Events – Radical Stroud

The Old Curiosity Railway Shop

The Railway Curiosity Shop of Wonder in John Street, Stroud

Alec is always busy in his shop,

Mending clocks and repairing engines,

Walking past trucks and carriages and bottles and level crossings –

But when sunlight flashed through the rainswept window,

Alec, like Dickens, performing his characters,

Stopped to entertain me with his memories:

‘I started work in the hot summer of ’76. My mum, who worked in the canteen in Swindon Works, making cakes for the drivers, wanted me to get a job. Mum was forever dashing out to take in the washing in the old days of steam as our house in Brimscombe backed down to the line. Anyway, the foreman at the NCB at Stonehouse knew my brother, and he asked: “Can you start tomorrow?”

I clocked on at 7 for a 40 hour-week; 7-4.30 with an hour for dinner and a 15-minute break in the morning and in the afternoon. A good wage of £54 a week. I loved driving that 0-4-0 diesel shunter, “Dougal” (formerly, “Mr Useful”), built in 1945. Up and down the line used by the Dudbridge Donkey, up there near Oldends Lane, and the two sidings at the top where I dropped the coal. 12 hoppers, 12 different types of fuel, the dirty old conveyor belt, the diesel fuel tank.

I loved driving that train: 3 gears on the diesel, with dual controls so you could drive on either side. Kids used to gather on Silver Bridge and shout, “Hello Mr Dougal” and I used to give them a blast of steam back. They loved that.

I even had a visit from a Vintage Preservation Society. I think we must have had 10 in the cab and 4 hanging on the sides. They wouldn’t allow it now but there wasn’t the Health and Safety back then.

When they knocked down Stonehouse Station, they took the remains down to the Ocean and buried down below the waters. All those signs like ‘Ticket Office, ‘Waiting Room’, ‘Ladies’, ‘Gents’, down there in the Ocean by St Cyr’s on the canal. If only I knew then what I know now …

I was made redundant in 1986 when Mrs Thatcher closed down the mines. I was offered a job on B.R. to train as a driver but fancied a change. It wasn’t until 2002 that I took over this shop. But I remembered the money there was in coal and the money I made as a kid digging for bottles with marbles. ‘Where there was dirt, there was money.’ I used to dig at Stroud Tip. It’s quite spooky when you unearth a severed Victorian porcelain doll’s head, I can tell you, when you’re looking for bottles.’

The publican from the Ale House came in,

With some finds and discoveries for Alec,

A number of clocks collectively chimed the hour,

A customer entered so I gazed around from my chair:

At lengths of railway track and signal boxes and points and levers,

And locomotives and carriages and trucks,

So much of which had been painstakingly repaired

By Alec behind the counter with file

And blow lamp and new springs and ingenuity.

He creates life and vitality from old clockwork,

And life and vitality from his memory too:

‘Down in John Street, early in the morning,

See the little engines all in a row,

Alec with his green flag, Blows upon his whistle,

Peep, peep, peep And away they go.’

‘

Between the Lines

BETWEEN THE LINES

BY RICHARD DRY

I grew up in the 1970s in Stonehouse, just off Oldends Lane on the edge of the Park Estate, smack-bang in the middle between two main railway lines. Looking north from my bedroom window, the Stroud to Gloucester line sat raised up on an embankment to the right, while on the left the Bristol to Gloucester line ran at ground level. Behind our house between the lines was the recreation ground – the Rec – complete with Stonehouse Magpies football ground. Beyond that was a small farm, and beyond that, a mile or so away, a scrubby no-man’s land that us kids called Ants Bank. Peppered with ant hills (hence the name), stunted hawthorn bushes and animal bones, Ants Bank tapered to a point where the two lines met; the Stroud line gradually descending to meet the Bristol. For a 10-year-old kid it was a thrilling place to be. The closer to the convergence, the more exposed we were. When pinging sounds from the tracks alerted us to approaching trains, we dived for cover behind the nearest bush. To stand between the lines where they joined was almost a rite of passage.

As I recall, traffic on the Stroud line consisted predominantly of passenger trains: a mixture of intercity Class 47s and local 3-carriage diesel multiple units, or ‘Bug Sets’ as we disparagingly called them. The Bristol line was busier, and carried more freight. I remember purposeful-looking Class 45 Peaks hauling long double-deck wagons loaded with new cars and vans from factories in the Black Country. And occasionally there was a coal train, which slowed as it approached, ready to pull into sidings behind our estate. Because here was the coal yard, and spanning it all the steel-and-timber Silver Bridge. We spent hours on and around that footbridge, watching in fascination as a little black shunter marshalled the wagons, or, when there was no-one around, scaling the fence and clambering over the filthy wagons or looking for slow-worms under the lumps of concrete that lay strewn about beside the tracks. Most exciting of all was to lie flat on our bellies, heads poking out of the bridge latticework as a train thundered beneath, its roof almost close enough to touch. The bridge rattled and shook, and we were slapped in the face with hot, cloying diesel fumes. And we loved it!

Clearly visible from the Silver Bridge was the Oldends Lane crossing, which was originally manned by a surly bloke whose miserable lot it was to physically close and open four large hinged gates day-in, day-out to the relentless demands of the timetable. In the later 1970s, both the man and his little hut disappeared, to be replaced by automated barriers and a raucous jangling bell. I dread to think what it was like for people living nearer the crossing, because that bell kept us awake at night for weeks before we got used to it, and even then it remained a peripheral irritation. But the sound of a passing train was never that. Far from it. In fact, to this day I find it somehow comforting; a subliminal reassurance that in spite of everything the world is still turning, still going about its business.

Pride comes before a Fall

You know the shop in John Street with all the bottles and jars and bikes and signs outside, and all the vintage toy railway engines inside: all those toy trucks and carriages and level crossings and signals and oh so much more. The one by Duffel and opposite the falafel takeaway.

Well, a very interesting man called Alec owns that shop and he is very good at repairing old train sets. He also has some very interesting railway stories.

Here is one of them. I hope you enjoy reading it or listening to it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It’s a true story

Alec used to be a train driver in the days when coal was a very important fuel for people to keep warm in their homes and as a source of power to keep the wheels of industry turning. Alec worked for the National Coal Board at Stonehouse, going up and down the line used by the old Dudbridge Donkey. His train comprised trucks with twelve different types of coal and Alec would deposit the coal into twelve different hoppers at a siding with a long coal dust blackened conveyor belt. He would also stop at the diesel fuel tank to fill up his thirsty locomotive. It was hard work for that 0-4-0 diesel shunter!

Alec’s locomotive was built in 1945 when this country was still at war, until the spring and summer at last brought peace. It was a sturdy locomotive, built to last, and when Alec first took control in the hot summer of 1976, he felt as happy as Larry. The diesel then was painted jet black and its name was ‘Mr. Useful’. Alec loved that locomotive so much that one day in another hot summer, when there wasn’t so much demand for coal, Alec bought some paint after finishing his shift.

The next day he set to work, carefully painting ‘Mr. Useful’ in a splendid green and yellow livery. It was also decided to rename the engine and so he was re-christened ‘Dougal’. Dougal was very pleased with his new name and very pleased with his new coat of paint. “Now I am not just useful but also very handsome,” he said to himself as he set out from the siding next day.

The boys and girls who gathered on the bridge to watch Mr Useful pass beneath were astonished and delighted to see this new, gleaming locomotive. Richard Dry, the Stonehouse boy, had been up betimes at the siding and had spotted that sombre Mr Useful was now a gleaming green and yellow Dougal. He told all his friends on the bridge all about it and they all shouted together, “Good morning, Mr Dougal!” Dougal gave them a toot on the horn and a puff of smoke to greet them back.

Everybody loved the sight of Mr Dougal – but, unfortunately, so did Dougal. He began to admire himself when he caught a flash of his reflection in a window pane or shining steel. He began to get ideas above his station. “What am I doing here, shunting dirty trucks of coal?”, he would mutter to himself as he trundled up and down the line. “Dudbridge Donkey line, indeed! Me?”

Ah! The deadly sin of Pride! Dougal began to lord it over the trucks: “I should be on the main line, don’t you know? Pulling the Cheltenham Flyer from Paddington should be my station in life. I don’t know what I’m doing here with you dirty urchin trucks. Do you remember that winter’s day when Alec left you and me in the siding with your trucks full of coal? And the next day when Alec came to my cab, there were footprints in the snow where miscreant ne’er do wells had clambered all over you and pilfered the coal. And you didn’t say a word against them. I bet it was that Richard Dry and his chums. But I shan’t put up with that any more. Oh no. It’s Paddington and the main line for me while you gather grime in the siding.”

The trucks sniggered and mocked Dougal’s swollen head and whispered amongst themselves conspiratorially. They all smiled with satisfaction: they were sure they had a fool-proof plan.

Alec, of course, was blissfully unaware of all of this. He continued to smile his contented smile as he went through Dougal’s gears, taking Dougal through his paces, beaming at the children on the bridge with a cheerful wave of the hand … until that fateful day …

Now it so happened that Richard Dry was sitting on the fence by the siding just as the trucks were hatching their plan. Richard had heard every word of their whispered plotting! He knew he couldn’t rush down the line to tell the foreman as that would be trespassing. He made his way to the foreman’s hut legally, but circuitously and laboriously. And alas! When he got there, the foreman’s hut was bare! He was too late: the foreman had left and Alec had already clocked on for his shift.

You might remember that Dougal was a National Coal Board locomotive but operated on a line owned and maintained by British Railways. The man from B.R. had just come out the day before to check the points and oil the levers for the points. The trouble was that the man had a bad cold that day and couldn’t think straight. He greased all the points levers on the main line but forgot to oil the points lever for the trucks and Dougal’s siding.

But back to Alec after clocking on. He wandered down the line to Dougal and as he had to change the points, he pulled the lever. But he was in a hurry as he was a bit late and it was dark and gloomy and Alec needed to get Dougal ready for his chores. Alec pulled the lever but as it hadn’t been oiled, it was a bit stiff, and it stuck, unbeknown to Alec, half-way. In consequence, the railway lines were not fully aligned from siding to main line.

