Exeter Bread Riots 1854

One of the best things about being a writer is you get to do lots of research. Of course you can get carried away doing too much! On one such occasion I got very into looking into the history of Victorian Exeter (I live near Exeter so I am very interested in the city).

Exeter has a rich and varied history but Victorian Exeter are some very interesting aspects to it.  During the Victorian period Exeter remained somewhat in the past. The rest of the country was busy with the Industrial Revolution but Exeter lagged behind. However that didn’t mean things were boring. In 1854 there were some bread riots. The poor Exeter could not afford to buy bread and started to protest. It quickly turned into riots.

The unrest didn’t last long and quickly quashed by the Militia (there was no police force at the time) but what happened on that fateful day would go down in history. The picture on the left shows the Militia gathered outside the Guildhall.

During my research at the West Country Studies Library in Exeter, I copied many newspaper articles on the riots, and the fallout afterwards.I have now transcribed some of these and will be posting them on this blog. I hope you find them as interesting as I did, the journalism of the day was very different to it is now but the full and frank description of what happened is actually really helpful to know every detail. Further posts were all be from different newspapers of the same event and also the trials of the bread writers which are enthralling. If you have found this useful, please let me know I would love to hear from you, or leave a comment.