The Chartist London armed rising of August 1848. The coffee house or the pothouse conspiracy?
A research note
In August 1848 following the arrest of Chartist leader Ernest Jones and the passage of repressive legislation covering Ireland in Parliament plans were made for a general rising involving Manchester, Liverpool and London.
The Irish dimension, too often overlooked, was important here, as was the informal link to Chartism.
One of those arrested after the rising failed was the black leader of London Chartism in 1848 William Cuffay. His precise role in events remains open to interpretation.
The rising was only actually attempted in London and there is some detail about it. David Goodway’s London Chartism covers it briefly. He argues that it was probably the most well supported (but also the last) of attempts at insurrection in the Capital dating back to the 1790s and running through events like Cato St (1820). It was tradition of revolutionary conspiracy, rather than open organising.
A supposedly secret committee met to plan events on most days in the first half of August 1848. Meetings were actually mostly in coffee houses but some were in beer shops. The beer shop had come into being after the 1830 Licensing Act and might perhaps be likened to the modern micro-pub.
It’s true however that when the police and military moved to arrest the leaders of the conspiracy they were to be found in two pubs, one off Red Lion Square and the other off Blackfriars Rd. Neither is still there.
Goodway estimates that up to 5,000 Chartists and others gathered at Seven Dials in the West End and in Southwark. However with the leaders arrested the rising melted away into the mid-August night.
A good deal about what was intended during the August days in London in 1848 remains unclear. What is known is that the conspiratorial means of organising allowed significant infiltration by police and State agents. However as the current SpyCops Inquiry has underlined avoiding spies and undercover officers remains problematic even where much more open forms of organising are used.
We earnestly recommend all persons in the great towns of the kingdom, who in any way may have become informed of the haunts or proceedings of these pothouse conspirators to give timely warning to the police…
The Times 18th August 1848
Meeting Places for the August 1848 Rising in London
Seven Dials,(Covent Garden)
Strutton Ground (Victoria St)
Clerkenwell Green
Tower Hamlets(Bishop Bonners Fields, now part of Victoria Park)
Pubs where the leadership met
Orange Tree beer-shop, Orange St off Red Lion Sq. Licensee Robert Hodges
Angel, Webber St(off Blackfriars Rd) Southwark. Demolished 1944
Lord Denman, Great Suffolk St, (the Ulterior Committee (organising team) met here on 15th August 1848. Government spies were also present. I can find no record of the pub (rather unusually) but the Northern Star (19th August 1848)reported the police had searched the Rechabite coffee house in Great Suffolk St for arms.
David Goodway in his book on London Chartism in 1848 lists the locations of Chartist organising meetings in central London in summer 1848. Many are not pubs but coffee houses. They were less regulated than pubs but there was also a strong temperance faction in Chartism even though the Chartist leader Ernest Jones argued that the ‘charter won’t be found at the bottom of a glass of water’. It does however beg the question of whether the armed rising of August 1848 was really a coffee shop conspiracy?
Between 20 July and 16 August, the conspirators held 16 meetings in one form or another, mainly in coffee houses (though occasionally in pubs).Past Tense blog
Dates and locations of the delegate meetings of the 1848 conspiracies, with those in attendance as known (taken from London Chartism 1838-48, by David Goodway)
Tuesday 6 June. Windsor Castle, Holborn
H Mander May (?), Plume (?).
Monday afternoon, 12 June. Albion, Bethnal Green Road.
25 present. M’Douall (chair), Henshaw, Honeybold, Percy, Pitt, George Davis.
Tuesday 13 June. Windsor Castle, Holborn
James Bassett (chair), Henshaw, Honeybold, William Lacey, Percy, Pitt, George Shell, George Davis.
Wednesday morning, 14 June. Literary Institute, John Street
14 present. M’Douall (chair), James Bassett (vice-chair), Child, William Lacey, George Bridge Mullins, Pitt, George Shell, George Davis.
Wednesday evening, 14 June. Lord Denman, Great Suffolk Street, Blackfriars Road
8 present. James Blight, George Davis.
Monday 10 July. George, Old Bailey.
13 or 20 present. Brewster, Lacey, Mullins, Payne, John Rose, Smith, George Davis.
Thursday 13 July. Lord Denman, Great Suffolk Street.
Brewerton, Morgan.
Thursday 20 July. Black Jack, Portsmouth Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
14 present. William Allnutt, Bassett, Battice, Brewster, William Dowling, Mullins, Payne, John Rose, Davis, Thomas Powell (alias Johnson) (1st time).
