Camberwell 13th March 1848: Mobs, Riots and Protests. The complexities of history
In the Culture Wars peaceful protesters are often described in right-wing media as a mob. Historically there are complexities..
One example is the riot that took place in Camberwell South London on 13 March 1848.
Its start was at a Chartist rally on Kennington Common convened by the radical journalist and novelist GWM Reynolds.
It would be fair to say that the authorities were anxious about what was likely to happen. The army was held in reserve and 3,881 police were mobilised.
At the time the meeting was due to commence-midday- 400-500 people left the Common on a signal which was given by ‘raising a Pole’. Twitter let alone BlueSky and WhatsApp had not yet been invented
It was reported that the crowd took a route involving the ‘most unfrequented byeways’ to avoid the police. When they reached Bowyer Lane in Camberwell they started to attack small shopkeepers ,breaking windows, forcing shutters and carrying off goods. Shops looted in Camberwell included a pawnbrokers, shoemakers, tailors, bakers. The looters were armed with ‘sticks of all descriptions’ and palings.
David Goodway in his book on London Chartism reports that a shoemaker argued that ‘I am a poor man..no maker of laws’. 50 of 60 people passed by but the main crowd smashed his shop front and took 162 pairs of boots worth £35.16s.
The main effort of the looters was reserved for a pawnbroker. Shutters and doors were attacked with hammers and shovels to cries of ‘Hurrah for Liberty’. Watches were thrown out the crowd and the estimated loss was £900 worth of timepieces and rings.
The entire thing lasted an hour and nine arrests were made. However a number of rioters were later identified by locals and 25 people were brought to trial in April 1848. Of these several were black Londoners. Ten were aged twenty or over while there three were just thirteen.
The majority of those arrested had trades. Occupations included labourers, seamen, a fishmonger, brickmaker, printer, tailor and shoemaker.
The Camberwell riot could be seen, and in modern coverage probably would be, as opportunists taking advantage of a Chartist gathering and the significant deployment of police it attracted to loot an unprotected nearby area.
Yet when we note that the key shop looted was a pawnbrokers and the political cries of liberty were raised we can see that such a view would be simplistic. It was largely seen at the time as a Chartist riot and as Goodway notes it contributed quite significantly to the way the authorities and official society reacted to the Chartist rally again on Kennington Common less than a month later on Monday 10 April 1848. That rally was one of the biggest in the Capital in the nineteenth century.
The conclusion is that historically attempts to find some easy division between rioters and protesters is a matter fraught with difficulty.
A fuller account has been posted by Past Tense
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