Intergroup dynamics within the 1831 reform riots: towards a new social psycho-history

In October 1831 a wave of disturbances swept across England after the rejection of the Second Reform Bill in the House of Lords. These 'reform riots' began with serious disorder in the East Midlands (Derby, Nottingham) followed by unrest in towns in the West and Southwest. The wave culminated in Bristol with the most serious riot in nineteenth century Britain. Lasting three days, crowds destroyed several major institutions by fire and released prisoners from four jails. The riot was violently suppressed by military units with hundreds of people killed and wounded.

Historical analysis of the Bristol riot has led to two principal narratives; the first characterises the event as the criminal actions of a mindless, irrational, drunken 'mob', and the second as a reform protest. However, neither of these accounts satisfactorily explains how the protest developed into collective violence on such a scale nor how the agenda of the rioters, reflected in their choice of targets, changed over three days. Equally, the spread of the 'reform riots' across the country remains largely unexplained. What were the relationships between these events and Bristol?

The proposed research breaks new ground for historians in that it will be carried out using concepts and principles from social psychology, where social identity researchers have had success in explaining the limits of behaviour in rioting crowds; the role of authorities in the dynamics of such riots; and the process through which rioting spreads across different geographical locations. Sharing social identity allows a crowd to act as one and also specifies what counts as appropriate behaviour, through the notion of a group norm. Since social identities are based on relationships with other groups, when these relationships change so do social identities - including group norms and ability to take collective action. This social identity approach can therefore help explain the escalation of crowd events into conflict and the spread of disorder; why some groups join in with a wave of rioting but others do not.

The social identity approach has not, hitherto, been applied to disturbances in the late-modern period (1750-1900), which is one aim of the present project. In addition, we will critically evaluate our research and analysis in order to create a user-friendly procedure for historians and others applying social identity concepts to analyse similar late-modern disturbances.

The research involves collecting evidence about all of the reform related disturbances in October 1831 in order to produce triangulated accounts of each event. Of particular interest would be the actions of the crowds and the authorities. For example, how participants gained information about previous disturbances in the wave of unrest, why, how and where the crowd assembled, how leadership emerged and what targets were selected for action. Similarly, we are interested in how the authorities behaved, whether they were aware in advance of the event, how they reacted before and during the disturbance and what kind of coercion (if any) was used to deal with the disorder. The research will then focus on the mentalities and feelings of the participants. Of particular import will be sources of evidence that explicate the motivations of crowd members; how they reacted to information about reform protests; their perceptions of legitimacy; and how they understood themselves and their 'opposition' as social groups. The kinds of evidence required range from eye-witness accounts of what crowds were discussing, chanting or heckling, to memoirs, and visual and material sources such as hand-bills, posters and banners.

Combining these two kinds of accounts and using social identity concepts analytically will help us understand how protests developed into collective violence and how they spread across cities, regions and the country, in a new framework that can be applied in the future to other waves of disturbances.

Public understanding and discourse
A recent study of perceptions of the urban disturbances in England in August 2011 has demonstrated that discredited theories of crowd behaviour retain considerable traction amongst the general public. Concepts such as deindividuation, 'mob mentality' and irrational, epidemic-like 'contagion' were found to be common in the public understanding of 'riots' (Goodman, Price and Venables, 2014). Outmoded views of contemporary collective protest and violence also dictate how members of the public understand disturbances and their spread in an historic context. This project will challenge these commonly-held assumptions by explicating the processes by which protest events in October 1831 developed into collective violence, understanding the meaning of crowd behaviour through examining targeting and self-imposed limits to actions, and by understanding the spread of disturbances through the use of social identity models. In so doing we will provide a space for less pathologizing, alternative discourses concerning historical incidents of 'riot' to emerge and develop in the public domain. Our work will therefore contribute towards a more informed public discussion of the roots and patterns of collective disorder in October 1831, in the late-modern period as a whole, and in general.

Institutions and groups
The project partner Bristol City Council manages one of the most popular institutions in the city, the social history museum M Shed, with over 500,000 visits per year. M Shed will benefit directly as the project will deliver a major part of the funding for significantly expanding and enhancing their current exhibition covering the 1831 reform riot. The new exhibition will be based on the project outputs and will thus provide a significant legacy for the research in the public domain. M Shed will also be the venue for a public conference and other engagement events. Other collaborators with the project in the West and Southwest include local history groups, museums, heritage centres and archives. A series of five 'county-hub' locations have been designated which will act as focal points for research into the reform disturbances in that particular county. The following institutions have formally agreed to participate in the project: Shire Hall Historic Courthouse Museum (Dorchester, Dorset), Somerset Heritage Centre (Taunton), Newport Museum and Art Gallery (Gwent), Bath Record Office (North Somerset) and the Worcestershire Archive (Worcester). These institutions will host research workshops to which local historians and history groups will be invited to disseminate their local knowledge of archival sources, urban geography and family history during the research phase. The county-hubs will also provide venues for a travelling display and history talks and walks. The various exhibitions and public events will be complemented by four located audio mobile phone applications, aimed at explicating disturbances in locations not otherwise served by public events or exhibitions, or in which disturbances have previously received little public attention: Blandford and Sherborne (Dorset), Yeovil (Somerset) and Worcester. Along with the web-based resources, they will allow the wider public to engage with the findings of the project, extending its impact long after its formal closure.

The public engagement events, travelling display and phone apps will provide incentives for local residents, school age students and tourists to visit the county-hub institutions and the four disturbance locations. The heritage industry in these institutions and locales will benefit from greater footfall and the local communities from secondary economic effects as a result of these interventions. Public engagement through these means will aid in the propagation of new understandings of how waves of protest escalate and spread whilst locating them within the historical context of the widening of the democratic franchise.