This was also unbeknown to Dougal and unbeknown to the trucks. The trucks decided to hatch their plan and started to push and shove and clatter, laughing to themselves, when to their surprise, and Alec’s amazement when he peered from his cab, the trucks went high up into the air and then clattered down with a terrible din upon sleepers and railway line and ballast and embankment. Bedlam! Chaos! A derailment!

The trucks groaned and felt guilty, for, of course, they thought they had caused the awful mishap with a mischievous prank. Alec had no time for remorse. He walked briskly down the line to tell the foreman about the disaster. The foreman wasted no time in telephoning British Railways who wasted no time in sending down a crane to put matters right: railway sleepers and lines and trucks and Dougal all put in their right place and the right way up – all ship-shape and Stonehouse fashion.

Dougal didn’t sleep a wink that night for if such a mishap could occur when moving at such a slow gait, what might happen if he were to pull the Cheltenham Flyer from Paddington at express speed? Traumatising nightmares followed. There was only one thing to do.

He decided to apologise to the trucks for his vanity and would they have him back as their friend again? The trucks, under the illusion that they had caused the derailment, delightedly shouted, “Yes,” in unison.

And so, in short, they might have all lived happily ever after – if only the mines hadn’t been closed. But that, my friends, is another story for another time. And so, we say, “Good night. Sleep tight. God bless Alec, and Richard, and Dougal, and the trucks.” And I think we know the moral of the story, don’t we children?

Stroudwater 1825 and Gloucester 2025

The spring and summer two hundred years ago

Saw a sustained strike by the Stroudwater weavers

To protect their standard of living

In the face of wage cuts and price rises.

Two hundred years later, in Gloucester,

Phlebotomists have been on strike

For over two hundred days:

The longest strike in the history of the NHS.

Skilled workers but the lowest-paid in the NHS,

Women asking for fair pay for their care and service,

And with every day that passes in this campaign,

Prices in the shops keep on rising.

You can show your support for them today

By emailing or writing to your MP;

Making space and time to visit the picket line

Up the road and railway line at Gloucester Hospital,

Or digging deep in your pocket if you can

To contribute to their strike fund.

So let us remember the Stroudwater weavers

With a show of solidarity with the Gloucester phlebotomists:

This is an act of appropriate commemoration

That will stir the waters of the mill ponds,

And send a message of unity through space and time:

Stroudwater and Gloucester conjoined:

Victory to the Phlebotomists of Gloucester!

Fair pay for phlebotomists

1825 STROUDWATER WEAVERS’ RIOTS BICENTENARY COMMEMORATION WALK

1825 STROUDWATER WEAVERS’ RIOTS BICENTENARY COMMEMORATION

Saturday November 15th. Meet outside The Prince Albert at noon for a commemorative walk of some five or six miles maximum along the River Frome and the canal before climbing up towards Amberley and thence back to The Prince Albert. Readings along the way. A free explanatory leaflet so that walkers can follow the history of 1825 themselves in the future. After the walk, an informal ‘seminar’ in The Prince Albert: a pubinar?

The Stroudwater Weavers’ Riots of 1825 were an important moment in trade union history – and not just locally but nationally too. The strikes were against a lowering of rates for weavers from employers with community punishments for those who broke the strike. The action and history deserve to be remembered and commemorated this year: the bicentenary. Thousands were involved in the action of the summer of 1825 and, in consequence, many were sent to prison.

But there is also evidence of trade union unity in that summer of 1825 that went beyond weavers to other occupational groups. Indeed, four years later in 1829, the government sent a spy down to Stroud to infiltrate a trade union ceremony involving a secret oath … if this event had happened just another few years later then Stroud might well be remembered and conjoined with Tolpuddle in trade union history …

Radical Stroud is grateful for the support of UNITE 007 Gloucester Branch in putting on this and associated events, exhibitions, research, leaflets and more discursive or creative writing. So grateful. Past and Present conjoined.

1825 Stroudwater Weavers’ Riots: A Narrative & Analysis

Old Wives’ Tales and the 1825 Stroudwater Riots

There are two sides to every coin

Still waters run deep

Let those who are without sin cast the first stone

A new baptism and a washing away of sins

A good deep draught of Adam’s Ale

‘We took him by his dishonest hand,

We kissed both cheek and chin,

We wandered to the waterside

And we gently pushed him in.’

LTC ROLT 1944

‘There is something indescribably forlorn about these abandoned waterways; like old ruined houses or silent mills, they are haunted by the bygone life and toil which has left its deathless, eloquent mark upon them. Just as in old houses the worn steps are the memorial of many vanished feet, so on the canals it is the grooves worn by the towing-lines in the rotting lock beams or the crumbling brickwork of bridges that bring the past to life.
Most beautiful and most tragic of all is the old Thames and Severn Canal, climbing up the Golden Valley between great hills that wear their beechwoods like a mane.’

The Mill Pond

When you sit by the mute, still, mill race,
With swallows swooping low over a surface
Like glass, it’s easy to miss the water’s whispers.
I don’t mean the oozing and splashes,
The swish of the fish or the wind in the rushes,
I mean the tales of long ago when weir
And sluice meant a spuming spate of power,
A circuit of cog, belt, loom and jenny,
A revolution of the water wheels,
A pandemonium of 5 valley hammer-noise.

I laughed then in the face of precocious steam,
Bade weavers leave their homes to come to me,
Sprung cycles of boom and workhouse bust,
Told workmen to form combinations,
Threw weavers who undercut them into the waters,

Felt the red coats’ horses’ hooves pound the ground,
Forced spinners to emigrate to New South Wales
Or lodge in hulks on their way to Botany Bay,
Saw coal black gold shift on cut and railway,
Fought a forlorn battle with chimney’s steam,
Felt weed-dank choke my wooden-wheels,
Then knew my time was past.

So shed a mournful tear and took my vow of silence.

The Tow Path

When the wind blows cold in winter,
When the sun sets steep behind the Severn,
When the herons keep their unremitting watch,
And roosting cries cut the twilight sky,
It’s hard to see the outlines of striking weavers
Making their way along the canal to Chalford,
Laden with the beams of looms of erstwhile friends,
Ducking the strike-breakers in a carnival

Of Skimmington rough music censure

Of those who had broken community custom

(A ‘tumultuous and riotous assembly’ to the law).

It’s hard to catch the delighted cries and laughter,

And the pleas for mercy from the men who were marked.

The reeds and rushes keep their secrets,
The soughing of the wind masks all of that;
And the ghosts make their way unheeded,

Right next to you on the tow path.

Writ in Water

John Keats died four years before the Stroudwater Riots.

His epitaph reads:

‘Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.’

Here lie the Tales of some of those whose Names

were writ in water in Stroudwater in 1825

William Fletcher

Of the parish of Minchinhampton,

‘Violently assaulted and ducked’

‘Now in a very weak state and not expected to live’.

William Clark

‘At the parish of Woodchester’

‘Violently assaulted and ducked’.

William Lamburn

‘Of the parish of Stroud’

Thrown ‘into a pond … and at the peril of his life …

Therein for a long space of time’.

George Teakle

‘At the parish of Woodchester’

Ducked.

William Saunders

‘At the parish of Stroud’

‘Violently assaulted’ and ducked.

John Cooke

‘At Chalford’

Thrown ‘into the canal there

to the imminent danger of his life’.

George Adlum

Weaver ‘at Chalford in the parish of Bisley’

Violently assaulted, dragged to the canal

Thrown ‘into the water

to the imminent danger of his life’.

Here lie the Names of some of Those

Sent to Horsley Gaol and Northleach House of Correction

Who writ others’ Names in water in Stroudwater in 1825

Or were indicted for Riot & Assault

George Fletcher aged 28

Riot and assault

3 months Horsley

Luke Robins aged 41

Who ducked William Fletcher,

3 months Horsley

Thomas Osbourne aged 28

Who ducked William Clark,

Also riot and assault

2 years Northleach

William Fitting aged 34 & Peter Workman

Riot

3 months Horsley

William Pickford aged 20

Riot and assault

12 months Northleach

Isaac Nutt aged 24

Riot and assault

12 months Northleach

Joseph Mint aged 19

Riot and assault

12 months Northleach

Joseph Hawkins aged 20

Assault

Verdict not recorded

George Heskins aged 35

Riot and assault

9 months Northleach

Richard Preene

Riot and assault

6 months Northleach

Thomas Weir

Riot and assault

3 months Horsley

The 1825 Stroudwater Riots

The Bicentenary

A Reflection and a Speculation

John Loosley’s 1993 booklet The Stroudwater Riots of 1825 contains a judicious selection of historical records presented, pretty well, without judgmental comment, so that the reader can reach their own conclusion about causation, guilt, responsibility etc. I revisited the booklet this summer, some fifteen years after my last read, as initial preparation for this year’s bicentenary and a re-reading has prompted some of the following reflections and speculation.

The first chapter starts thus: ‘The background to the unrest of 1825 shows that the riots were not a sudden storm in an otherwise peaceful landscape’; the text then explores the impact of mechanisation (Spinning Jennies and looms in mills) ‘since Nathaniel Watts had first introduced the flying shuttle at Wallbridge Mill, Stroud, in the 1790s.’

The author then looks at examples of direct action in the immediately preceding generations: the food riots of 1766, the weavers in 1756 and 1803 (“Some evil disposed person … destroyed three cloths … in the rack grounds of … Rodborough and … nine more … in … Woodchester”; a reward of over £600 was offered; a penitent Joseph Stephens was hanged.).

We might add the threatening letter at Uley in 1795; the fear of the likes of Lord Berkeley that economic grievances could become politicised (‘God Save Great Thomas Paine!’). Please see https://radicalstroud.co.uk/class-conflict-in-uley-1795/ and

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/god-save-great-thomas-paine/ for further details and context.

There was also a tradition of proto-Luddism in the Stroudwater area and the cloth districts of west Wiltshire. This threatening letter from 1802 gives a flavour of that melancholy time: “Wee hear in Formed that you got Sheer in mee sheens and if You Don’t Pull them Down in a Forght Nights Time Wee will pull them Down for you … And Bee four Almighty God we will pull down all the Mills that heave Heany Shearing mee Shjens in.” This link also gives a flavour of the time in Wiltshire:

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/thomas-helliker-the-trowbridge-martyr/

What we don’t know and possibly never will is how many of the local lower orders were ‘politicised’ by the republican ideas of Tome Paine’s The Rights of Man; all we can do is try to rescue them ‘from the enormous condescension of posterity’. But it’s true to say that the generations that experienced war, industrialisation, enclosure, poverty and exploitation were constantly creating a sense of alarm in successive governments in London: this is the ‘Was the United Kingdom close to Revolution 1815-48?’ debate (see this link https://radicalstroud.co.uk/peterloo-and-revolution/).

