Regency Events: Food Riots of 1795

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In the same year of the Women’s March on Versailles, a series of over 70 food riots all over England would later be branded the “Revolt of the Housewives.”

August 1842: Bread being thrown by a crowd in an attack on a Union workhouse in Stockport, Lancashire. Original Publication: Illustrated London news – pub. 1842 (Photo by HultonArchive/Illustrated London News/Getty Images)

Frustrated by inflation and low quantities of bread and other food stuffs, throughout crowds of mostly women would surround vendors, tradesmen, and shopkeepers and seize products and then distribute them for what they believed were a more fair price. The vendor would be given the funds, and the crowds would have the food they needed at a more reasonable rate (The Revolt of the Housewives).  Some refer to these as “price fixing riots”.  In some instances, local magistrates would bring in the militia to quell the crowds.  In East Sussex, the militia actually joined with the crowd to redistribute meat and flour. Two of the soldiers were shot as punishment (Revolt of the housewives explained).

Other women faced prison, transportation, or hanging for their roles in these riots despite the riots being relatively unviolent. Sure, one dairymen was smeared with butter and rolled into a ditch, but generally the women were organized and focused on distribution at a fair price that was handed over to the tradesperson:

REVOLT OF THE HOUSEWIVES The want and suffering came to a crisis in 1795 the year of what may be the revolt of the housewives That year when exceptional scarcity the edge of the misery caused by the changes we have summarised marked by a series of food riots all over England in which a conspicuous was taken by women These disturbances are particularly interesting the discipline and good order which characterise the conduct of the The rioters when they found themselves masters of the situation did use their strength to plunder the shops they organised distribution the food they seized at what they considered fair rates and handing the proceeds to the owners They did not rob they fixed prices and the owner of provisions was making for a dearer market they stopped carts and made him sell on the spot At Aylesbury in March a mob consisting chiefly of women seized on all the wheat that to market and compelled the farmers to whom it belonged to accept such prices as they thought proper to name In Devonshire the rioters the country round Chudleigh destroying two mills from the great of petticoats it is generally supposed that several men were dressed in female attire At Carlisle a band of women accompanied by boys paraded the streets and in spite of the remonstrances of a magistrate entered various and shops seized all the grain deposited it in a public hall and then formed a committee to regulate the price at which it should be sold Ipswich there was a riot over the price of butter and at Fordingbridge a certain Sarah Rogers in company with other women started a cheap butter campaign Sarah took some butter from Hannah Dawson with a deter of keeping it at a reduced price an escapade for which she was afterwards sentenced to three months hard labour at the Winchester Assizes
Nothing but the age of the prisoner being very young prevented the Court from passing a more severe sentence At Bath the women actually boarded a vessel laden with wheat and flour which was lying in the river and refused to let her go When the Riot Act was read they retorted that they were not rioting but were resisting the sending of corn abroad and sang God Save the King Although the owner took an oath that the corn was destined for Bristol they were not satisfied and ultimately soldiers were called in and the corn was relanded and put into a warehouse In some places the soldiers helped the populace in their work of fixing prices at Seaford for example they seized and sold meat and flour in the churchyard and at Guildford they were the ringleaders in a movement to lower the price of meat to fourpence a pound and were sent out of the town by the magis trates in consequence These spontaneous leagues of consumers sprang up in many different parts for in addition to the places already mentioned there were disturbances of sufficient importance to be chronicled in the newspapers in Wiltshire Suffolk and Norfolk while at Diddington the populace seized on a boat laden with flour but restored it on the miller's promising to sell it at a reduced price These riots are interesting from many points of view They are a rising of the poor against an increasing pressure of want and the forces that were driving down their standard of life They did not amount to a social rebellion but they mark a stage in the history of the poor Woodworkers, Painters & Buildingworkers Journal. (1927). United Kingdom: (n.p.).

There is evidence that riots throughout the early Regency were more often led by men alone than women or mix crowds (Roberts, A. (2016). Gendered States of Punishment and Welfare: Feminist Political Economy, Primitive Accumulation and the Law. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis.) suggesting the account and Victorian analysis (the Hammonds coined the Revolt of the Housewives in the end of the Victorian era) branded it as a women’s initiative, largely because of the proximity to the cultural concept of women as unruly and unworthy of public discourse or intervention.

 

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