Pentrich Revolution

The village gave its name to the Pentrich Revolution, which occurred on the night of 9/10 June 1817. A gathering of some two or three hundred men (stockingers, quarrymen and iron workers), led by Jeremiah Brandreth

Jeremiah Brandreth

Jeremiah Brandreth was an out-of-work stocking maker who lived in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, who was hanged for treason. He was known as "The Nottingham Captain"...

 ('The Nottingham Captain'), (an unemployed stockinger, and claimed by Gyles Brandreth

Gyles Brandreth

Gyles Daubeney Brandreth is a British writer, broadcaster and former Conservative Member of Parliament and junior minister.-Early life:...

 as an ancestor), set out to march to Nottingham

Nottingham

Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...

. They were lightly armed with pikes, scythes and a few guns, and had a set of rather unfocussed revolutionary demands, including the wiping out of the National Debt.

Historical background

Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

 in 1815 a number of factors combined to drive the country into a severe depression

Recession

In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction, a general slowdown in economic activity. During recessions, many macroeconomic indicators vary in a similar way...

. The increased industrialisation

Industrialisation

Industrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one...

 of the country, combined with the demobilisation of the forces, led to mass unemployment. The Corn Laws

Corn Laws

The Corn Laws were trade barriers designed to protect cereal producers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against competition from less expensive foreign imports between 1815 and 1846. The barriers were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 and repealed by the Importation Act 1846...

 led to massive increases in the price of bread, while the repeal of Income Tax

Taxation in the United Kingdom

Taxation in the United Kingdom may involve payments to a minimum of two different levels of government: The central government and local government. Central government revenues come primarily from income tax, National Insurance contributions, value added tax, corporation tax and fuel duty...

 meant that the war debt had to be recovered by taxing commodities forcing their prices even higher. In addition, 1816 was unusually wet and cold, producing a very poor harvest.

The loss of production of war materials had affected engineering companies like the Butterley Company

Butterley Company

Butterley Engineering was an engineering company based in Ripley, Derbyshire. The company was formed from the Butterley Company which began as Benjamin Outram and Company in 1790 and existed until 2009.-Origins:...

, the price of iron ore had slumped, and the production of coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

 had fallen by a third. The hosiery trade had also been falling away for about five years.

There was, in addition, a wider political picture. Since the previous century, there had been calls for parliamentary reform, particularly an end to the rotten borough

Rotten borough

A "rotten", "decayed" or pocket borough was a parliamentary borough or constituency in the United Kingdom that had a very small electorate and could be used by a patron to gain undue and unrepresentative influence within Parliament....

s. Subsequently there had been the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

 and the Reign of Terror

Reign of Terror

The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...

 and it appeared that any reform would be accompanied by violence, which Pitt

William Pitt the Younger

William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...

's government set out to pre-empt by increasingly punitive measures.

Prelude

Since 1811, there had been minor local uprisings, with stocking frame

Stocking frame

A stocking frame was a mechanical knitting machine used in the textiles industry. It was invented by William Lee of Calverton near Nottingham in 1589...

s being smashed in protest at the employment of unskilled workers to produce low quality stockings. Further afield, there had been food riots in many of the big cities.

Around the country there were a number of secret revolutionary committees. The one at Nottingham was headed by a needle maker, William Stevens, and its representative from Pentrich was a framework knitter called Thomas Bacon. Several meetings were held at Pentrich during which Bacon asserted that preparations for an uprising were well advanced, and he had made enquiries at the ironworks and elsewhere about procuring weaponry.

The person appointed by Stevens to be his deputy was Jeremiah Brandreth, an unemployed stocking knitter with a wife and two children. Opinion of him at the time seems to have been somewhat mixed, but he promised the men that they would go to Nottingham, invading Butterley ironworks

Butterley Company

Butterley Engineering was an engineering company based in Ripley, Derbyshire. The company was formed from the Butterley Company which began as Benjamin Outram and Company in 1790 and existed until 2009.-Origins:...

 on the way, where they would kill the three senior managers and ransack it for weapons. At Nottingham they would receive bread, beef and ale, and a sum of money, and they would take over the barracks

Barracks

Barracks are specialised buildings for permanent military accommodation; the word may apply to separate housing blocks or to complete complexes. Their main object is to separate soldiers from the civilian population and reinforce discipline, training and esprit de corps. They were sometimes called...