We can see, therefore, that there are both local and national contexts to the weavers’ action in Stroudwater in 1825 – but there is also an international one: the prosperity of the region (Stroud scarlet cloth for uniforms for example) was tied not just to the aggrandisement of the East India Company but also to the martial nature of the spreading British Empire, and Great Power wars, particularly with republican and Napoleonic France from 1793-1815. Napoleon may have met his Waterloo at Waterloo but peace also brought poverty to the nation in 1815. But before we leave the international links to our locality (so-called ‘glocal’ history), here is a list of colonial conflicts at the end of the 18^th and beginning of the 19^th centuries (wars that boosted demand for uniforms and cloth): the West Indies, the Kandyan Wars, Australia, Ireland, Sierra Leone, the Ashanti Wars, Turkey, Cape Colony, the Persian Gulf, America, Borneo, and Java.

Well, that sets that scene. Now back to 1825: and first of all, the Combination Acts. And here we immediately see what a false dichotomy it is to separate ‘politics’ and ‘economics’: ‘political economy’ would be a better term to use. Why? Well, the Combination Acts of 1799-1800 illegalised trade unions and collective bargaining (as even AI says on a perfunctory search). The act was passed ‘in response to fears of worker unrest and political revolution’ … QED. Political Economy.

The so-called ‘Liberal Tories’ of the 1820s (as opposed to the ‘Repressive Tories’ 1815-20) repealed the Combination Acts in 1824 after some assiduous campaigning by Francis Place and Joseph Hume. But the working-class did not meekly accept the dictates of the new emerging capitalism, however, and a wave of strikes followed. In consequence, a new act was passed in 1825 that allowed trade unions the right to exist but illegalised action that would render them effective (striking!).

Right: now we are here in 1825, let’s start the Stroudwater narrative arc:

28.4.25 ‘in almost forty-eight hours all the shuttles were laid in the silent grave’. The Gloucester Journal 16^th May 1825 commented: ‘The cessation from labour commenced on Friday 29^th April and on the Monday following the weavers assembled in considerable numbers at Cainscross where they were met by several of the Manufacturers: but not coming to any satisfactory arrangement shuttles to the amount of several hundred were instantly collected’.

The Gloucester Journal 16^th May 1825 continued thus: ‘Meetings of more than 3000 weavers were held on subsequent days on Break Heart and Stinchcombe Hills and on Monday last they congregated on Selsley Hill to the number of not less than 6000 … On each of these occasions several of their employers agreed to advance the prices but a number sufficient to satisfy the weavers not having yet consented to their terms another meeting was held on Wednesday last at Nympsfield when deputations of workmen from several parishes attended and it was strenuously urged that they should resume their labour for those Gentlemen inclined to accede to the new prices. The majority however obstinately resisted this reasonable proposition until the whole of the Manufacturers had expressed their compliance and the business consequently remains unsettled. But it is justly due to the weavers to add that their conduct throughout has been orderly and respectful to their superiors and they gained general approbation by their quiet and peaceable demeanour even when assembled in the greatest numbers.’

John Loosley commented that “The strike was enforced by … strong pickets visiting the weavers in their homes and demanding the surrender of their shuttles thus rendering them perforce idle and it lasted three months. Towards the end … strong action was taken against those who showed signs of weakening. The usual practice was to take the beam out of the offender’s loom and mounting him astride it, take him to the nearest Mill pond or canal and tumble him into it. So many suffered this way in Chalford (and violence was threatened) that the magistrates sent a Troop of Horse and read the Riot Act.’ (Apparently, the soldiers ‘were stationed between Blisse and Tayloe Mills and their horses were stabled by the Coffee tavern/the Company’s Arms.’ Weaving in the Stroud Valley during the 19^th Century by A.Phelps)

A digression or two now before we return to the narrative arc: The carnivalesque placing of a miscreant backwards (often with rough music beating of pots and pans) was a signal feature of the ‘Skimmington’ whereby locals who transgressed community values were lampooned (as in Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge). What was a tumultuous and riotous assembly from the point of view of the ruling class, could, in fact, contain structure and order, in a subversion of the theatre of traditional bewigged courts of law. Secondly, the atmosphere at Chalford appears to be very different from when ‘the most dangerous man in England’, that ‘radical fox’, Citizen John Thelwall, stayed at Chalford in the summer of 1797. He portrays an almost Edenic community:

‘… pleasant haunts! brakes, bourns,

And populous hill, and dale, and pendant woods;
And you, meandering streams, and you, ye cots
And hamlets, that, with many a whiten’d front,
Sprinkle the woody steep; or lowlier stoop,
Thronging, gregarious, round the rustic spire …
Nor, as yet,
Towers from each peaceful dell the unwieldy pride
Of Factory over-grown; where Opulence
Dispeopling the neat cottage, crowds his walls
…to the yoke
Of unremitting Drudgery …
Therefore I love Chalford, and ye vales
Of Stroud, irriguous …’

Now back to the narrative arc: within days of the start of the strike, the membership of the Stroud Valley Weavers Union had rocketed from 400 to 5,000. This body was divided into committees with ‘Delegates’ who presented ‘Manufacturers’ with demands for a just price for their labour. On ‘rejection’, in the words of John Loosley, ‘almost all the weavers struck’, the next direct action being the collection of shuttles from the looms of the workshops of weavers who had carried on at their labours, and then after ‘threats’, ‘unfinished cloths were also forcibly taken … and after being triumphantly paraded about, were contemptuously thrown down on the premises of the Employers’.

‘The following account of specific acts of violence committed by the Weavers is extracted from the Depositions taken before the Magistrates’: 31.5.25 Edwin Perrin was one such ‘unfortunate’ suspected of working for the Marlings at too low a price. He was called on by some ’30 or 40 weavers’, and, when he was at Ham Mill, he faced the collective wrath of some 200 weavers.

On June 2^nd, he was visited by some 500 weavers who took away his work and equipment while two hours later, 600-700 took over with a march to Ham Mill. One of Marling’s men ended up in the brook but the next marked man managed (with poetic (in)justice) to hide in the Counting House.

The next day, June 3^rd: Vatch Mills witnessed the arrival of some 200, some of whom ‘held sticks over the heads of Mr Peter Wyatt and Mr George L Wyatt, and threatened to knock out their brains and to destroy the mill.’ The next day (4.6.25), P Wyatt was ‘assaulted by a mob’ in front of the Magistrates Office and members of the ‘mob’ also ducked a number of their opponents ‘in Mr Holbrow’s fish pond’. Around 3,000 also gathered at Vatch Mill and seized unfinished cloth woven below rates.

4.6.25 was a busy day: 29 special constables were sworn in (’chiefly clothiers’) while ‘Manufacturers presented a written request’ to Justices of the Peace for an address to the Home Secretary for ‘a body of Military to be stationed in the Neighbourhood to assist the Civil Power in protecting their property.’ The ‘Woollen Manufacturers’ who signed this representation were William Stanton & Sons (Stafford Mill), Robert P Pelly (Hyde Court) Harris Stephen & Co Willam Lewis (Brimscombe Mills) Henry Wyatt & Co (Vatch Mills) Geo. Lewis (Brimscombe Mills) Jos. Partdidge & Co (Bowbridge Mills) Wm. Jn. Wood Chas. Glover Wm. Marling & Son (Ham Mills).

The focus for the next stage in this formal procedure is Spillmans Court and the letter from the Justices of the Peace, Henry Burgh and Peter Hawker, to the Home Office. They state in their introduction that ‘the weavers are soon become so violent that we think it almost impossible to have an Offender lodged in safe custody without military assistance … Manufacturers consider all their property in most imminent danger.’

5.6.25 Orders sent for ‘a squadron of the 10^th Hussars’ to be sent to Stroud. And here comes the next letter in this narrative: from T. Jones Graeme, Major 10^th Royal Hussars, Bristol ‘…William Playne, Longfords Mill, Minchinhampton from Stroud visited on me this morning to report serious event outrages which had occurred near Stroud … I think it is my duty to make this communication to you, Sir, and to request that you should let me be furnished with instructions on the subject from His Royal Highness the Commander in Chief …’

‘Saint Monday’, June 6^th, saw weavers who undercut ducked in ‘the Brook in Nailsworth bottom by a large mob’, while ‘at Stroud a mob of about 2,000 continued to duck persons in Mr Holbrow’s fish pond’. The Hussars arrived.

The next day, 7.6.25: ‘the mob was as great as on the preceding day and committed many acts of violence. Some acts of intimidation were also committed by Masons towards others of their trade who had not struck for wages.’

Bristol June 7^th 1825

‘Sir … I received orders yesterday morning … to detach one squadron of the regiment under my command to Stroud which was immediately carried into effect. I suppose it arrived at Stroud by 8 o’clock last night.’ T. Jones Graeme, Major 10^th Royal Hussars

June 8^th 1825 J.C. Wallington, Captain commanding detachment Royal Hussars: ‘the squadron under my command was called out yesterday evening to disperse a mob collected in the town, which proceeded to acts of violence. We accomplished this object with some trouble including the slash of the sword only. We made prisoners of some of the most disorderly, no accident occurred. I despatched Lieutenant Dent with 20 men to Chalford … to protect a factory which the mob had threatened to destroy … This morning I have sent another party with the High Constable to execute warrants against some of the ringleaders. The town seems perfectly quiet today … The Clothiers met yesterday and agreed to give the weavers the increase of price they demanded. The Masons, Carpenters and Millwrights have also struck for more wages.’

10.6.25 “On the 10^th of June a paper was vended at Stroud signed ‘The True British Weavers’ purporting to be a relation of events that had lately occurred in the Neighbourhood respecting the Weavers and the Clothiers – the paper had no Printer’s name on it – the vendor of the paper (Henry Beeseley) was apprehended and committed to prison as a vagrant.” (G.R.O.)

