The Bristol riots--Narrow escape of the Exhibition--A brave
black servant--Arrival at Blackheath.
The Bristol riots in the autumn of 1831 again brought the Exhibition into
serious jeopardy. Madame Tussaud had just arrived in the city of the West
Country, when the Recorder, Sir Charles Wetherell, came to open a Special
Commission for the trial of certain political offenders associated
with the agitation for reform. Judge Wetherell was heartily disliked
by West-country folk, and there was strong opposition to this Special
Commission being held. Public resentment developed into a riot, which the
military was sent to subdue.
[Illustration: SIR CHARLES WETHERELL
Judge at the political trial that precipitated the Bristol riots.]
Madame tells the story herself of the sufferings she endured during the
days of wanton destruction and loss of life, as the rabble resorted to
killing and pillage. Judge Wetherell was obliged to escape from the
city, disguising himself, as it was then stated, with some taunt at his
personal habits, “through the medium of a wash and the donning of a clean
shirt and collar.”
The three days’ terror can scarcely be considered the result of a genuine
revolutionary movement. True, certain ringleaders of the rabble seem to
have imagined in some vague way that they were hastening the day of
“liberty”; but the rioters only destroyed for sheer destruction’s sake.
What they sought to promote they neither knew nor cared. For the most
part the mob was utterly contemptible, and but for the extraordinary
apathy of the authorities the riot might have been easily quelled.
It was on the morning of Saturday, the 29th of October, that the Recorder
came to the city, and, a disturbance being feared, a number of special
constables were sworn in. These officials, mostly young men, did more
harm than good, for they irritated the people by overmuch zeal, and led
to blows being exchanged, which fomented the trouble. This was followed
by an attack on the Mansion House, where Sir Charles was banqueting with
the Corporation.
The civic party was hunted out, and made its escape over the housetops.
Suddenly the cry was raised, “To the back!” and the mob surged round to
the offices behind the Mansion House, where faggots and firewood were
stored. For the present the rioters refrained from firing the building,
and contented themselves with looting the premises. The cellars proved
particularly attractive to the unruly crowd, which was shortly in
possession of a hundred dozen of wine, and the day closed amid general
drunkenness and disorder.
On Sunday morning the mob reassembled in Queen Square. The authorities
had plucked up sufficient courage to publish a proclamation warning all
rioters to return to their homes; but these gentlemen were not disposed
to take the admonition seriously. The unlucky bill-sticker who posted
the proclamation was badly mauled.
[Illustration: THE BRISTOL RIOTS
From a water-color drawing made on the spot by William Muller, showing
the figures being removed for security from the Exhibition premises,
Sunday, 30th October, 1831.]
One individual mounted King William’s statue in the Square and waved a
tri-coloured cap on a pole, shouting to his comrades to behold the cap
of Liberty. Possibly this aroused in the minds of the befuddled rioters
some recollection of the French Revolution, for a move was made towards
the gaol, which was speedily in their power. A vigorous employment of
sledgehammers soon broke in the prison doors, and the prisoners, some of
them almost nude, at once joined the mob.
The Governor’s house was sacked and fired; his books were pitched into
the New River, and the prison van met with a similar fate. Then the
Gloucester County Gaol, the lock-up house at Lawford’s Gate, and the
Bishop’s Palace were all fired. Between seven and eight o’clock the
rioters revisited the cellars of the Mansion House and began rolling out
barrels of beer and wine. Intoxicated persons could be seen moving about
the kitchen and the banqueting-room with lighted candles, and in less
than two hours the building was gutted.
Dwellings in Queen Square were sacked and fired, until the whole mass was
wrapped in flames. Such was the remarkable lethargy of the householders
that a few mischievous boys made a house-to-house visitation, gave the
inmates half an hour’s notice to quit, and at the expiration of that
time coolly set fire to the houses without molestation. The booty the
rioters seized was trifling. On the corpse of one boy, who was sabred by
a soldier, was found a curious collection of spoil--a lady’s glove, some
children’s books, and the Custom House keys.
One curious incident happened when the contents of fifty puncheons of rum
gushed out of a bonded warehouse and ran flowing down the street, setting
fire to a house at the other end.
The riots were quelled by the military on the Monday, after many
thousands of pounds’ worth of property had been destroyed; and one of the
results was that four persons were hanged.
By what might almost be described as a stroke of good fortune--inasmuch
as it perpetuated the name of Tussaud--there was in Bristol at that
time a lad of nineteen years, named William Muller, whose genius as a
painter gives Bristol just cause for pride to-day. This gifted youth
produced a series of wonderful sketches of the “Bristol Revolution,” as
it was then called, in which he portrays the weird and striking scenes of
incendiarism in the city streets.
One of these sketches is now in our possession. It shows Madame Tussaud’s
Exhibition premises standing out full and clear in the fiery glare, while
the figures and other articles are being hurriedly removed and piled up
in the roadway before the jeering mob. The figures and decorations are
easily recognised in the picture, and many of them are still included in
the Exhibition.
For no imaginable reason the premises occupied by Madame Tussaud’s
collection had been marked to be burnt. A chalk sign was scrawled upon
the door, and the adjoining buildings, besmeared with petroleum, had
been already set on fire. In Madame’s employment was a stalwart and loyal
negro. This black servant took up his position at the entrance to the
Exhibition, and threatened to kill with a blunderbuss the first man who
dared approach to harm the place.
The negro kept the mob at bay long enough, it would seem, to save the
building, for at eight o’clock Madame’s anxiety was relieved when she
heard, above the wild yelling of the infuriated people, the distant
sounds of the drums and fifes of the 11th Infantry Regiment, just then
reaching the outskirts of the city. The music that cheered her scared the
plundering rabble and stayed their depredations.
Madame Tussaud came through all this in her seventieth year, with
twenty years of activity still before her; and, after a long tour
through provincial towns, she took her Exhibition to Blackheath, on the
south-eastern side of London, attracted, no doubt, by the fact that that
place had become a fashionable resort owing to the residence there, some
years previously, of Queen Caroline, the estranged wife of George IV.