Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! no.6 , September/ October 1980
The St Paul’s uprising on 2 April 1980 shook from the ruling class an admission of its greatest fear.
‘These are things that we have regarded with horror when they happen in Ulster. We never dreamed that in the England of 1980 we could have ‘no-go’ areas like those of Londonderry. It must never, never happen again.’ (Sun 5/4/80)
The spectre of a mass movement able to defeat the police on the streets of British cities now haunts the ruling class. The St Paul’s uprising brought the anti-imperialist struggle of the oppressed peoples right to the heart-land of British imperialism. In doing this, the black youths who led the St Paul’s uprising have also re-kindled the long dormant tradition of revolutionary action of the British working class.
Nearly 150 years ago, on Sunday 30 October 1831, the oppressed workers of Bristol rose up to strike at their oppressors. This uprising like the recent one in St Paul’s was to be later described in court as a ‘tumultuous’ and ‘riotous’ assembly.
The immediate cause of the 1831 uprising was the refusal of the House of Lords to pass a bill for parliamentary reform. Throughout the country the young working class took to the streets with demonstrations and riots. In Derby the city gaol was stormed and the prisoners were released. Nottingham Castle was set ablaze. London was the scene of running battles as the newly formed Metropolitan Police tried to break up mass public meetings. Workers attacked the Marquis of Londonderry — so named for robbery of the Irish people — whilst he rode his horse to the House of Lords. The good Marquis was rescued by a unit of cavalry,-but not before he had sustained severe head wounds.
The Bristol uprising
In Bristol the Corporation — a body of merchants whose wealth and power came from their mass murder and enslavement of the African race — could not maintain control. The Corporation and the magistrates had no strongly organised force at their disposal. Lieutenant Colonel Brerton was to be later court-martialled for sending two thirds of his cavalrymen out of the city!
Prisoners arrested on the first day of rioting were held in the Bridewell lock-up. Sixty to seventy men and women armed with bars, sticks, pick axes and sledgehammers broke in and freed their comrades. The Bridewell was set afire. Over five hundred people then marched on the New Gaol. A squad of 20 cavalrymen arrived, and quickly departed when they saw the size of the crowd! A hole was broken in the main gate of New Gaol and shortly afterwards the 170 prisoners were liberated.
A historian of the uprising drily notes that:
‘the great majority of the active rioters appear to have been from the lower working classes.’
Middle class reformers from the Bristol Political Union circulated in the crowd trying to prevent further action. They were to have little success, for inside the captured New Gaol,
‘Rioters sat in a circle in the prison yard brazenly discussing potential targets. Proposals included the Bishop’s Palace, banks, shipping, the Mansion House, the Council House and, on a more personal level, the home of anti-reformer Thomas Daniel, who, besides being the city’s most influential alderman and a wealthy merchant, was chairman of the wealthy West India Company.’
In the event the next main target was Gloucestershire County Prison, just a mile away from the New Gaol. Again, all prisoners were released and the buildings were set alight.
The courts
It took 1,800 constables and special constables to protect the judges when they arrived in Bristol for the trials two months later.
The first defendants to be tried, William Clarke, James Courtney, Patrick Kearney, ‘an itinerant vendor of Irish linen’, James Williams and Daniel Higgs, were charged with riotous assembly, pulling down the New Gaol and firing the governor’s house. All but James Williams were found guilty as charged. Evans Bendall, 19 years old, and James Sims, 18 years old, were found guilty of destroying the Bishop’s Palace. Christopher Davis was charged with tumultuous and riotous assembly, and for being involved in the attack on the New Gaol. The evidence of the prosecution witnesses reveal the political purpose of the uprising. Davis was said to have shouted,
‘This is the end of your damned magistrates and bishops … Now, damn ye, we will have Reform; this ought to have been done years ago.’
Christopher Davis had been condemning the bishops, saying it was criminal that they should pocket so much money when there were so many thousands of poor people in the country.
The court did its bloody work. Seven men were imprisoned. Nineteen men were transported for life, another seven were transported for set periods. Five men, William Clarke, Christopher Davis, Thomas Gregory, Joseph Kayes and Richard Vines were hanged. This is the history of the charge ‘riotous assembly’ under common law, law fashioned in the court rooms of the ruling class to repress the resistance of uprisen workers.
Aftermath
Faced with the prospect of even greater revolutionary struggles, the House of Lords was forced into acceptance of parliamentary reform. But the 1832 Reform Act was a betrayal of the working class. The industrial capitalists got the vote, and the workers were still excluded. The capitalists had promised to use their political power to aid the working class. Instead the alliance between capitalists and landowners was strengthened and the new Whig government turned on the working class. A new law increasing repression in Ireland was enacted, relief for unemployed workers was withdrawn, trade unions were outlawed. The working class launched widespread struggles. Between 1830 and 1838 over three thousand London Metropolitan Police were sent to other towns to put down riots and strikes. The ruling class had to set up local police forced to repress working class activity.
From these conditions grew up the Chartist movement. The Chartists led the working class struggle for political power. Lenin called Chartism ‘the first broad, truly, mass and politically organised revolutionary movement.’
Lessons of history
The most oppressed workers in 1831 ‘the lower working classes’, in 1980 the black workers — will rise up to destroy the hated oppressors — in 1831 the gaols and the Bishop’s Palace, in 1980 the police and Lloyds Bank.
The middle class, fearful that its own comfortable existence should be threatened, will try to limit and render harmless the spontaneous destructive force of the oppressed. The middle class – in 1831 the Bristol Political Union and the ‘radical’ Whigs, in 1980 the CRE, the Labour Party and the Anti-Nazi League — will try to divert the oppressed workers with promises of reform only to betray them.
The ruling class can be defeated. In 1831 the magistrates and cavalry were paralysed for three days. In 1980 the police were driven out and St Paul’s was a no-go area for the British state. The ruling class will re-organise and try to crush the oppressed workers. After, 1831 the police forces were set up, in 1980 the police are organising to ensure that large forces get to `trouble spots’ quickly. The courts — with the same charge in 1980 as 1831 — are used to put down the workers. If all else fails, the ruling class will turn to the middle class and form an alliance with it to keep the workers from seizing political power.
To convert its temporary victories to lasting gains the working class, led by the most oppressed workers, must organise a revolutionary movement. The revolutionary movement must prevent the middle class’s influence from holding back the working class. The revolutionary movement must direct the spontaneous struggles of the oppressed workers towards obtaining political power that will destroy the oppressors once and for all.
In the early nineteenth century the working class made a tumultuous and revolutionary entrance onto the stage of history. Today, black people have made a similar bold entrance. Black workers are in the vanguard of the whole working class. Working class actions such as the 1831 Bristol uprising heralded the birth of the organised revolutionary Chartist movement. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels proclaimed:
‘A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of Communism.’
The black youths who led the St Paul’s uprising have once again raised that spectre. It now haunts the British ruling class.
Andy Goddard