13.6.25 The Gloucester Journal

‘JOHN RUDGE weaver OBADIAN GARDINER weaver ENOCH WEAR weaver NATHAN PEARSE weaver ENOCH STEPHENS weaver JAMES BAXTER jun weaver JOHN TURK weaver SAMUEL GARDINER weaver JOHN STEPHENS weaver JOSEPH HUNT weaver THOMAS HUNT weaver THOMAS STEPHENS jun weaver JAMES CROOK weaver AMOS HUNT weaver JOHN BARTLETT weaver JANO CORNISH weaver WILLIAM POULSON weaver

The above persons are charged upon Oath with having on Thursday 2^nd June and on several successive days riotously and tumultuously assembled together at Chalford in the Parish of Bisley and Minchinhampton in this county and in Company with many others at present unknown committed acts of violence whereby several Individuals were much injured and the Peace of the Neighbourhood greatly disturbed.’

June 15^th: Henry Burgh’s letter to the Home Secretary portrays the scene: “on Tuesday the 7^th large quantities of weavers, masons and others assembled and proceeded to many acts of violence, which obliged me to read the Proclamation against tumultuous assemblies.” The assembly did not disperse, however, “and having thrown stones at the Military as well as those who had come forward to assist the Civil Power,” the troops were “requested” to “disperse” the assembly “which was effectively done in a short time in as humane manner as possible.” Several were arrested and some “committed to Gloucester Gaol.”

He went on to say that he had printed a notice “to convince the People that the Combination Laws are not repealed and I have put it into execution against several Weavers and Masons for intimidating Workmen. The county is now quiet …” He adds that appeals for help, sent by the weavers to Wiltshire, the districts around Wotton-under-Edge, Dursley and Uley, have received no support.

18.7.25 The Gloucester Journal reported on the trial of 21 men (‘mostly weavers’). The defence ‘contrasted the comfortable situation of the weavers many years ago … with the wretched circumstances under which these individuals now stood … and proceeded to draw an affecting picture of the state of poverty to which this meritorious class had been reduced … after their daily labour of perhaps sixteen or eighteen hours, they returned to their cottages in a state of misery and dejection, with a pittance insufficient to provide for those dependent upon them …’

To no avail, alas, … remember the Luddites they were told …remember some of their sentences of transportation and of capital punishment … ‘As it was’, the conduct of some of those before him ‘had on occasions been marked by acts of excessive violence; and it was his duty to tell them, that, had death ensued to any of those individuals who had been so severely ducked, it would have been deemed murder, and they would have been tried for their lives at the Assizes, and in all probability have suffered death upon the scaffold! But most fortunately for them, no such fatal termination had occurred.’

In consequence: Thos. Osbourne two years; Wm. Pickford, John Mint and Isaac Nutt one year; George Heskins nine months; Rd. Preen six months in the House of Correction at Northleach; Wm. Fitting, Peter Workman, Geo. Fletcher, Luke Robins, Thos. Weir three months in the House of Correction at Horsley and all to be kept to hard labour.’

31^st August 1825

John Williams D.D. Minister of Stroud, Gloucestershire to the Home Secretary asking for clemency to be shown to William Fitting, serving three months imprisonment at Horsley with hard labour:

‘On the Saturday preceding the arrival of the Cavalry, there were about 2,000 weavers assembled in the Town, and a very large concourse of them, before the door of the Clerk of the Magistrates, demanding the release of prisoners … On enquiring, I found that the prisoners were dismissed respecting whom the tumult was made, as the aggression was on the part of the Master rather than the Men. But Fitting was there detained on a distinct affair, having been seen among certain disorderly persons at Ham Mill, in this Parish, but was not actually engaged in any mischief … but was present with others who were doing mischief. He is a young man of a weak constitution and his wife has lately been confined with her first child, whose health has been impaired from the mother’s feelings, for the situation of her husband. Fitting’s health has also been such as to render his discontinuance at the Tread-Mill advisable …’

Trinity Quarter Sessions 1825

WILLIAM PEGLER (40), ADAM GLASTONBURY (30) WILLIAM STEPHENS (30) Indicted for riot and assault by William Fletcher – discharged after being out on bail.

GEORGE FLETCHER (28) ditto – guilty 3 months at Horsley.

LUKE ROBINS (41) charged ‘with having, on the 6^th day of June now instant, riotously and tumultuously assembled at the parish of Minchinhampton, with a great concourse of persons, and then and there violently assaulted and ducked one William Fletcher, who is now in a very weak state and not expected to live’ – 3 months at Horsley.

THOMAS OSBOURNE (28) ‘charged on the oath of William Clark, with having on the 6^th day of June instant, at the parish of Woodchester, with divers other persons riotously and tumultuously assembled, and violently assaulted and ducked the said William Clark … guilty on 2 indictments for riots and assaults’ – 2 years.

WILLIAM FITTING & PETER WORKMAN (34) ‘guilty on indictment for riot on the prosecution of Thomas Marling’ – 3 months Horsley.

ABRAHAM SMITH (51) ‘charged on oaths of Thomas Marling and another, with having on the 2^nd day of June instant, at the parish of Stroud, riotously and tumultuously assembled with a great concourse of persons … and threatened to do the said Thomas Marling some bodily injury … Indicted for riot on the prosecution of Thomas Marling – discharged.’

WILLIAM PICKFORD (20) ‘charged … with having, with sundry other persons, on the 4^th day of June now instant, at Stroud aforesaid, riotously assembled and committed a violent assault upon … William Lamburn, by throwing him into a pond, and at the peril of his life continuing him therein for a long space of time:- And also charged him with having, on the 4^th day of June instant, at the parish of Stroud, with sundry other persons, to the number of 3000 upwards, riotously assembled before the woollen factory of Messrs. Henry Wyatt, Peter Wyatt, and George Lingard Wyatt , and used threats to do the said George Lingard Wyatt some bodily harm, to the great terror and annoyance of His Majesty’s liege subjects’- 12 months Northleach.

CHARLES JAMES (22) ‘charged on the oath of Joseph Blackmore, with having, on the 7^th day of June instant, (after proclamation had been made about an hour for all persons to disperse …) proceeded to a pond, in the parish of Stroud, and assisted in ducking a person therein, to the imminent peril of his life. Indicted for riot and assault … discharged.’

ISAAC NUTT (24) ‘charged on the oath of George Teakle, with having, on the 6^th day of June now inst., at the parish of Woodchester, with a number of other persons, riotously and tumultuously assembled, and violently assaulted and ducked the said George Teakle’ Guilty of riot and assault – 12 months at Northleach.

JAMES ELLIOTT (18) ‘charged … with having assembled with divers other persons, in the town of Stroud, for the space of one hour upwards, after proclamation had been made for all persons to disperse … Indicted for riot and assault’ – discharged.

JOHN MINT (19) ‘charged … with having, on the 4^th day of June inst., at the parish of Stroud, riotously and tumultuously assembled with a great concourse of persons and then and there violently assaulted the said William Saunders, by ducking him in a pond. Found guilty … for riot and assault ‘– 12 months at Northleach.

JOSEPH HAWKINS (20) ‘’charged … with having, on Thursday, the 2^nd day of June inst. with divers other persons unknown, riotously and tumultuously assembled at Chalford, and did there aid, assist, and abet the rest of the crowd in violently assaulting one John Cooke, of the parish of Bisley, weaver, and throwing him into the canal there, to the imminent danger of his life, and to the great disturbance of the peace of the neighbourhood.’ (Verdict not recorded)

JOSEPH MAYO (20) charged … with having, on Monday last , the 6^th day of June instant with divers other persons … riotously and tumultuously assembled together at Chalford, and then and there aided, abetted and assisted in violently assaulting one George Adlum, weaver, and afterwards dragging the said George Adlum to the canal and throwing him into the water, to the imminent danger of his life, and aiding and assisting the said mob to committing various acts tending to disturb the peace of the neighbourhood.’ – discharged.

GEORGE HESKINS (35) ‘charged … with having, on the 6^th day of June instant, assembled in of Stroud, with a great concourse of persons and then and there assaulted Robert Horton.’ Guilty of riot and assault – 9 months.

RICHARD PREENE ‘found guilty … for riot and assault’ – 6 months at Northleach.

THOMAS WEARE ‘found guilty … for riot and assault’ – 3 months at Horsley.

JOHN CHANDLER ‘Indicted for riot and assault’ – discharged.

Here follows a first-person piece I wrote around 2012 on reading John’s booklet a second time. I wanted to create something compelling, foregrounding women (I used my daughters’ names), playing around with creative non-fiction and WG Sebaldian documentary fiction. I little thought that people would take it as true … I remember how nervous I was when I read this piece out at a history talk at Oakridge and well remember the relief and joy when John who was in the audience told me how much he liked the piece.

These are my memories of what I saw and did, together with others in the Stroudwater Valleys in 1825. I know I am supposed to show remorse but I cannot dissemble. I have no remorse.

My name is Alice Ayliffe Bingham and I am 25 years old.

It was after Eastertide, at the end of April, when we had enough of not having enough. Me and my sisters Charlotte, Sarah and Elisabeth and my mother are spinners. My brothers, Tom and Sam, and my father are weavers. We had been working ever longer time for ever cankered pennies all the year. Something needed doing.

So we laid our shuttles and looms to rest and joined the Stroud Valleys Weavers Union. I straightway joined 50 others at a congregation at Ham Mill. There was 700 of us the next day. We threw transgressors in the brook. We all joined the next assembly a few days later. 200 of us congregated at Vatch Mills. There were 3,000 of us by the following evening. We baptised more strike breakers and master clothiers’ men in Mr. Holbrow’s fish pond. I won’t name names but the same happened at Woodchester, Minchinhampton, Frogmarsh, Chalford and Bisley. It was all over Stroudwater.

The stone masons then joined in. They were angry about the Combination Acts. The carpenters and millwrights joined them too. So, the gentry swore in special constables. Then the Hussars rode in a couple of days later. When we re-congregated, they read the Riot Act. So we threw stones at them. They dispersed us with horse and swish of sabre. A friend was arrested for selling ‘The True British Weaver’, so more congregations followed: Break Heart Hill near Dursley, then 3,000 on Stinchcombe and then 6,000 on Selsley. If anyone broke the strike then we stuck them backwards on a horse and paraded them through the lanes while we all beat pots and pans in a cacophony of rejection. I think they stuck them on beams from looms in Chalford and then pushed them in the canal and brook. They read the Riot Act there too. We kept it going though, and followed up with another big congregation in Stroud at the end of August. We called for the release of our friends in prison.

