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19 U. St. Thomas J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 1 (2025)

handle is hein.journals/tjlpp19 and id is 1 raw text is: LONDON'S BURNING: THE GORDON RIOTS OF 1780, CONSPIRACY THEORY, ELITE CONNIVANCE, LAW REFORM, AND OFFICIAL BIGOTRY DR. CHARLES J. REID, JR.* ABSTRACT It is 1780 and the City of London is on fire. The Gordon Riots of June, 1780, was the largest and most destructive act of civil disobedience in the history of the United Kingdom. The Houses of Parliament were attacked. Prisons were burnt to the ground and all the captives freed. Only the British army succeeded in restoring order, and then only after the passage of several days. Hundreds of persons died. This Article tells the story of the Gordon Riots. It is a story that involves the English Crown's two-century effort to instill a deep anti-Catholic bigotry in the British people. When the Crown decided to relax that narrative out of the desire to recruit Irish Catholic troops to fight in the American Revolution, a large part of the populace of London responded with outrage. That outrage was fanned by conspiracy theory and elite connivance. Lord George Gordon, a Scottish nobleman and member of Parliament, was responsible for stirring popular anger. And that anger burst furth in early June, 1780, when large masses of people, led by Lord Gordon, marched on Parliament. The crowds that stormed Parliament and set fire to the City were largely drawn from the poorer segments of the population, who feared being left behind as the United Kingdom opened the door to a policy of religious toleration. Were the mobs populist? Can they be explained by Marxist thought? And what about the person of Lord George Gordon? The Article, in short, is a story of how abrupt reversals in public policy and law reform can go badly off the rails when faced with opposition grounded in bigotry and conspiracy theory. Dr. Charles J. Reid Jr. is a professor of law at the University of St. Thomas (MN).