Radical War

The Radical War, also known as the Scottish Insurrection of 1820, was a week of strikes and unrest in Scotland, a culmination of Radical demands for reform in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland which had become prominent in the early years of the French Revolution, but had then been repressed during the long Napoleonic Wars.

Quick Facts Date, Location ...

Radical War
Stirling Tolbooth and Cross where a plaque commemorates Baird and Hardie
Date	1–8 April 1820
Location	Western Central Scotland
Caused by	High unemployment High food prices Unfair working conditions Unresponsive government
Goals	Electoral reform More responsive government
Resulted in	Dissent quashed by Army Trials for leaders of protests Glasgow granted greater representation in parliament in 1832
Parties
British Government British Army Rifle Brigade 83rd Regiment of Foot 7th Hussars 10th Hussars Samuel Hunter's Glasgow Sharpshooters Various Groups Committee of Organisation for Forming a Provisional Government
Lead figures
Earl of Liverpool Thomas Bradford Henry Monteith Samuel Hunter Non-centralised leadership John Baird  Andrew Hardie  James Wilson  James Clelland Duncan Turner George Kinloch Numerous others
Casualties
Charged	88 charged with treasons Many leaders executed Absolute pardon granted on 10 August 1835 (15 years later) 20 radicals sentenced to penal transportation

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An economic downturn after the wars ended brought increasing unrest, but the root cause was the Industrial Revolution. Artisan workers, particularly weavers in Scotland, sought action to force the government to enact Luddite protective restrictions. Gentry fearing revolutionary horrors recruited militia and the government deployed an apparatus of spies, informers and agents provocateurs to stamp out the movement.

A Committee of Organisation for Forming a Provisional Government put placards around the streets of Glasgow late on Saturday 1 April, calling for an immediate national strike. On Monday, 3 April, work stopped in a wide area of central Scotland and, in a swirl of disorderly events, a small group marched towards the Carron Company ironworks to seize weapons, but, while stopped at Bonnymuir, they were confronted by a detachment of hussars. Another small group from Strathaven marched to meet a rumoured larger force, but were warned of an ambush and dispersed. Militia taking prisoners to Greenock jail were attacked by local people and the prisoners released. James Wilson of Strathaven was singled out as a leader of the march there, and was executed by hanging at Glasgow, then decapitated. Of those arrested by government troops at Bonnymuir, John Baird and Andrew Hardie were similarly executed at Stirling after making short defiant speeches. Twenty other Radicals were sentenced to penal transportation.

It was suspected that government agents had actively fomented the unrest to bring radicals into the open. The insurrection was largely forgotten as attention focused on better publicised Radical events in England. Two years later, enthusiasm for the visit of King George IV to Scotland successfully boosted loyalist sentiment, ushering in a new-found Scottish national identity.^[1]

In the 18th century, artisans such as handloom weavers, shoemakers, smiths and wrights worked to commission and so could set their own hours of work, which often left them time to read and debate with friends what they had read. The national Presbyterian Church of Scotland was founded on egalitarian attitudes and rights of the individual to make principled judgements, and so encouraged disputatious habits and preoccupation with "rights", as well as continuing the Scottish education tradition which achieved more widespread literacy at that time than other countries. In Scotland, only 1 in 250 people had the right to vote and these artisans were ready to join the Radical movement in welcoming the American Revolution and the French Revolution, and be influenced by Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man. The Scottish Society of the Friends of the People held a series of "Conventions" in 1792 and 1793. The government reacted harshly, sentencing successive leaders to penal transportation, and, in 1793 ,Dundee Unitarian minister Thomas Fysshe Palmer was also given 7 years transportation for helping to prepare and distribute reform tracts. Dissent went underground with the United Scotsmen whose activities were curbed with the trial of George Mealmaker in 1798.

Between 1800 and 1808, the earnings of weavers were halved, and, in 1812, they petitioned for an increase which was granted by the magistrates. However, the employers refused to pay so the weavers called a strike which lasted for nine weeks with the support of a "National Committee of Scottish Union Societies", organised in a similar way to the United Scotsmen ("Unions" being area related, not Trade Unions). The authorities were further alarmed and set up spies and informers to forestall any further reformist activity. Between then and 1815, Major John Cartwright made visits to establish radical Hampden Clubs across Scotland.

