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MikeDunnAuthorToday in Labor History June 2, 1780: The Gordon Riots began on this date in England and lasted through June 9. The riots began as a pogrom against Catholics. However, it grew into a mass worker insurrection that included ex-slaves, impressed sailors and debtors, English, Irish, Italians, Germans and Jews. The insurrectionists liberated two thousand prisoners and destroyed every major prison in London, including Newgate, Fleet and The Clink. They wrote on the prison walls, “Freed by the Authority of His Majesty, King Mob." Rioters also destroyed the homes members of the ruling elite, as well as toll houses and the Bank of England. The rich fled the city in terror. Many were robbed and beaten along the way. It was the most destructive protest in the history of London. The military was called in. They slaughtered up to 700 workers. The political context for the insurrection included low wages and inflation due to England’s wars with the U.S., Spain and France, as well as the desire for universal suffrage.
At the time of the Gordon Riots, England was still battling American revolutionaries in North America, and was still in conflict with France and Spain, and would soon be in conflict with the Dutch. They had been in secret negotiations with Spain to try and get them to end support for the United States. But the Spanish pulled back in response to the anti-Catholic nature of the riots, and over concerns that the riots would ultimately bring down the British government. At the time, Britain had no official police force, which parliament believed was a foreign and absolutist entity. The riots changed that, with several now strongly advocating for a police force modeled after the French. Radical journalist and MP John Wilkes lost a great deal of popular support for leading a violent citizens militia against the rioters.
Charles Dickens' novel “Barnaby Rudge” (1841) is set during Gordon Riots. And the film “The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle” has a scene from the Gordon Riots, with the Sex Pistols being hung in effigy. In the late 1960s, there was a Situationist group in the UK that called themselves “King Mob,” which had connections to the activist groups Black Mask and Against Up the Wall Motherfuckers (AKA the Motherfuckers) dadaist/Situationist groups based in New York city. Motherfuckers got their name from an Amiri Baraka poem. Abbie Hoffman referred to them as “the middle-class nightmare.” In 1967, they Motherfuckers forced their way into the Pentagon and flung blood, eggs and stones at US Secretary of State Dean Rusk. In January 1968, they dumped uncollected refuse from the Lower East Side into the fountain at Lincoln Center. They also forced Bill Graham to provide free concert nights at the Fillmore East. At an MC5 show at the Fillmore East, the broke Graham’s nose, which got the MC5 banned from the venue. And in 1969, they cut the fences at Woodstock, allowing thousands to get in for free.
You read more about the British King Mob group here: https://situationnisteblog.com/2016/04/18/king-mob-1-6-1968-70/
#workingclass #LaborHistory #gordon #riots #insurection #slavery #prison #liberation #abolition #england #wages #unemployment #inflation #colonialism #books #novels #fiction #writer #author #punk
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