. They would then proceed by boat down the River Trent

River Trent

The River Trent is one of the major rivers of England. Its source is in Staffordshire on the southern edge of Biddulph Moor. It flows through the Midlands until it joins the River Ouse at Trent Falls to form the Humber Estuary, which empties into the North Sea below Hull and Immingham.The Trent...

 and attack Newark

Newark-on-Trent

Newark-on-Trent is a market town in Nottinghamshire in the East Midlands region of England. It stands on the River Trent, the A1 , and the East Coast Main Line railway. The origins of the town are possibly Roman as it lies on an important Roman road, the Fosse Way...

. He told them that there were sixteen thousand ready to join them.

Among those present were Isaac Ludlam, a bankrupted farmer who owned a small quarry where he had built up a small cache of pike

Pike (weapon)

A pike is a pole weapon, a very long thrusting spear used extensively by infantry both for attacks on enemy foot soldiers and as a counter-measure against cavalry assaults. Unlike many similar weapons, the pike is not intended to be thrown. Pikes were used regularly in European warfare from the...

s, and William Turner an ex-soldier. The plan was to assemble at ten o'clock on the 8th June, where Ludlam's pikes would be distributed and further weapons would be acquired by requisitioning a man and a gun from each house that they passed.

The march

Around fifty men assembled in South Wingfield

South Wingfield

South Wingfield is a village in the Scarsdale Hundred of Derbyshire, England, and is now part of the district council area of Amber Valley.An ex-mining village, it has a mixed community. Its most famous landmark is Wingfield Manor, a ruined manor house built around 1450. It is situated about from...

 and for four hours ranged around the neighbourhood for weapons and extra men. At one house a widow, Mary Hepworth, lived with her two sons. When she refused to open up, the rioters broke a window and Brandreth fired a shot through it, killing a servant. Some of the party were appalled at this wanton act, but Brandreth threatened to shoot them also if they did not remain.

Eventually the group set out for the Butterley Company works. When they arrived they were confronted by George Goodwin the factory agent, who, with a few constables, faced them down. One or two of the party defected and, increasingly demoralised, the remainder headed for Ripley

Ripley, Derbyshire

Ripley is a town in the Amber Valley area of Derbyshire in England.- Earliest history :Not much information is available as to when Ripley was founded, but it existed at the time of the Domesday Book, when it was held by a man called Levenot....

.

There was no police force at that time. Order was maintained by the various semi-private armies such as the yeomanry

Yeomanry

Yeomanry is a designation used by a number of units or sub-units of the British Territorial Army, descended from volunteer cavalry regiments. Today, Yeomanry units may serve in a variety of different military roles.-History:...

, while intelligence was gathered by the Home Secretary

Home Secretary

The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...

, Lord Sidmouth

Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth

Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, PC was a British statesman, and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1804....

, from a network formed of local magistrate

Magistrate

A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...

s and paid informers. One such, William Oliver, was among the group. Indeed there were accusations that Oliver was something more—an agent provocateur

Agent provocateur

Traditionally, an agent provocateur is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act...

 under the Home Office

Home Office

The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...

's instruction. Be that as it may, Sidmouth was well aware of what was afoot.

Through Ripley they pressed more followers into service and at Codnor

Codnor

Codnor is a Derbyshire village in the Amber Valley district, and a former mining community, with a population of nearly 5,000. It is approximately 12 miles from the city of Derby and 14 miles from Nottingham by road.-History:...

 and Langley Mill

Langley Mill

Langley Mill is a small town in the Amber Valley district of Derbyshire, England. It is on the border of Nottinghamshire, and runs into the towns of Aldercar and Heanor . Across the River Erewash is the Nottinghamshire town of Eastwood. It is part of the Aldercar and Langley Mill parish....

 they awoke various publicans for beer, bread and cheese. It was now raining heavily and yet more men defected.

At Giltbrook

Giltbrook

Giltbrook is a village situated approximately 10 kilometres West-northwest of Nottingham and within close reach of junction 26 of the M1 motorway. It is part of Greasley ward, which had a population of 6,076 in 2001....

 they were met by a small force of soldiers: twenty men of the 15th Regiment of Light Dragoons

15th Regiment of Light Dragoons

Two cavalry regiments of the British Army have been numbered the 15th Regiment of Light Dragoons:*15th Regiment of Light Dragoons, raised in 1746 and disbanded in 1749*15th Regiment of Light Dragoons, redesignated as a lancer regiment in 1861...

. The revolutionaries scattered and, while about forty were captured, the leaders managed to escape, to be arrested over the following months.

