page_title: 1831 Bristol riots
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: 1831 Bristol riots / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Rolinda Sharples The Trial of Colonel Brereton
context_page_description: The 1831 Bristol riots took place on 29–31 October 1831 and were part of the 1831 reform riots in England. The riots arose after the second Reform Bill was voted down in the House of Lords, stalling efforts at electoral reform. The arrival of the anti-reform judge Charles Wetherell in the city on 29 October led to a protest, which degenerated into a riot. The civic and military authorities were poorly focused and uncoordinated and lost control of the city. Order was restored on the third day by a combination of a posse comitatus of the city's middle-class citizens and military forces.
  Much of the city centre was burnt, up to £300,000 of damage caused and up to 250 casualties incurred. The city's mayor Charles Pinney was tried for failing to prevent the riot and acquitted. The military commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Brereton was court-martialled on a similar charge and committed suicide before he could be sentenced. A renewed third reform bill passed in 1832, as the Great Reform Act, introducing sweeping changes to the electoral system. Local government in Bristol was likewise reformed with the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act 1835.
context_section_description: The riots were the worst in an English city since the 1780 Gordon Riots in London. The total death toll is unknown but twelve citizens are known to have been killed in clashes with the authorities; many other corpses were recovered later from within burned buildings.  Historian Mark Harrison in 1988 estimated between 120 and 250 casualties from all parties. A large part of the city centre was destroyed and up to £300,000 of damage caused.  
  Bristol was governed by Jackson and his troops for four months.  Many in parliament had no confidence in the local government under Pinney and set up a committee of enquiry to remove the Bristol magistrates from office, opposed by Melbourne, who claimed he lacked jurisdiction.  Pinney was eventually brought to trial before the Court of King's Bench in October 1832 and acquitted.
  Trials of the rioters were held in January 1832, 102 were tried and 31 were sentenced to death.  One of the men sentenced to hang was a retired tradesman whose only crime was to shout encouragement to the rioters.  He was singled out by the court for particular punishment because of the respectable position he held in society.  Clemency was granted to all bar four of those sentenced to death after a petition of 10,000 names was presented, which included the names of people whose houses had been destroyed in the riot.  Some 22 people were transported to Australia and 43 imprisoned.  Captain Warrington of the 3rd Dragoon Guards was court-martialled and cashiered for failing to pass on a message to Brereton during the riot.  The colonel himself was arraigned before a court-martial in January 1832.  During the proceedings he offered to plead guilty to charges of failing to control the riot if the court agreed not to call any more witnesses.  The court refused this request and Brereton committed suicide before a sentence could be passed.
  Both pro-reform and anti-reform activists blamed the other for the riots.  Pro-reformers suspected the Tory aldermen of Bristol of wanting the riots to get out of hand to discredit the movement while the Tories blamed the Whig government of withholding troops from the city authorities.  It was alleged that the riots were directed by an external party; allegations were made of French involvement (revolutionaries there had overthrown Charles X in July 1830) and of members of the Birmingham Political Union travelling to the city, but not substantiated.  Reform campaigners, eager to avoid any political connection to the riot, claimed the rioters were all youths, the unemployed and "women of abandoned character" from St Philips and Lawford's Gate areas of the city.  However court records show the rioters seem to have largely been men aged 20–40 from the Temple and St James districts. Only one of those convicted of rioting was unemployed, for example. 
  Another common misconception of the time was that troublemakers had come from the  Kingswood collieries; though the pit owners stated that their men had largely remained at work throughout the riots. No defendant claimed a political motive in court and many pleaded drunkenness as mitigation for their behaviour.
  The Third Reform Bill, known afterwards as the Great Reform Act, finally passed in 1832 after a political crisis known as the Days of May.  The Royal Commission on Municipal Corporations of 1833 thought Bristol's local authority was jealous of its power and incapable of controlling the city; with many city officials viewing their positions as sinecures.  The corporation was reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835.  Pinney returned to the corporation that year as an alderman, a position he held for 18 years.
caption: A contemporary depiction of the court-martial of Colonel Brereton
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