This is my true and faithful account. I cannot dissemble. The Good Book tells us that we should get our bread by the sweat of our brow. We had the sweat but no bread. What could we do?

And here follows another first-person account written in the summer of 2025

What I did in 1825 in Stroudwater in the Summer

Call me Ishmael.

I’m an old man now but will try to tell you in this account my personal history in all those years gone by. But I will not be telling all and will not be revealing any names. Call me Ishmael.

I’m not proud of what I did back then as my family have always supported our fellow weavers. My father at the beginning of this century and my grand-father sometime towards the end of the last. But I’d a wife and five children and I needed a wage to bring in some sustenance and pay for a roof over our heads.

I’d been working thirteen hours a day and been in the pits of despair. I was too ashamed to attend church with the family as we look so ragged. Our bedding was shameful and wretched. Tattered, torn quilts to cover us all and straw below when my wife washed the threadbare sheets.

What follows now is what I wrote back then on pages I kept in our Bible. I can still just about read it with a candle.

It pulls at my heartstrings when I finish my labours for the day. My children crying for something to put in their mouths and the only treat we can afford them to take their little minds off the constant monotony of stale bread, mouldy cheese, greying bacon and milk is a few potatoes with a bit of flick or suet.

The children are constantly down with coughs and colds and fevers and my wife is ailing too. And she is with child. I go without food on occasions to aid her and the children but they are stinted and stunted in their growth, I think. So, when the master asked me if I could carry on at my loom through the summer of the tumult and the duckings and earn a steady pocket of coin, it was need not greed that enabled temptation to get the better of me.

But as I toiled at my labours, with my head going clickety clack with the loom, I would recite the Lord’s Prayer to keep me on the task in hand. But, then the line, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil’ echoed in my head all day and then at night too. Was it evil to feed my family? But was it evil to turn my back on lifelong friends?

I eventually arrived at the question: “Which of the two was the greater evil?” And I eventually reached the answer to that question in the dog days of August 1825.

I went to see he who shall remain anonymous to confess my sins. And said that I would duck myself three times to within an inch of my life as an act of penitence and contrition. This I duly did betwixt Chalford and Brimscombe at night under the watchful eye of the Combination. Each time, I recited in my submerged pounding mind, “I baptise thee in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”. Afterwards, I had to endure a silence whene’er I came into the company of fellow weavers and families. As soon as I arrived all conversation would cease. This lasted a month. For a month I was Ishmael cast into the wilderness.

Once the month’s sentence had passed, I was welcomed back into the fraternity and community of my hamlet. Better poor together than working alone. And better in New South Wales than Bisley said my wife.

And so, we emigrated in 1839 I think it was. And I have never looked back until this day.

These are my recollections of the summer of 1825. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Call me Ishmael.

Here Follows a Short Discourse on the term ‘The Mob’

My memory of O Level History sees my ever so posh History teacher (I was so in thrall that my handwriting changed to an echo of his) telling is that the 18^th century term ‘The Mob’ derived from In Perpetuum Mobile: constant movement, no structure, no hierarchy, no culture – a patrician view upon the lower orders: a mob. A worthless, inchoate rabble.

Next up, Edmund Burke, Bristol MP, inveterate opponent of the French Revolution, who coined the term ‘a swinish multitude’ to describe the lower orders: ‘Along with its natural protectors and guardians, learning will be cast into the mire, and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude … ‘

Reflections on the Revolution in France 1790

The great radical Thomas Spence replied with withering sarcasm with the title of his famous journal: Pig’s Meat: or Lessons for the Swinish Multitude: Published in weekly penny numbers, collected by the poor man’s advocate (an old veteran in the cause of freedom) in the course of his reading for more than twenty years. Intended to promote among the labouring part of mankind proper ideas of their situation, of their importance, and of their rights. And to convince them that their forlorn condition has not been entirely overlooked and forgotten, nor their just cause unpleaded, neither by their maker not by the best and most enlightened of men in all ages.

London: printed for T. Spence, at the hive of liberty, No. 8, Little-Turnstile, High Holborn

Now back to the House of Correction

Here Lie the Names of Men whose Names were Writ in the Surgeon’s Journal 1825-1827

(Men who had previously Writ Other Men’s Names in Water)

Northleach House of Correction Gloucestershire

GEORGE HESKINS WILLIAM PICKFORD RICHARD PREENE

ISAAC NUTT JOHN MINT THOMAS OSBOURNE

Constantly unwell with tooth ache, stomach pains, rheumatic pain, bowel complaints, incontinence, diarrhoea, and headaches.

Remedies included ‘a blister to the chest’, ‘cathartic medicine’ and ‘a sudorific’.

17 June 1826

Sent for last evening to Thomas Osbourne who was very weak and debilitated state arising I should imagine from long confinement and spare diet. I sent him a draught which he took at bedtime and he is much better today. I have ordered him half a pound of mutton for his dinner and to repeat his draft at bedtime.

9 July 1826

These men who have been confined for some length of time and sentenced to hard labour are extremely weak and languid. The diet in such cases does not appear sufficient and I am of the opinion that after long confinement (aided by depression of spirt, hard labour and low diet) the constitution of many of them may suffer materially and it is not improbable that chronic diseases may eventually ensue, which may prevent gaining their own livelihood for some time after their periods of confinement may expire.

27 Sept 1827

Several of the men complained of pain in their limbs all of which with one exception are unworthy of notice. The [Tread] mill is new to most of them and they will have pains in their lower extremities till they get accustomed to it.

Since the treadwheel has been erected the men have many of them bad colds and have complained of the work being too hard for them but they appear not to be pretty well reconciled to it. Those men who have been confined the greatest length of time are in much better health since the allowance of meat than they were before and express themselves grateful for it.’

The Gaol at Horsley 1791-1867

Priory Fields, Horsley

‘Every Prisoner, on commitment, is undressed and washed; a complete suit of County clothing is then substituted for their own, with two caps added, of black worsted, for the day, and a woollen one for the night … on the ground-floor, twelve working cells in each wing, of 7 feet by 6, and 9 feet high to the crown of the arch. On the first storey eight sleeping and four solitary cells to each wing; and on the second storey, twelve sleeping-cells, two solitary, and two for the refractory in both wings.

Each class of Prisoner is allowed a peck of coals per day, in cold weather. Their chief employment is cutting of logwood and firestick across the grain, for the use of dyers; and they have one third of their earnings …

The prisoners who work at the tread-wheel have half an hour for breakfast, and one hour for dinner, during this time they can take some air in the yard … Prisoners sentenced at the sessions are whipped here sometimes. A man comes from Tetbury to execute the sentence: the surgeon is always present …

The tread-wheel is the chief means of supplying hard labour; and breaking of stones is sometimes practised here as hard labour …’

Northleach House of Correction

The Treadmill

‘There were 5 classes of prisoner and the yard and cells were segregated according to class’: Class 1: the most “atrocious” males (who were subject to hard labour often without pay) Class 2: 1^st time offenders Class 3 males unable to pay fines or sureties Class 4 women and girls Class 5 “vagrants in foul and filthy state”.

Cells were just 1.8 metres by 2.4 metres in dimension…

1823 saw the introduction of a hand winch for grinding corn – but as Magistrates sought ever exacting hard labour, along came the treadmill with steps 8 inches high. Prisoners had to climb for 16 minutes, followed by an 8-minute walk in the yard, before returning to the treadmill. The end of the prisoners’ daily work session would have resulted in men climbing between 10 and 12,000 feet a day.

First Conclusion

All of this happened in an age when Gloucestershire had one of the highest rates of transportation in the country and Stroudwater had one of the highest rates in Gloucestershire. So, after finishing making my notes from John’s book, I thought the sentences appeared to be quite lenient – especially if it were true that some of the ducked weavers feared for their lives.

Knowing that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, I contacted Steve Poole, formerly Professor of History at UWE and this is what he messaged me:

“Hi Stuart. Well, we’re still in the era of new penitentiary-style prison building in 1825, so longer sentences than those you’ve listed might have seemed exceptional. Of course, Paul’s Gloucestershire county prison was actually a much earlier (1790s) ‘new style’ prison than most so you might have expected longer sentences there than at old gaols elsewhere in the south west. But by and large, courts still regarded prisons as holding cells and they were simply not equipped to contain felons for lengthy sentences. The big innovation of the 1820s was the treadmill – pretty much every male prisoner would have been ordered to hard labour – not a principle that would work practicably on longer sentences (prisoners would probably die from exhaustion!) So I’m not sure that these would be regarded as particularly lenient. Did they not single out one or two scapegoats on capital charges and have them transported for 7 or 14 years to discourage the others?

Steve’s question at the end focuses our minds.

Why didn’t they?

Remember William Fletcher, ‘now in a very weak state and not expected to live’ after violent assault and a ducking? Luke Robins got 3 months at Horsley for that. And John Cooke, thrown ‘into the canal … to the imminent danger of his life’ by Joseph Hawkins (Verdict not recorded)?

I’ve just checked the transportation lists, wondering about Joseph Hawkins … nope.

So, no sentences of transportation.

My brother-in-law, a retired probation worker, suggested that there could have been a possibility that the local magistrates and justices of the peace took into account the possible implications of a severe sentence: provocation rather than deterrence sort of thing. Trevor also speculated on the possibility that there could have been covert political influence on sentencing from the government in London.

Or perhaps, as Steve messaged, the punishment fitted the crime and the prison system and with no capital charges for any offender then there would be no transportation and no scapegoats to deter others in the future.