Retribution

Altogether, eighty-five of the marchers were placed in Nottingham and Derby gaols, to be brought to trial at the County Hall in Derby, charged in the main of "maliciously and traitorously [endeavouring]...by force of arms, to subvert and destroy the Government and the Constitution." Twenty-three were sentenced, three to transportation for fourteen years and eleven for life. Brandreth, Ludlam and Turner were convicted of high treason and sentenced to death. Although the customary quartering was remitted by the Prince Regent

English Regency

The Regency era in the United Kingdom is the period between 1811—when King George III was deemed unfit to rule and his son, the Prince of Wales, ruled as his proxy as Prince Regent—and 1820, when the Prince Regent became George IV on the death of his father....

, the three were publicly hanged and beheaded at Nuns Green in front of Friar Gate Gaol in Derby.

There is little to be seen nowadays of the event, but the hexagonal office, where Goodwin stood his ground, still exists in the yard of the Butterley Company's works.

E. P. Thompson

E. P. Thompson

Edward Palmer Thompson was a British historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. He is probably best known today for his historical work on the British radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in particular The Making of the English Working Class...

 in The Making of the English Working Class

The Making of the English Working Class

The Making of the English Working Class is an influential and pivotal work of English social history, written by E. P. Thompson, a notable 'New Left' historian; it was published in 1963 by Victor Gollancz Ltd, and later republished at Pelican, becoming an early Open University Set Book...

sees this rising as a transitional event between the earlier Luddite

Luddite

The Luddites were a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested – often by destroying mechanised looms – against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their way of life...

 actions and the later populist Radicalism of 1818–20 and 1830–32. (Note that Thompson refers to the village throughout as 'Pentridge', not the modern spelling.)

St Matthew's Church

Whilst St Matthew's Church is not mentioned in the Domesday book (1086), a charter of 1154–9 confirms the gift of the church of Pentrich to the cannons of Darley Abbey. Of this Norman church or one which shortly after replaced it the five arcades separating the aisles from the nave, parts of the west wall and south aisle and lower part of the tower remain.

The tower was made higher in the late 14th century and the two aisles were rebuilt. Around 1430 a new pointed chancel arch was built, retaining the earlier capitals and piers and a clerestory

Clerestory

Clerestory is an architectural term that historically denoted an upper level of a Roman basilica or of the nave of a Romanesque or Gothic church, the walls of which rise above the rooflines of the lower aisles and are pierced with windows. In modern usage, clerestory refers to any high windows...

 was added. The tracery of the east window suggests a date of 1420–50.

The font stands on a pedestal dated 1662 but the bowl has decoration typical of the Norman period. During the 19th century the bowl was absent and was used for the salting of beef.

On the exterior of the south chancel wall is a scratch dial or mass clock, a sort of sundial used to show service times.

Today the church worships every Sunday at 9.30 am.

Genealogical notes

Regarding Gyles Brandreth's ancestral claim: recent genealogical research of the Brandreth line has proven that it is highly unlikely that Gyles Brandreth is a direct descendant of Jeremiah Brandreth, as the only two remaining Brandreth descendants (son Timothy and grandson John) both emigrated to the USA in January 1847 on the ship Mongahela and all of their known descendants remained in the USA. Jeremiah Brandreth's ancestral line was researched by Helen Wilson of the Pentrich Historical Society.

In literature

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...

 wrote a famous piece (1817) contrasting the wretched fate of the 'Pentrich Martyrs' (Brandreth, Turner & Ludlam) to the public mourning for the death of Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales

Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales

Princess Charlotte of Wales was the only child of George, Prince of Wales and Caroline of Brunswick...

 in childbirth a few days earlier.

Charles Lamb wrote (1820) "The Three Graves" (which turns out to be not for the condemned men, but their accusers)

...

I ask'd the fiend, for whom these rites were meant?

"These graves," quoth he, "when life's brief oil is spent,

When the dark night comes, and they're sinking bedwards,

I mean for Castles, Oliver, and Edwards."

• A fictional account is given of the postwar slump, chartism, the Pentrich Revolution and industrial progress in The Reckoning, Volume 15 of The Morland Dynasty
  The Morland Dynasty
  The Morland Dynasty is a series of historical novels by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, based around the Morland family of York, England and their national and international relatives and associates.There are currently thirty-two books in the series...
  
  , a series of historical novels by author Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
  Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
  Cynthia Harrod-Eagles is a prolific and successful British novelist, best known for her Morland Dynasty series.Cynthia Harrod-Eagles was born in Shepherd's Bush, London and educated at Burlington School. Her first successful novel was The Waiting Game , and she became a full-time writer in...
  
  .

External links

St Matthew's Church, pentrich

• Pentrich Historical Society website