Wednesday 04 March 2015

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London riots: history repeats itself but we haven't learnt our lesson

London's riots aren't without historical precedence; if we look to the past we can see there's more trouble in store.

Lewisham Riot
The remains of a police bus destroyed during the Lewisham Riot in 1977 Photo: Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy

The recent riots may have been unexpected; the response from politicians and other commentators was not. Indeed, there was a certain predictability about the ways in which the events were seen and solutions offered. The rioters, we are informed, were mindless criminals and thugs who need to be caught and punished. David Cameron summed up the feeling when he claimed the riots were criminal activity, pure and simple, and those who participated have to be apprehended, brought to the courts, and subjected to retributive justice as an example to others. Such a perspective is wrong on all counts, and we need only to look at the historical record to see why that it so.

There has been a long history of riots in England. We have records of riots in London, for example, stretching back hundreds if not thousands of years. Their incidence, the participants and their demands should persuade anyone who takes even a cursory glance that riots are one of the most complex historical phenomena. During the eighteenth century - a troubled time when the modern age was ushered in – riots were commonplace. Bread riots erupted throughout the country in response to what were seen to be unjust and unnecessary increases in the price of bread, and labouring populations took to the streets as a means of trying to halt the steady deterioration of their livelihoods. In east London several riots of silk weavers and coal heavers took place at times when they faced desperate circumstances and had exhausted all other means of redress. Lest you think I have a romantic attachment to these expressions of dissent, it is worth saying that riots had their ugly side. Fatalities were common, and in some instances the cause was far from defensible, particularly those sparked by hostility to the Irish labour presence.

The response of the authorities to the riots demonstrated a readiness the employ the full machinery of the state. When local constabularies were unable to quell the troubles, the military was called out. Rioters were jailed and transported. Some suffered the ultimate sanction when they were hanged at Tyburn or at the localities where the trouble had taken place, clearly as a warning to others. These measures may have helped to reduce the propensity for riot, but only temporarily, for as long as perceived injustices continued, people were prepared to take matters into their own hands.

The incidences of riot tended to recede in the second half of the nineteenth century. The advent of trade unions and parliamentary democracy (limited though it was) provided the dispossessed with alternative means of addressing their grievances. But they never disappeared entirely, for there remained groups of people who felt sufficiently desperate or angry to take to the streets. What are the lessons that can be learnt from this complex historical experience? First, riots were rarely forms of mindless violence. They were expressions of genuine grievances held by people whose previous attempts to be heard had fallen on deaf ears. And they were not driven by angry rabbles. Riots did attract those interested only in wanton destruction, but the large majority of rioters comprised all sections of the working population including highly trained artisans and even professionals. Their targets were the most visible and accessible embodiments of greed, power and corruption. Second, draconian responses from the authorities may have helped to quell the disturbances, but they never offered longer term solutions. Those today who believe that disproportionate custodial sentences are the most effective means of preventing further violence had better be prepared for further trouble for these measures not only fail to address the real problems, they inflame them.

John Marriott is Professor in History at the Raphael Samuel History Centre, University of East London. An expert on London’s history, with a particular interest in East London, his book Beyond the Tower: a History of East London is published by Yale University Press in September.

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