With all this in mind, let’s revisit the description of the sentencing from The Gloucester Journal, 18^th July 1825 in greater detail. ‘… The Learned Chairman, the Rev. Dr. Cooke, now proceeded to pass sentence, in an address to the prisoners, full of energy, argument, and feeling, and which, for the sake of the manufacturing class in general, we wish we could give at length to our readers. Their cases, he observed, had received the most mature and deliberate consideration from the whole Bench of Magistrates; and however anxious they might be to extend lenity to the prisoners, yet a sense of duty to the laws, to the public and to the prisoners themselves, called for a heavy visitation upon them. They had shown to what lengths they could go, in contravention of the laws and of the public peace; and by the sentence he was about to pronounce, the court was actuated, amongst other reasons, by an earnest wish to protect the prisoners against themselves. He then enlarged upon the grievous nature of the outrages which had marked their conduct – outrages which had become so alarming as to render it necessary to call in the aid of the military. But for this, probably they might have proceeded to still greater extremities, and have committed acts for which their lives might have become forfeited to the offended laws of the country.

He brought to their recollection the combination, which had been entered into by the weavers in 1803 … after that, arose the combination then well known by the name of Luddites … Most of these occurrences had originated with similar beginnings to the present, but had assumed such alarming aspects, as to call for the active interference of the Government. Special Commissions … eight rioters at Manchester, two at Chester, and eighteen in Yorkshire, paid with their lives … besides others whom it was found necessary to banish from their native land, to spend their days in exile and ignominy. As in these instances, the prisoners, in this case, unless checked by the heavy hand of the law, might have proceeded in their mad career till it had terminated in murder, or some other capital offence. As it was, their conduct had on occasions been marked by acts of excessive violence; and it was his duty to tell them, that, had death ensued to any one of those individuals who had been so severely ducked, it would have been deemed murder, and they would have been tried for their lives at the Assizes, and in all probability have suffered death upon the scaffold! But most fortunately for them, no such fatal termination had occurred. The Learned Chairman feelingly exhorted them to bear in mind the narrow escape they had, and made some pertinent and impressive observations upon the relative duties of employers and workmen. He pointed out to them the ruin which must fall upon themselves and their families, should such scenes be persisted in or renewed …’

Transportation – a Google Search

Transportation was often a punishment given to people found guilty of theft – 80 per cent of transported convicts were guilty of theft. Most were repeat offenders.

Transportation was also a punishment given to protesters. Some of the Luddites, Chartists, Rebecca Rioters, Irish campaigners, and, of course, the Tolpuddle Martyrs were transported. Only 15 per cent of transported convicts were women. Many judges used transportation as an alternative to the death penalty and a way to relieve overcrowded prisons. Sentences were for seven years, 14 years, or life.

Only 1.2 per cent of transported convicts were Welsh. Around 69 per cent were English, 25 per were Irish and 5 per cent were Scottish.

Final Conclusion

John Loosley: ‘There was trouble again at Chalford in 1828 and at Dunkirk and Longfords in 1834. Nationally this period of labour history reached its climax in the early 1830s with Robert Owen’s Grand National Consolidated Trades Union. Notice that his principle of uniting all trades under one banner was briefly foreshadowed in Stroud when other trades struck at the height of the demonstrations.’ (My italics)

A consequential thought: if the Stroudwater Riots had happened some ten years later after the Captain Swing agricultural riots of 1830 and the riots that accompanied the passage of the Great Reform Act 1830-32 and, of course, the Tolpuddle Martyrs of 1834 … would the sentences have been different?

A re-read of Jennifer Tann’s Wool and Water added strength to that food for thought. Here we are in 1829 in Stroud: “The Stroud magistrates were nearly all clothiers and were sufficiently alarmed to attract the attention of the Home Office which sent a spy, one Frances Fagin, a Bow Street runner, to inveigle himself into one of the weaver’s lodges and report back. He observed a theatrical ceremony of induction for new members involving swords, masks, turbans and skulls and an oath of loyalty and secrecy to the union. Timothy Exell and other leaders were quietly warned of the danger of transgressing the Conspiracy Act … and were warned to abandon secrecy and oath taking.”

It was this Act, adds Tann, that led to the transportation of the Tolpuddle Martyrs five short years later …

Remember George Heskins? I found him in gaol again in 1833. In Horsley.

George HESKINS aged 48 Weaver Rogue and Vagabond 3 months

What do you read into that?

Stroudwater 1825

An unmarked Radical Heritage;

But your sixth sense can secretly sense it:

Create Theatres of Memory in your mind,

Invoke Stroud’s Spirit of Place

Then invite Spectators to their Seats.

Old Wives’ Tales and the 1825 Stroudwater Weavers’ Riots: A Talk

Old Wives’ Tales and the 1825 Stroudwater Riots

There are two sides to every coin

Still waters run deep

Let those who are without sin cast the first stone

A new baptism and a washing away of sins

A good deep draught of Adam’s Ale

‘We took him by his calloused hand,

We kissed both cheek and chin,

We wandered to the waterside

And we gently pushed him in.’

LTC ROLT 1944

The Mill Pond

So shed a mournful tear and took my vow of silence.

The Tow Path

Of Skimmington rough music censure

For those who had broken community custom

(A ‘tumultuous and riotous assembly’ to the law).

It’s hard to catch the delighted cries and laughter,

And the pleas for mercy from the men who were marked.

The reeds and rushes keep their secrets,
The soughing of the wind masks all of that;
And the ghosts make their way unheeded,

Right next to you on the tow path.

Writ in Water

John Keats died four years before the Stroudwater Riots.

His epitaph reads:

‘Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.’

Here lie the Tales of some of those whose Names

were writ in water in Stroudwater in 1825

William Fletcher

Of the parish of Minchinhampton,

‘Violently assaulted and ducked’

‘Now in a very weak state and not expected to live’.

William Clark

‘At the parish of Woodchester’

‘Violently assaulted and ducked’.

William Lamburn

‘Of the parish of Stroud’

Thrown ‘into a pond … and at the peril of his life …

Therein for a long space of time’.

George Teakle

‘At the parish of Woodchester’

Ducked.

William Saunders

‘At the parish of Stroud’

‘Violently assaulted’ and ducked.

John Cooke

‘At Chalford’

Thrown ‘into the canal there

to the imminent danger of his life’.

George Adlum

Weaver ‘at Chalford in the parish of Bisley’

Violently assaulted, dragged to the canal

Thrown ‘into the water

to the imminent danger of his life’.

Here lie the Names of some of Those

Sent to Horsley Gaol and Northleach House of Correction

Who writ others’ Names in water in Stroudwater in 1825

Or were indicted for Riot & Assault

George Fletcher aged 28

Riot and assault

3 months Horsley

Luke Robins aged 41

Who ducked William Fletcher,

3 months Horsley

Thomas Osbourne aged 28

Who ducked William Clark,

Also riot and assault

2 years Northleach

William Fitting aged 34 & Peter Workman

Riot

3 months Horsley

William Pickford aged 20

Riot and assault

12 months Northleach

Isaac Nutt aged 24

Riot and assault

12 months Northleach

Joseph Mint aged 19

Riot and assault

12 months Northleach

Joseph Hawkins aged 20

Assault

Verdict not recorded

George Heskins aged 35

Riot and assault

9 months Northleach

Richard Preene

Riot and assault

6 months Northleach

Thomas Weir

Riot and assault

3 months Horsley

A Stroudwater 1825 Weavers’ Riots Détournement

I’ve written three versions about the riots, all built upon the splendid foundations of John’s invaluable 1993 booklet. One at the radicalstroudwebsite is a detailed analysis and narrative; one is a guide for walking the sites and one is a shortened amalgam of both of those two: this talk, which will take us to the sites and then discuss the sentences received by some of the weavers.

Wallbridge Mill ST 848050

Nathaniel Watts first introduced the flying shuttle here in the 1790s – the start of mechanisation.

Ham Mill SO 861032

Jennifer Tann Wool and Water: ‘Ham Mill was a focus of the weavers’ riots in 1825.’ 31.5.25 Edwin Perrin suspected of working for the Marlings at too low a price. When he was at Ham Mill, he faced the collective wrath of some 200 weavers. On June 2^nd, 600-700 weavers marched to Ham Mill. One of Marling’s men ended up in the brook but the next marked man managed (with poetic (in)justice) to hide in the Counting House.

Vatch Mill SO 872066

June 3^rd: 200 weavers, some of whom ‘held sticks over the heads of Mr Peter Wyatt and Mr George L Wyatt, and threatened to knock out their brains and to destroy the mill.’ The next day saw 3,000 gathered; unfinished cloth woven below rates seized.

Bliss Mill SO 893025 Tayloe’s Mill 892025 Tann: ‘Little survives of Bliss Mill, save part of the clock tower.’ The Company Arms/Coffee Tavern Chalford GL6 8NS Three gabled Cotswold stone building once linked with the East India Company. A Troop of Horse sent by magistrates after tumult at Chalford: the soldiers ‘were stationed between Blisse and Tayloe Mills and their horses were stabled by the Coffee tavern/the Company’s Arms.’ Weaving in the Stroud Valley during the 19^th Century by A. Phelps.

Longfords Mill ST 867992

Jones Graeme, Major 10^th Royal Hussars, Bristol ‘…William Playne, Longfords Mill, Minchinhampton from Stroud visited on me this morning to report serious event outrages which had occurred near Stroud … I think it is my duty to make this communication to you, Sir, and to request that you should let me be furnished with instructions on the subject from His Royal Highness the Commander in Chief …’.

Cainscross

‘The cessation from labour commenced on Friday 29^th April and on the Monday following the weavers assembled in considerable numbers at Cainscross where they were met by several of the Manufacturers: but not coming to any satisfactory arrangement shuttles to the amount of several hundred were instantly collected’.

Break Heart Hill Stinchcombe Road Dursley GL11 6ER and Stinchcombe Hill and Nympsfield

Meetings of more than 3000 weavers were held on subsequent days on Break Heart and Stinchcombe Hills and on Monday last they congregated on Selsley Hill to the number of not less than 6000 … On each of these occasions several of their employers agreed to advance the prices but a number sufficient to satisfy the weavers not having yet consented to their terms another meeting was held on Wednesday last at

Nympsfield when deputations of workmen from several parishes attended and it was strenuously urged that they should resume their labour for those Gentlemen inclined to accede to the new prices. The majority however obstinately resisted this reasonable proposition until the whole of the Manufacturers had expressed their compliance and the business consequently remains unsettled. But it is justly due to the weavers to add that their conduct throughout has been orderly and respectful to their superiors and they gained general approbation by their quiet and peaceable demeanour even when assembled in the greatest numbers.’

