Sheffield Food Riots 1812

[Penske666]

April 14th sees the bicentenary of the Sheffield Food Riots - see the full article at http://priorieshistoricalsociety.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/article-sheffield-food-riots-1812.html

[chem1st]

An interesting article.

 

200 years ago this week the men and women of Sheffield had finally had enough of poor wages, lack of jobs and escalating food prices and came out in force to protest against the government and military suppression which had built up in the area with the rise of Luddite activities.

 

During the early part of 1812 around a hundred men had been working on the new 2 ½ acre plot of land off Broad Lane assigned for St. Georges church in the north west of the town collecting nearby clay deposits to level the land. Dressed in rags and forced to wear clogs as a ‘badge of receiving parish relief’ (probably the first people in the West Riding to have to wear them). these men had been a skilled cutlers but recent events meant there was no work and without work they had been reduced to moving out of their rented properties to the worst place imaginable – the Workhouse.

 

The main Sheffield Workhouse was located at this time on West Bar and Bower Lane and was built around 1736 (the other at Rock Street, Pitsmoor was built in 1801). A shortage of coins also meant the workhouse produced their own gold, silver and copper coinage, this meant that they could only buy produce from local shops that were willing to take these as payment and redeem them at the workhouse and this was often open to abuse and inflated prices.

 

The Napoleonic wars had been dragging on for several years and trade with Europe had been severely dented due to the ‘continental System’ which was an attempt to cut the UK off from all links with European trade. Although not entirely successful it had created a massive feeling of community unrest and poverty which had in turn created the Luddite uprisings of 1812. American Congress had placed a prohibition on British manufacturers which was also creating mass unemployment in the country, the worst since the 1760’s. A petition sent to Parliament on 17th March 1812 was signed by 10,000 people from the Sheffield area condemning the Orders in Council system

 

With scary parallels!

 

(The article does continue - that is a quote of the start of it)