Gordon Riots

The Gordon Riots broke out in London in June 1780 after agitation against Catholic relief legislation. Crowds attacked chapels, prisons, houses and public buildings, and the disorder lasted several days. The army was eventually used to restore control.

The riots mattered because they exposed the volatility of Georgian politics and the force of anti-Catholic feeling. They also showed how religious protest, class anger, criminal opportunity and distrust of government could merge in the streets. The scale of the violence left a deep mark on London’s civic memory.

The Gordon Riots provide strong material for Georgian crime and political fiction, especially the darker London associated with Laura Shepherd-Robinson and Antonia Hodgson. Dickens used the riots in Barnaby Rudge, making them one of the best-known Georgian disturbances in classic fiction. Novels set around the riots can follow prisoners, soldiers, magistrates, servants, Catholics, radicals and families trapped by mob violence.