But also ‘Manufacturers presented a written request’ to Justices of the Peace for an address to the Home Secretary for ‘a body of Military to be stationed in the Neighbourhood to assist the Civil Power in protecting their property.’

The ‘Woollen Manufacturers’ who signed this representation were William Stanton & Sons Stafford Mill SO 859038 Robert P Pelly Hyde Court (Chalford) Harris Stephen & Co Willam Lewis Brimscombe Mills SO 866024 Henry Wyatt & Co Vatch Mills Geo. Lewis Brimscombe Mills Jos. Partdidge & Co Bowbridge Mills ST 857043 Wm. Jn. Wood Chas. Glover Wm. Marling & Son Ham Mills.

Spillmans Court Rodborough GL5 3RU

Letter from the Justices of the Peace, Henry Burgh and Peter Hawker, to the Home Office. ‘…the weavers are soon become so violent that we think it almost impossible to have an Offender lodged in safe custody without military assistance … Manufacturers consider all their property in most imminent danger…’

June 15^th: Henry Burgh’s letter to the Home Secretary: “on Tuesday the 7^th large quantities of weavers, masons and others assembled and proceeded to many acts of violence, which obliged me to read the Proclamation against tumultuous assemblies.” The assembly did not disperse, however, “and having thrown stones at the Military as well as those who had come forward to assist the Civil Power,” the troops were “requested” to “disperse” the assembly “which was effectively done in a short time in as humane manner as possible.” Several were arrested and some “committed to Gloucester Gaol.”

Stroud

4.6.25 P Wyatt of Vatch Mills was ‘assaulted by a mob’ in front of the Magistrates Office. (Old Town Hall, The Shambles)

7.6.25: ‘the mob was as great as on the preceding day and committed many acts of violence. Some acts of intimidation were also committed by Masons towards others of their trade who had not struck for wages.’

Bristol June 7^th 1825

“On the 10^th of June a paper was vended at Stroud signed ‘The True British Weavers’ purporting to be a relation of events that had lately occurred in the Neighbourhood respecting the Weavers and the Clothiers – the paper had no Printer’s name on it – the vendor of the paper (Henry Beeseley) was apprehended and committed to prison as a vagrant.”

John Williams D.D. Minister of Stroud, Gloucestershire to the Home Secretary asking for clemency to be shown to William Fitting, serving three months imprisonment at Horsley with hard labour:

Mr Holbrow’s fish pond Badbrook mill pond was Mr Holbrow’s fishpond in 1825. The road and bus station by cinema and Five Valleys shopping centre are there now

4.6.25 members of the ‘mob’ ducked a number of their opponents ‘in Mr Holbrow’s fish pond’‘

Saint Monday’, June 6^th ‘at Stroud a mob of about 2,000 continued to duck persons in Mr Holbrow’s fish pond’.

Chalford

‘I despatched Lieutenant Dent with 20 men to Chalford … to protect a factory which the mob had threatened to destroy … This morning I have sent another party with the High Constable to execute warrants against some of the ringleaders. The town seems perfectly quiet today … The Clothiers met yesterday and agreed to give the weavers the increase of price they demanded. The Masons, Carpenters and Millwrights have also struck for more wages.’

13.6.25 The Gloucester Journal

The Brook Nailsworth GL6 OJQ

‘Saint Monday’, June 6^th, saw weavers who undercut ducked in ‘the Brook in Nailsworth bottom by a large mob’.

Horsley Gaol (site at Priory Fields, Horsley)

George Fletcher Riot and assault 3 months Luke Robins ducked William Fletcher 3 months William Fitting & Peter Workman Riot 3 months Thomas Weir Riot and assault 3 months

Northleach House of Correction

Thomas Osbourne Who ducked William Clark, Also riot and assault 2 years William Pickford Riot and assault 12 months Isaac Nutt Riot and assault 12 months Joseph Mint Riot and assault 12 months

George Heskins Riot and assault 9 months Richard Preene Riot and assault 6 months

I JUST WANT TO BO BACK A GENERATION NOW the atmosphere at Chalford in 1825 appears to be very different from when ‘the most dangerous man in England’, that ‘radical fox’, Citizen John Thelwall, stayed at Chalford in the summer of 1797. He portrays an almost Edenic community:

‘… pleasant haunts! brakes, bourns,

And populous hill, and dale, and pendant woods;
And you, meandering streams, and you, ye cots
And hamlets, that, with many a whiten’d front,
Sprinkle the woody steep; or lowlier stoop,
Thronging, gregarious, round the rustic spire …
Nor, as yet,
Towers from each peaceful dell the unwieldy pride
Of Factory over-grown; where Opulence
Dispeopling the neat cottage, crowds his walls
…to the yoke
Of unremitting Drudgery …
Therefore I love Chalford, and ye vales
Of Stroud, irriguous …’

Here Follows a Short Discourse on the Epithet ‘The Mob’

My memory of O Level History sees my ever so posh chain-smoking History teacher (I was so in thrall that my handwriting changed into an echo of his) telling us that the 18^th century term ‘The Mob’ derived from In Perpetuum Mobile: constant movement, no structure, no hierarchy, no culture – a patrician view upon the lower orders: a mob. A worthless, inchoate rabble.

Next up, Edmund Burke, Bristol MP, immediate opponent of the French Revolution, who coined the term ‘a swinish multitude’ to describe the lower orders: ‘Along with its natural protectors and guardians, learning will be cast into the mire, and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude … ‘

The great radical Thomas Spence replied with withering sarcasm with the title of his famous journal: Pig’s Meat: or Lessons for the Swinish Multitude

The mob! No wonder EP THOMPSON in his Making of the English Working Class wrote of the need to rescue the ‘poor and anonymous from the enormous condescension of posterity’.

And here’s an example of how we do that:

I mentioned the term Skimmington in my prose-poem introduction. The Skimmington: The carnivalesque placing of a miscreant backwards (often with rough music beating of pots and pans) was a signal feature of the ‘Skimmington’ whereby locals who transgressed community values were lampooned (as in Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge). What was a cacophonous, tumultuous and riotous assembly from the point of view of the ruling class, could, in fact, contain structure and order, in a subversion of the theatre of traditional bewigged courts of law.

And here in Stroud, we had the transgressors placed upon the beams from their looms and ceremoniously ducked; a subversion of courts of law. But rules and order and structure and ceremony and ritual/

But the higher orders could only see a mob in an echo of Edmund Burke: Along with its natural protectors and guardians, learning will be cast into the mire, and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude … ‘ 24 minutes

And yet, having said all that, when I finished my first piece of writing, I couldn’t help but think that the sentences eventually handed out were relatively lenient. And I wrote the following:

First Conclusion

Knowing that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, I contacted Steve Poole, formerly Professor of History at UWE and this is what he messaged me:

Steve’s question at the end focuses our minds.

Why didn’t they?

I’ve just checked the transportation lists, wondering about Joseph Hawkins … nope.

So, no sentences of transportation.

With all this in mind, let’s visit the description of the sentencing from The Gloucester Journal, 18^th July 1825 in great detail. ‘… The Learned Chairman, the Rev. Dr. Cooke, now proceeded to pass sentence, in an address to the prisoners, full of energy, argument, and feeling, and which, for the sake of the manufacturing class in general, we wish we could give at length to our readers. Their cases, he observed, had received the most mature and deliberate consideration from the whole Bench of Magistrates; and however anxious they might be to extend lenity to the prisoners, yet a sense of duty to the laws, to the public and to the prisoners themselves, called for a heavy visitation upon them. They had shown to what lengths they could go, in contravention of the laws and of the public peace; and by the sentence he was about to pronounce, the court was actuated, amongst other reasons, by an earnest wish to protect the prisoners against themselves. He then enlarged upon the grievous nature of the outrages which had marked their conduct – outrages which had become so alarming as to render it necessary to call in the aid of the military. But for this, probably they might have proceeded to still greater extremities, and have committed acts for which their lives might have become forfeited to the offended laws of the country.

Second Conclusion

It was this Act, adds Tann, that led to the transportation of the Tolpuddle Martyrs five short years later ….

Third Conclusion

In the spirit of EP Thompson, let’s once more

‘rescue the poor and anonymous from the enormous condescension of posterity’:

Here lie the Tales of some of those whose Names

were writ in water in Stroudwater in 1825

William Fletcher

Of the parish of Minchinhampton,

‘Violently assaulted and ducked’

‘Now in a very weak state and not expected to live’.

William Clark

‘At the parish of Woodchester’

‘Violently assaulted and ducked’.

William Lamburn

‘Of the parish of Stroud’

Thrown ‘into a pond … and at the peril of his life …

Therein for a long space of time’.

George Teakle

‘At the parish of Woodchester’

Ducked.

William Saunders

‘At the parish of Stroud’

‘Violently assaulted’ and ducked.

John Cooke

‘At Chalford’

Thrown ‘into the canal there

to the imminent danger of his life’.

George Adlum

Weaver ‘at Chalford in the parish of Bisley’

Violently assaulted, dragged to the canal

Thrown ‘into the water

to the imminent danger of his life’.

Here lie the Names of some of Those

Sent to Horsley Gaol and Northleach House of Correction

Who writ others’ Names in water in Stroudwater in 1825

Or were indicted for Riot & Assault

George Fletcher aged 28

Riot and assault

3 months Horsley

Luke Robins aged 41

Who ducked William Fletcher,

3 months Horsley

Thomas Osbourne aged 28

Who ducked William Clark,

Also riot and assault

2 years Northleach

William Fitting aged 34 & Peter Workman

Riot

3 months Horsley

William Pickford aged 20

Riot and assault

12 months Northleach

Isaac Nutt aged 24

Riot and assault

12 months Northleach

Joseph Mint aged 19

Riot and assault

12 months Northleach

Joseph Hawkins aged 20

Assault

Verdict not recorded

George Heskins aged 35

Riot and assault

9 months Northleach

Richard Preene

Riot and assault

6 months Northleach

Thomas Weir

Riot and assault

3 months Horsley.

Remember George Heskins? I found him in gaol again in 1833. In Horsley.

George HESKINS aged 48 Weaver Rogue and Vagabond 3 months

What do you read into that?

These are my memories of what I saw and did, together with others in the Stroudwater Valleys in 1825. I know I am supposed to show remorse but I cannot dissemble. I have no remorse.

