Priestley Riots

The Priestley Riots (also known as the Birmingham Riots of 1791) took place from 14 July to 17 July 1791 in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England; the rioters' main targets were religious dissenters, most notably the politically and theologically controversial Joseph Priestley. Both local and national issues stirred the passions of the rioters, from disagreements over public library book purchases, controversies over Dissenters' attempts to gain full civil rights and their support of the French Revolution.

The riots started with an attack on the Royal Hotel, Birmingham—the site of a banquet organised to publicise the diners’ support for the French Revolutionaries, in order to enhance Anglo-French trade. Then, beginning with Priestley's church and home, the rioters attacked or burned four Dissenting chapels, twenty-seven houses, and several businesses. Many of them became intoxicated by liquor that they found while looting, or with which they were bribed to stop burning homes. A small core, including some men whom the crowd knew to be local boxers, could not be bribed. It has been suggested that the rioters burned not only the homes and chapels of Dissenters, but also the homes of people they associated with Dissenters, such as members of the scientific Lunar Society. A more recent review of the riots, suggests that Josiah Wedgwood's Etruria Hall was threatened, not for of Wedgwood’s association with the Lunar Society, but because he was an agitator for radical reform. William Withering was not on the ‘List of Names’ targeted for attack, however, on the fourth day of rioting a few seventeen-year-old lads did visit Withering’s Edgbaston Hall, because they knew that Withering and Priestley were friends. The youths went as spectators and opportunists, hoping for some free alcohol and a few coins. They were quickly removed by ten Birmingham boxers who then remained nearby.

While the riots were not initiated by Prime Minister William Pitt's administration, it has been suggested that the national government was slow to respond to the Dissenters' pleas for help. This has been recently disputed. Local officials seem to have been involved in the planning of the riots, and were later reluctant to prosecute ringleaders. Industrialist James Watt wrote that the riots "divided [Birmingham] into two parties who hate one another mortally". Those who had been attacked gradually left, leaving Birmingham a more conservative city than previously.