemned it, congratulated the French people on their efforts to overthrow their government, and made clear their support for the People’s Charter.

At first all went peacefully. But according to the admittedly partisan Northern Star, just as the crowd began to dissolve “some sleek well-fed man asserted that the people assembled were lazy and would not work”. In the uproar which followed, the police moved in with truncheons flying and a riot ensued.

By 4pm that afternoon, the police were in control of the square. But as they withdrew two hours later, the crowd flocked back in, pulling down the wooden hoardings around Nelson’s Column and arming themselves with granite blocks from the new roads. The fighting continued until late into the evening, with parts of the crowd heading off to smash the windows of the gentlemen’s clubs in Pall Mall, breaking into bread shops to seize loaves and – shortly after midnight – moving into Grosvenor Square .

It was 1am before peace was restored, and by 9am the following morning the crowd was back, erecting a barricade in Charing Cross next to the statue of Charles I.

All that day and into Wednesday 8 March the fighting continued. David Goodway, in his book London Chartism 1838-1848, notes that the authorities built up their forces over these days. On the Monday, there had been just 1,189 police on duty or reserve in London ; two days later, there were 2,460.

Despite the continuing excitement, the police regained control during the course of the Wednesday and the rioting began to subside. This, however, did little to prevent 700 rioters heading for the City by way of Temple Bar and Fleet Street. After a Chartist meeting on Stepney Green that evening, the crowd once again broke windows in the City and along Regent Street . This, however, was to be the end of the tumult for now.

By Friday, The Times was able to report that “scarcely any traces” of the week’s excitement now remained. In all, 127 rioters were arrested between Monday to Wednesday. As Goodway notes, the striking feature of those arrested is their youth – nearly half being under 21 years old.

The names of those arrested, taken from police records now in the National Archives (Ref: MEPO 2 64) are set out in the table below. Goodway names the leaders of the riot as John White (“an eighteen-year-old wearing epaulettes, smashing windows.. and shattering and extinguishing the gas lamps…”), and Charles Tothill (“a clerk, aged twenty”).

Strictly speaking, these were not “Chartist” riots – the only Chartist connected with them being Reynolds, whose initial meeting was entirely peaceful, and the Charter being just one of a number of causes favoured by the crowd. But the Chartist leadership did not hesitate to place itself at the head of popular feeling, and as the “year of revolutions” went on, some Chartists at least would turn to more radical solutions.

NameAgeResult of examination
John Jones 20 Committee for trial (felony)
Morris Paton 18 Committee for trial (felony)
James Marchant 23 Fined 20s or 8 days
John Melvill 27 Committed 14 days
James Durkin 17 Fined 20s or 8 days
William Westwood 18 Fined 20s or 9 days
Thomas Leggett 24 Fined 20s or 9 days
Edward Andrews 42 Fined 20s or 9 days
Benjamin Pemberton 24 Fined 20s or 9 days
John Rees 21 Fined 30s or 14 days
Alexander Reeves 20 Committed 21 days
Frederick Cox 21 Fined 30s or 14 days
Jim Meehan 21 Committed 21 days
Charles Tothill 20 To find bail to answer the charge at Clerkenwell sessions
John White 18 To find bail to answer the charge at Clerkenwell sessions
John Read 36 To find bail to answer the charge at Clerkenwell sessions
John Feigle 26 Committed for 21 days
William Hack 21 Committed for 10 days
William Harrison 35 To find bail himself in £40 and two sureties in £20 each to keep the peace 2 months
John Varley 48 Committed for 14 days
William Sudbury 19 Fined 10s or 10 days
Michael Foy 28 Fined 10s or 10 days
Francis Holroyd 26 Discharged
Charles Haskin 22 Fined 10s or 7 days
George Robertson 17 Discharged
Charles Allen 17 Fined 10s or 7 days
Frederick Hinde 16 Discharged
Henry Calcutt 19 To find surety in £10 to keep the peace 1 month
John Head 12 Committed 3 days and once whipped
Thomas Condon 16 Committed 6 weeks
Arthur Fanley 16 Discharged
Charles Carey 21 Discharged
William Bute 29 To find bail himself £50 and 2 sureties each £25 to keep the peace 2 months
William Riddle 16 Discharged
William Mullins 24 To find surety in £10 to keep the peace 2 months
William Davis 17 Discharged
Thomas Read 40 Discharged
George Phillips 59 Fined 10s or 7 days
James E Duncan 26 To find sureties in £10 to keepthe peace 2 months
Charles Godwin 36 Fined 10s or 10 days
Robert Davis 17 Committed 10 days
Nathan Parry 26 Fined 20s or 14 days
William Sims 18 Discharged
Frederick Evans 21 Committed 10 days
Thomas Jones 19 1 month
William Carter 17 1 month
Richard Nicholls 22 Committed 14 days
John Gunthorp 25 Fined 20s or 14 days
Henry Hunt 18 Discharged
Charles Banks 23 Discharged
Robert Holmes 18 Discharged
James Simbilcock?? 42 Discharged
Charles Davis 19 Fined 10s or 10 days
George Peck 21 Fined 10s or 10 days
William Lucas 22 Fined 10s or 10 days
John Sage 19 Fined 20s or 21 days
Thomas Bedford 17 Fined 10s or 10 days
Abraham Ruff 30 Discharged
William Bayden 18 Discharged
Robert Rudland 23 Committed 21 days
James Haggar 18 Discharged
Morris Reasding 24 Fined 10s or 10 days
William Scarborough 17 Discharged
John Harbridge 19 Fined 10s or 10 days
George Allsop 20 Father recognisance £10 for 3 months
William Gifford 22 Committed 14 days
Alfred Wilson 23 Discharged
Stephen Callaghan 21 Discharged
Edward Macfarline 18 Discharged
William Dodd 16 Discharged
Michael Sullivan 15 Discharged
Eugene Sullivan 18 10s or 10 days
John Milton 25 Discharged
Thomas Wallis 24 10s or 10 days
Henry Oxbury 26 14 days
Michael Fitzgerald 17 To find surety in £40 to keep the peace 3 months
Peter Fitzstephen 22 21 days
Henry Stamper 19 Fined 20s or 14 days
John David 16 10s or 10 days
William Merry 19 Discharged
Charles Foster 23 Discharged
William Thompson 21 Discharged
John Moloney 20 1 month
Robert Frisby 17 Fined 10s or 10 days
William Woollams 15 10s or 7 days
James Kew 16 Discharged
William Salter 12 Discharged
James Turner 19 30s or 14 days
William Alias 18 30s or 14 days
James Abbott 30 £3 or 1 month
John St Leger 20 30s or 3 weeks
Mitchell Moore 25 20s or 14 days
George Ryan 21 30s or 3 weeks
Frederick Dorrell 20 £3 or 1 month
William Smith 34 1 month
Charles Keen 16 20s or 14 days
Miles Phillips 18 Discharged
John Hopkins 19 30s or 3 weeks
Henry Roach 18 Fined 20s or 14 days
John Johnston 25 Discharged
Henry Davy 17 30s or 3 weeks
Walter Ford 18 40s or 1 month
John Lewis 28 £3 or 21 days

Article and list of the charged comes from Chartist Ancestors http://www.chartists.net/insurrection/trafalgar-square-riots-1848/