The Spa Fields Riots, 1816
At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, writes Arthur Calder-Marshall, London became a centre of reforming agitation against poverty and political mismanagement.
Shortly after noon on Monday, December 2nd, 1816, a young man wearing a tri-coloured cockade in his hat stood on a cart outside the Pie House in Spa Fields, Finsbury, and harangued a crowd that had collected to hear Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt report on a petition to the Prince Regent. Hunt was not due to arrive until 1p.m. But the young man, named Watson, announced the result of the petition.
To relieve the unemployment and starvation at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Prince Regent in his generosity had advanced £4,000 to the Spitalfields Soup Kitchen, not out of his own pocket but out of the ‘Droits’ which the demobilized seamen expected of their own right as Prize Money.
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