Glasgow

Port Glasgow

Strathaven

Carron

Prominent locations in the Radical War

As 1820 began, the government, frightened by the "Cato Street Conspiracy" in London, acted to suppress reform agitation and drew on its apparatus of spies and agents provocateurs in Scotland. A 28-man Radical Committee for organising a Provisional Government elected by delegates of local "unions" elected officers and decided to arrange military training for its supporters, giving some responsibility for the training programme to a Condorrat weaver with army experience, John Baird. On 18 March Mitchell of the Glasgow police notified the Home Secretary that "a meeting of the organising committee of the rabble.. . is due in this vicinity in a few days hence."

On 21 March, the Committee met in a Glasgow tavern. The weaver John King left the meeting early, shortly before a raid in which the Committee was secretly arrested. Mitchell reported on 25 March that those arrested had "confessed their audacious plot to sever the Kingdom of Scotland from that of England and restore the ancient Scottish Parliament... If some plan were conceived by which the disaffected could be lured out of their lairs - being made to think that the day of "liberty" had come - we could catch them abroad and undefended... few know of the apprehension of the leaders. . . so no suspicion would attach itself to the plan at all. Our informants have infiltrated the disaffected's committees and organisation, and in a few days you shall judge the results."^{[citation needed]} King, Craig, Turner and Lees would now be repeatedly involved in organising agitation.

At a meeting on 22 March, the 15 to 20 people present included the weavers John King and John Craig, the tin-smith Duncan Turner, and "an Englishman" called Lees. John King told them that a rising was imminent and all present should hold themselves in enthusiastic readiness for the call to arms. The next day some of them met on Glasgow Green then moved on to Rutherglen where Turner revealed plans to establish a Provisional Government, got those present to resolve to "act accordingly", then gave over a copy of a draft Proclamation to be delivered to a printer. Lees, King and Turner went round encouraging supporters to make pikes for the battles. On Saturday 1 April, Craig and Lees collected the prints which Lees had paid for the previous day. By the morning of Sunday 2 April copies of the Proclamation were displayed throughout Glasgow.

Prisoners to Greenock

Large numbers of suspected ringleaders were imprisoned at various jails around the region.^[2] The Port Glasgow Volunteers served in Paisley during the strike, and when returning home on Saturday 8 April escorted five prisoners to be taken on to Greenock jail in a cart. On the way through Port Glasgow, their commanders responded to rumours by increasing the escort from 30 to 80 men, and they met with minor hostility while marching through the town of Crawfurdsdyke. They reached Greenock jail, and while handing over the prisoners had to shelter from stones thrown from higher ground to the south of the jail.^[3]

A hostile crowd gathered, and shots fired in the air failed to calm the situation. As the Volunteers returned along Cathcart Street, the "mob continued to increase, throwing stones, bottles, &c. from windows and closes." The Volunteers suffered bruising, and as they approached Rue-end Street opened sporadic fire, killing and wounding several of the crowd. The mob pursued the Volunteers into Crawfurdsdyke, then returned to break open the jail. A magistrate urged the crowd to desist, but with no forces to resist them, agreed to release the prisoners who then escaped. A large group set off to burn down Port Glasgow, but were halted at that town's boundary by armed townsfolk who had barricaded the Devol's Glen Bridge. Greenock magistrates arrived, and dispersed the crowd.^[2][4]

A List of Killed and Wounded was "collected from the several Medical Practitioners in Greenock, 11th April 1820", describing the wounds sustained and the condition of the survivors. It listed 18 casualties, including an 8 year old boy, and a 65 year old woman. At this time 6 were noted as dead,^[2][5] others died later from their wounds, and a report published on 15 July said there were "nine of the mob dead, and nine more dangerously wounded, there are two of the volunteers also wounded."^[6]

In various towns a total of 88 men were charged with treason. At both Glasgow and Stirling a special Royal commission Court of Oyer and Terminer was set up to prosecute.

