King Mob: The Story of Lord George Gordon and the London Riots of 1780

by Christopher Hibbert

The Duke of Newcastle, the great eighteenth-century prime minister once said 'I love a mob, I led a mob once myself. We owe the Protestant Succession to the mob'. Over half a century later the same sentiments applied as Lord George Gordon, a rabble-rousing MP, led a crowd of 50,000 people to present a petition for the repeal of the 1778 Roman Catholic Relief Act which was the foundation stone of Catholic Emancipation. The demonstration turned into a riot and for the next five days many Catholic chapels and private houses were destroyed. The Bank of England, King's Bench Prison, Newgate Prison and the Fleet Prison were all damaged and many politicians who were thought to favour the Act were hounded by the mob. Finally, on 7 July 1780 the army was called out to quell the mob, and 285 rioters were killed and many more wounded and arrested. Gordon was tried for treason but was acquitted, though 25 of the rioters were hanged and 12 imprisoned. Christopher Hibbert brings his considerable narrative and historical powers to bear on this astonishing episode in English history which has many parallels today as the alienation of the disenfranchised of the world leads to violence.

Genres: History, 18th Century, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Christopher Hibbert, MC, FRSL, FRGS (5 March 1924 - 21 December 2008) was an English writer, historian and biographer. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the author of many books, including Disraeli, Edward VII, George IV, The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici, and Cavaliers and Roundheads.

Described by Professor Sir John Plumb as "a writer of the highest ability and in the New Statesman as "a pearl of biographers," he established himself as a leading popular historian/biographer whose works reflected meticulous scholarship.

Reviews

[Jeremy Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Among the more eerie and largely ignored chapters of British history, this is a book and a story and a footnote on the worst impulses of mob behavior when allowed to roam toward complete anarchy, without any visible consequence or suppression of terrifying violence. These chaotic events began in London when Lord George Gordon, a member of Parliament and President of the Protestant Society, stoked fear among citizens about Catholics being granted too much freedom. Such fear allowed Gordon to ride a wave of impulsive, misguided fame among those inclined to support his unfounded paranoia, enough that they eventually marched, together, toward the Capitol at St. James, initially to show their voice in numbers, but eventually and rather abruptly, through acts of violence that grew more horrific in the hours and the days that followed. By the end of it all, the streets were lined with dead, burnt bodies, more than 1500 of the most vile prisoners had been set free from their cells to wreak havoc on those who had jailed them, and the entire city of London was ablaze, something akin to a picture of Gotham City in the absence of Batman. To read this story as an American, in 2021, in light of our knowledge of the Revolution, and fast forwarding to the recent insurrection of January 6, King Mob is all the more enlightening. But the irony of this tale and this title is its peculiar absence of King George III, but for one or two pages of minimal mention. I concede that the king almost always deferred to his Privy Council on matters of policy and military action, and I equally concede that London was not, technically, under his direct jurisdiction, but it’s still a peculiar choice for Christopher Hibbert to name his book “King Mob” when the king himself plays so little a role in this particular narrative.

[Annm · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very dramatic telling of the Gordon riots.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Needing a brief respite from Middle English reading I lapped up this captivating read about the 1780 London riots. I was surprised I never heard of these riots as the events as they unfold here are truly hard to imagine happening to civilized people. This read however came hot on the heels of another historical event I never heard of...the Vendee Revolt during the French Revolution which happened about 10 years after the riots and thus, through an obscure reference in that book about the surprising charity of the English in opening her doors the widest among Europe and America to Catholic refugees fleeing France not long after the London riots preceding Catholic Emancipation, I hunted down now out of print, King Mob. The book, as I said, is a well-written, fast-paced, and wonderful read about this very strange and nearly forgotten event in history.

[Invadozer Misothorax Circular-thallus Popewaffensquat · Rating 4 out of 5]

great read, up there with Dame Edith Sitwell in terms of sarcasm & verbage.