My name is Alice Ayliffe Bingham and I am 25 years old.

The stone masons then joined in. They were angry about the Combination Acts. The carpenters and millwrights joined them too. So, the gentry swore in special constables. Then the Hussars rode in a couple of days later. When we re-congregated, they read the Riot Act. So we threw stones at them. They dispersed us with horse and smack of sabre. A friend was arrested for selling ‘The True British Weaver’, so more congregations followed: Break Heart Hill near Dursley, then 3,000 on Stinchcombe and then 6,000 on Selsley. If anyone broke the strike then we stuck some of them backwards on a donkey and paraded them through the lanes while we all beat pots and pans in a cacophony of rejection. I think they stuck them on beams from looms in Chalford and then pushed them in the canal and brook. They read the Riot Act there too. We kept it going though, and followed up with another big congregation in Stroud at the end of August. We called for the release of our friends in prison.

This is my true and faithful account. I cannot dissemble. The Good Book tells us that we should get our bread by the sweat of our brow. We had the sweat but no bread. What could we do?

There are two sides to every coin

Still waters run deep

Let those who are without sin cast the first stone

A new baptism and a washing away of sins

A good deep draught of Adam’s Ale

‘We took him by his calloused hand,

We kissed both cheek and chin,

We wandered to the waterside

And we gently pushed him in.’

Stroudwater 1825

An unmarked Radical Heritage:

But if you concentrate hard,

Then your sixth sense might secretly sense it:

Create Theatres of Memory in your mind,

Invoke Stroud’s Spirit of Place

Then invite Spectators to their Seats.

Above is a first-person piece I wrote around 2012 on reading John’s booklet a second time. I wanted to create something compelling, foregrounding women (I used my daughters’ names), playing around with creative non-fiction and WG Sebaldian documentary fiction. I little thought that people would take it as true … I remember how nervous I was when I read this piece out at a history talk at Oakridge and well remember the relief and joy when John who was in the audience told me how much he liked the piece.

Here’s a new piece below written in a different voice:

ADDENDUM

What I did in 1825 in Stroudwater in the Summer

Call me Ishmael.

I’m an old man now but will try to tell you in this account my personal history in all those years gone by. But I will not be telling all and will not be revealing any names. Call me Ishmael.

What follows now is what I wrote back then on pages I kept in our Bible. I can still just about read it with a candle.

I eventually arrived at the question: “Which of the two was the greater evil?” And I eventually reached the answer to that question in the dog days of August 1825.

And so, we emigrated in 1839 I think it was. And I have never looked back until this day.

These are my recollections of the summer of 1825. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Call me Ishmael.

A Stroudwater 1825 Weavers’ Riots Détournement

Wallbridge Mill ST 848050

Nathaniel Watts first introduced the flying shuttle here in the 1790s – the start of mechanisation.

Ham Mill SO 861032

Vatch Mill SO 872066

Longfords Mill ST 867992

Jones Graeme, Major 10^th Royal Hussars, Bristol ‘…William Playne, Longfords Mill, Minchinhampton from Stroud visited on me this morning to report serious event outrages which had occurred near Stroud … I think it is my duty to make this communication to you, Sir, and to request that you should let me be furnished with instructions on the subject from His Royal Highness the Commander in Chief …’

Cainscross The lake at the lawn opposite Tricorn House?

Break Heart Hill Stinchcombe Road Dursley GL11 6ER and Stinchcombe Hill and Nympsfield

‘Manufacturers presented a written request’ to Justices of the Peace for an address to the Home Secretary for ‘a body of Military to be stationed in the Neighbourhood to assist the Civil Power in protecting their property.’

Stafford Mill SO 859038 Hyde Court (Chalford) Brimscombe Mills SO 866024 Henry Wyatt & Co Vatch Mills Bowbridge Mills ST 857043 Ham Mills.

Spillmans Court Rodborough GL5 3RU

Stroud

4.6.25 P Wyatt of Vatch Mills was ‘assaulted by a mob’ in front of the Magistrates Office. (Old Town Hall, The Shambles)

Bristol June 7^th 1825

John Williams D.D. Minister of Stroud, Gloucestershire to the Home Secretary asking for clemency to be shown to William Fitting, serving three months imprisonment at Horsley with hard labour:

Mr Holbrow’s fish pond Badbrook mill pond was Mr Holbrow’s fishpond in 1825. The road and bus station by cinema and Five Valleys shopping centre are there now

4.6.25 members of the ‘mob’ ducked a number of their opponents ‘in Mr Holbrow’s fish pond’‘

Saint Monday’, June 6^th ‘at Stroud a mob of about 2,000 continued to duck persons in Mr Holbrow’s fish pond’.

Chalford

13.6.25 The Gloucester Journal

The Brook Nailsworth Bridge Street? The deepest part after the three steams have joined?

‘Saint Monday’, June 6^th, saw weavers who undercut ducked in ‘the Brook in Nailsworth bottom by a large mob’.

Horsley Gaol (site at Priory Fields, Horsley)

George Fletcher Riot and assault 3 months Luke Robins ducked William Fletcher 3 months William Fitting aged & Peter Workman Riot 3 months Thomas Weir Riot and assault 3 months

Northleach House of Correction

Thomas Osbourne Who ducked William Clark, Also riot and assault 2 years William Pickford Riot and assault 12 months Isaac Nutt Riot and assault 12 months Joseph Mint Riot and assault 12 months

George Heskins Riot and assault 9 months Richard Preene Riot and assault 6 months

Thomas The Tank Engine 80th Anniversary

Fri 19 Sept– Mon 22 Sept ~ Events & Tickets The Fascination of Railways-

A nostalgic evening in memories, stories, poems, music & song featuring a host of local writers, artists and performers with Stuart Butler, John Bassett, Crispin Thomas, Katie McCue, Andrew Budd, Mike Putnam, Trevor Simpson & Lyn Briggs. From the love and joy of that first train set and trainspotting escapades to traveling and waxing lyrical on the sights, sounds, speed, and fascination of trains. Light refreshments in the interval.

Venue: St Mary Magdalene Church, Church Place, Walkley Hill, Rodborough, Stroud, GL5 3TX

Tickets £7.50 online from:

ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/stroud/st-mary-magdalene-church

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Sat 20 Sept 10am & 2pm (Free Event) Walks to remember the Rev Awdry and his links with Stroud. In the company of historian Stuart Butler, Lady Hatt (wife of Sir Topham Hatt) & Katie the Riveter (ex-Land Girl/Wartime worker at Swindon Railway Works.) Taking in the Brunel Goods Shed Stroud, Dudbridge Hill & Rodborough Avenue – Awdry’s former home. All on pavements; wheelchair friendly and only moderately strenuous. Involves an ascent to the parish church at Rodborough. Readings on the hour by the Thomas The Tank Engine stained-glass window. Allow 2 hours.

Meet under the tree, Platform 2 at Stroud Station at 10.30 or 2pm.

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Sat 20 Sept 10am -4pm (Free Event) Fun-filled Community Day.

Enjoy a Thomas trail, explore the art exhibition and Remembering Rodborough display, Take part in a community glass project. Little ones can delight in an electric Thomas train track and Thomas story time read by Sir Topham Hatt, Relax in the play area and enjoy refreshments

St Mary Magdalene Church, Church Place, Walkley Hill, Rodborough, Stroud, GL5 3TX

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Sat 20 Sept 11am (Free Event)

Thomas The Tank Engine – Story Time with Local Poet Crispin Thomas. With fun creativity activities .Paper pens & materials provided.From 3-103!

The Long Table, The Sanctuary, Brimscombe. Mills Stroud GL5 2QN

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Sat 20 Sept 7.30pm £7.50 Thomas the Tank Engine Man – A talk by Veronica Chambers Veronica Chambers is the daughter of Rev W H Awdry.. A wonderful insight into the life and times of the author of the Railway Series first published 1945. Light refreshments during the interval. Venue: St Mary Magdalene Church, Church Place, Walkley Hill, Rodborough, Stroud, GL5 3TX

Tickets online ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/stroud/st-mary-magdalene-church

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Sun 21 Sept 2.30pm Thomas The Tank Engine

Themed Service led by Rev Peter Francis

St Mary Magdalene Church, Church Place, Walkley Hill, Rodborough, Stroud, GL5 3TX .

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Mon 22 Sept Doors open 7pm. Free Event.

Film Screening ‘An Unlikely Fandom’ directed by Brannon Cartby Documentary delving into the impact of Thomas the Tank Engine and the adult fandom surrounding the popular children’s TV show ‘Thomas & Friends’. Explores the lives of fans who have built communities, careers and even found personal meaning through their passion for the series..

Venue : The Prince Albert. Rodborough Hill, Rodborough. Stroud GL5 3SS

ReplyForward

September 4 Stroud Radical History Talk at Eastington

Talk on the 18^th and 19^th Century Radical History of Stroud and the Five Valleys at Eastington Village Hall (the one near the Old Badger) at 7pm.

Pay on the door.

Weavers’ riots, machine-breaking, the Chartists, food riots, the visit of ‘the most dangerous man in England’ to the area in 1797, Captain Swing, Stroud scarlet, imperial expansion, war and the transatlantic slave trade, the East India Company, transportation … and more.

I promise to put on a good verbal show and take you on a trip through time from the comfort of your seat. The Old Badger afterwards?

I’m currently writing something for page and performance about the 1825 Stroudwater Riots to commemorate the bicentenary: something new for future talks before the end of the year. I’ll then be spending the winter ensuring I have something ready for the General Strike centenary next May.

But hope to see you at Eastington in the here and now.

Stuart

STROUD GLOUCESTERSHIRE Sunday 14th December 2025

Category: Events

The Old Curiosity Railway Shop

Between the Lines

Pride comes before a Fall

Stroudwater 1825 and Gloucester 2025

1825 STROUDWATER WEAVERS’ RIOTS BICENTENARY COMMEMORATION WALK

1825 Stroudwater Weavers’ Riots: A Narrative & Analysis

Old Wives’ Tales and the 1825 Stroudwater Weavers’ Riots: A Talk

A Stroudwater 1825 Weavers’ Riots Détournement

Thomas The Tank Engine 80th Anniversary

September 4 Stroud Radical History Talk at Eastington