The Anniversary Rioters’ Walk­  Exactly 180 years after the rioters did it a guided walk from Selborne to Headley and back again ­ distance approximately 7 miles out and 7 miles back.

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 starting at 10am

We plan to walk from Selborne to Headley, from the car park behind the Selborne Arms and finishing at the Holly Bush in Headley. Distance approx 7 miles, some of them muddy. Should arrive in time for a pub lunch.

Please contact me <http://www.johnowensmith.co.uk/riot/walk.htm> for further information.

In 1830, a mob several hundred strong attacked the workhouse in Selborne, Hampshire, turned out the occupants, burned or broke the fittings and furniture, and pulled down the roof.

The next day an even larger mob, containing most of the Selborne rioters, did the same to the workhouse at Headley, some seven miles away. The parsons in both villages were coerced into promising to reduce by half the income they took from tithes.

Less than a month later, at a special court hearing in Winchester attended by no less a person than the Duke of Wellington, nine local men were sentenced to transportation, and all but one sailed for Australia in the Spring of 1831 never to return.

According to the famed historians J.L. & Barbara Hammond, “If these riots had succeeded, the day when the Headley workhouse was thrown down would be remembered … as the day of the taking of the Bastille.”

Organised by White Horse Trades Union Council on 6th November 2010 at St. Margaret’s Hall Bradford-on-Avon from 10am.

Talk subjects include Chartists and Swing rebellions in  Wiltshire as well as strikes in Swindon.

You can find more details about this event on Socialist Unity where you can read blogger Andy Newman’s assertion that BRHG take “a fundamentally anti-working class and anti-trade union approach” (comment 27). He goes on to say: “there is a smart alec, middle class, know-all-ism about these so called ‘radicals’.” He also calls BRHG “smart arse anarchist”. (comment 49)… gosh.

Despite the fact that Andy might be there it should be a fascinating and informative event.

Saturday 2nd October 2pm-5pm

Sir Thomas Richs School Longlevens

A fair days wage for a fair days work- workers movements in Gloucestershire

Talks include:

• Work wages and protest in Gloucestershire 1738-1830 by Prof Adrian Randall
• Swing   riots in Gloucestershire
• Chartists and the Chartist Land Company in Glocestershire by Rev John Evans

Cost £5 including tea&  biscuits

A new article has been added to the BRHG archive.

Tolpuddle and Swing: The Flea and the Elephant

Our friend Steve Poole from UWE is involved in organising the following event:

A Southern History Society Conference University of Reading, UK

March 21st 2009

The anniversary this year of E. J. Hobsbawm and George Rudé’s Captain Swing offers a timely opportunity to reflect upon the development of rural histories from below over the last four decades.

Please see full programme details and booking form at http://www.winchester.ac.uk/?page=9497