Wednesday 9th November 2011

The Nottingham Radical History Group (People's Histreh) held a talk and discussion session on Nottingham’s 1766 Great Cheese Riot.

Meeting at 6.30pm in the Market Square at the Occupy Nottingham Camp after their General Assembly meeting. We were given a talk about some of the civil disturbances that had happened in the 18th century, here in Nottingham. [Hear the soundfile .... at the bottom of this posting]

From the research:

‘[In October 1766] Goose Fair was the occasion of a ‘great cheese riot’ [...]. Stalls were attacked and ransacked, and cheeses distributed to the crowd. Being barrel-shaped they could easily be rolled, and soon they were being propelled down Wheeler Gate and Peck Lane. The mayor, trying desperately to intervene, stood in the middle of Peck Lane, only to be knocked over by an accelerating cheese.’

This tale of the Great Cheese Riot has been (re-)told in many accounts of Nottingham’s history and caught my attention primarily as it conjures up entertaining images of current local politicians involved in such a classic slapstick scene. 

Furthermore, members of the People’s Histreh group  have on various occasions carried around a loaf of bread on a stick, thereby reviving what by the turn of the nineteenth century had become a well-established signal to start a Food Riot. Obviously we could not keep up this habit without examining Nottingham’s most famous Food Riot, although it quickly became apparent that no loaves on sticks were reported to have been carried aloft during any of the riots examined in this pamphlet. 

When research began into the wider story behind the tale, there was no specific interest in the subject other than the intention to find further information. After the initial examination of a number of issues of The Leicester and Nottingham Journal (hereafter  Journal) from 1766, two theses were sketched: firstly, it appeared that the riot in Nottingham was just one event in a series of Food Riots in September and October 1766, and secondly that these events were not only less jolly but also more complex than the standard references to the Great Cheese Riot imply, which usually depict the riot as an anti-social version of the popular sport of Cheese-Rolling

Cheese Riots Pamphlet

http://peopleshistreh.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/cheeseriotsebook.pdf

A4 poster advertising the event (pdf)

http://nottingham.indymedia.org/system/file_upload/2011/11/08/116/cheese_poster.pdf

People's Histreh : Nottingham & Notts Radical History Group

http://peopleshistreh.wordpress.com

Contact email: peopleshistreh [at] riseup.net

previous reports:

2010 Nottingham Histreh Walk 'To the Castle!' Reform Riots

http://notts.indymedia.org.uk/articles/510

2010 Nottingham Histreh Walk 'To the Castle!' Slideshow

http://notts.indymedia.org.uk/videos/513

2010 Nottingham Nttm Histreh Walk 'To the Castle!' Collected Audio

http://notts.indymedia.org.uk/articles/591

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ALAN LODGE 

Photographer - Media: One Eye on the Road. Nottingham.  UK

Email:                 tash@indymedia.org

Web:                   http://digitaljournalist.eu

Member of the National Union of Journalists [NUJ]

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"It is not enough to curse the darkness.

                                   It is also necessary to light a lamp!!"

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