Sunday morning, 23 July. Denny’s Coffee House, Great St Andrew’s Street, Seven Dials
10 present. Allnutt, Brewster, Dowling, Gurney, Mullins, Payne, Pedley, Rose, Smith, Stephens (?), Thompson, Davis, Powell.
Sunday evening, 23 July. Cartwright’s Coffee House, Redcross Street, Cripplegate
Brewster, Mullins, Payne, Rose, Powell.
Wednesday 26 July. Hopkinson’s Coffee House, Saffron Hill
18 present. Allnutt, Brewster, Dowling, Ferdinando, Flanagan, Mullins, Payne, Pedley, Rose, Smith, Stephens (?), Thompson, Davis, Powell.
Friday 28 July. Hopkinson’s Coffee House, Saffron Hill.
14 present. Brewster, Fay, Ferdinando, Flanagan, Hopkinson, Horn, Mullins, Page, Payne, Powell.
Sunday afternoon 30 July. Cartwright’s Coffee House, Redcross Street
28 present. Bassett, Brewster, Donovan, Dowling, Fay, Ferdinando, Hayman, Kirby, Lindsay, Mullins, Nash, Nowlan, Payne, Rose, Stephenson (or Stevenson), Davis, Powell.
Tuesday 1 August, Dispatch Coffee House, Bride Lane, Fleet Street.
34 or 29 present. Allnutt, Bezer, Brewster, Collins, Donovan, Dowling, Fay, Ferdinando, Fuzzen, Hayman, Lynch, Mullins, Payne, Raymond, Rose, Thompson, Warry, Davis, Powell
Friday 4 August. Cartwright’s Coffee House, Redcross Street
32 present. Bassett, Bligh, Brewster, Cuffay, Donovan, Dowling, Gurney, Lynch, Mullins, Payne, Rose, Thompson, Davis, Powell.
Sunday morning 6 August. Denny’s Coffee House, Great St Andrew’s Street
Brewster, Fay (?), Lynch (?), Mullins, Payne, Rose, Thompson, Davis.
Sunday afternoon 6 August. Dispatch Coffee House, Bride Lane
24 to 30 present. Allnutt, Bligh, Brewster, Cuffay, Fay, the two brothers Granshaw, Hammond (= Hayman?), Mullins, Page, Payne, Rose, Warry, Davis, Powell.
Monday 7 August. Denny’s Coffee House, Great St Andrew’s Street
About 30 present. Allnutt, Bassett, Brewster, Cuffay, Donovan, Dowling, Fay, Lynch, Mullins, Payne, Ritchie, Rose, Thompson, Warry, Davis, Powell.
Wednesday 9 August. Lord Denman, Great Suffolk Street, Blackfriars Road
28 present. Allnutt, Bassett, Bligh, Brewster, Cuffay, Donovan, Dowling, Fay, Flanagan, Fuzzen, the two Granshaws, Gurney, Horn, Lynch, Mullins, Nash, Payne, Pedley, Ritchie, Rose, Davis, Powell.
Friday 11 August. Perry’s Coffee House, Church Street, Shoreditch
Cancelled
Sunday morning 13 August. Hopkinson’s Coffee House, Saffron Hill
Allnutt, Bligh, Brewster, Fuzzen, Mullins, Payne, Ritchie, Salmon, Davis.
Sunday afternoon 13 August. Breedon’s Beershop, Shouldham Street, Crawford Street, Marylebone
26 or 30 present. Bligh, Cuffay, the two Granshaws, Hayman, Mullins, Nash, Payne, Ritchie, Warry, Davis.
Monday 14 August. Orange Tree, Orange Street, Red Lion Square
25 or 30 present. Allnutt, Bligh, Brewster, Cruikshank, Cuffay, Fay, Fleming, Ford, the two Granshaws, Gurney, Hayman, Mullins, Nash, Payne, Pearce, Ritchie, Scurrey (or Scurry), Simmonds, Warry, Davis, Powell.
Tuesday 15 August. Lord Denman, Great Suffolk Street.
30 or 40 present. Allnutt, Brewster, Cruikshank, Cuffay, Donaldson, Dowling, Fay, Ferdinando, Fleming, the two Granshaws, Gurney, Lacey, Mullins, Page, Payne, Pedley, Ritchie, Simmonds, Davis, Powell.
My 2nd great-grandfather was the Ferdinando, mentioned in this post. I’m very grateful for you blog, which is helping with my research.