James Wilson was arrested and on 20 July was put on trial at Glasgow charged with four counts of treason. The jury found him Not Guilty on three counts, Guilty of "compassing to levy war against the King in order to compel him to change his measures" and recommended mercy, but he was sentenced to death.

Five of his colleagues were found Not Guilty, and another was discharged. On 1 August, a jury ignored the abrasive judge and refused to convict two weavers.

At Stirling Tolbooth on 4 August, the judge advised "To you Andrew Hardie and John Baird I can hold out little or no hope of mercy" since "as you were the leaders, I am afraid that example must be given by you."^[8]

James Wilson was hanged and beheaded on 30 August, watched by some 20,000 people, first remarking to the executioner "Did you ever see such a crowd, Thomas?".

On 8 September, Hardie and Baird were executed outside Stirling Tolbooth, watched by a crowd of 2,000.^[8] The Sheriff of Stirling, Ranald MacDonald, required that they make no political speech from the gallows, but agreed that they could speak upon the bible. Baird concluded his brief speech by saying "Although this day we die an ignominious death by unjust laws our blood, which in a very few minutes shall flow on this scaffold, will cry to heaven for vengeance, and may it be the means of our afflicted Countrymen’s speedy redemption." Hardie then spoke of "our blood [being] shed on this scaffold... for no other sin but seeking the legitimate rights of our ill used and down trodden beloved Countrymen", then when the Sheriff angrily intervened he concluded by asking those present to "go quietly home and read your Bibles, and remember the fate of Hardie and Baird." They were hanged and then beheaded, in what was the last beheading in the UK, a few months after the Cato Street Plot.

Thomas McCulloch, John Barr, William Smith, Benjamin Moir, Allan Murchie, Alexander Latimer, Andrew White, David Thomson, James Wright, William Clackson / William Clarkson, Thomas Pike/Thomas Pink, Robert Gray, James Clelland, Alexander Hart, Thomas McFarlane, John Anderson, Andrew Dawson, John McMillan and the 15-year-old Alexander Johnstone were in due course transported to the penal colonies in New South Wales or Tasmania. Peter Mackenzie, a Glasgow journalist, campaigned unsuccessfully to have them pardoned, and published a small book: The Spy System, including the exploits of Mr Alex. Richmond, the notorious Government Spy of Sidmouth and Castlereagh.

Eventually, on 10 August 1835, an absolute pardon was granted.

The effect of the crushing of this staged insurrection was to effectively discourage serious Radical unrest in Scotland for some time. Lord Melville, the right hand man in Scotland of Lord Liverpool's government, saw the suggested Visit of King George IV to Scotland as a political need, to engage the feelings of the common people and weaken the Radical movement. The event, largely organised by Sir Walter Scott, succeeded brilliantly and brought a new-found Scottish national identity creating widespread enthusiasm for the tartan "plaided pageantry" that Sheriff Ranald MacDonald of Stirling was already enthusiastically engaged in as a Clan chieftain at Ulva and member of various "Highland societies".^[9]

At the suggestion of Walter Scott, unemployed weavers from the west of Scotland were put to work on paving a track round Salisbury Crags in Holyrood Park adjoining Arthur's Seat. The path is still known as the Radical Road.^[10]

The cause of electoral reform continued, and with the Scottish Reform Act 1832 Glasgow was given its own Member of Parliament for the first time. The event was largely overshadowed by English Radical events and forgotten by school history, but in the 20th century the Scottish National Party historian J. Halliday brought the event back into the curriculum. At an anniversary debate in the Scottish Parliament members of the various parties each found lessons for their different causes in the "Radical War".

A large memorial stone to mark the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Bonnymuir was unveiled in 2021.^[11]

James Kelman's play, Hardie and Baird: The Last Days, was produced at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, under the direction of Ian Brown, between 30 June and 22 July 1990.^[12]

• Radicalism (historical)
• 1820 United Kingdom general election