William Davidson (conspirator)
Encyclopedia
William Davidson was an African-Caribbean radical executed by the British
government
to study law. In Scotland
he became involved in the movement for parliamentary reform
. He apprenticed to a Liverpool
lawyer, but ran away to sea. Later, he was press-ganged
into the Royal Navy
.
After his discharge, he returned to Scotland. His father arranged for him to study mathematics in Aberdeen
. Davidson withdrew from study, moved to Birmingham
, and started a cabinet-making business. He courted the daughter of a prosperous merchant. Her father suspected that Davidson was after her £7,000 dowry, and arranged for Davidson to be arrested on a false charge. When Davidson discovered she had married someone else he attempted suicide by taking poison.
Davidson's cabinet-making business failed, and he moved to London. He married Sarah Lane, a working-class widow with four children. They had two more children. Davidson became a Wesleyan
Methodist, and taught at the Sunday School
. However, he left after he was accused of attempting to seduce a female student.
, William Davidson became involved in radical politics again. In October 1819 Richard Carlile
was found guilty of blasphemy and seditious libel
, and sentenced to three years imprisonment. Davidson said that this had caused him to lose his belief in God. He joined the Marylebone Union Reading Society, a club which offered a reading room of radical newspapers such as the Republican and the Manchester Observer for a subscription of twopence a week. He also read the works of Tom Paine.
Davidson met John Harrison
at the Marylebone Union. Harrison was a member of the Spencean
Philanthropists in London. Davidson soon became a Spencean. He met Arthur Thistlewood
, and after a few months he became one of the Committee of Thirteen that ran the organisation.
In February 1820, George Edwards, a government provocateur, drew Davidson and Thistlewood and twenty seven other Spenceans into a plot to kill government cabinet officers as they dined at Lord Harrowby
's house at 39 Grosvenor Square
on 23 February. Thistlewood selected Davidson as one of an Executive of Five to organise the assassinations.
Davidson had worked for Lord Harrowby in the past, and knew some of his staff at Grosvenor Square. His job was to find out more details about the cabinet meeting. One servants told him that the Earl of Harrowby was not in London. Davidson relayed this information to Arthur Thistlewood, who believed that the servant was lying, and ordered the conspirators to proceed with the plot.
On the 23rd February the Cato Street Conspiracy
met in a hayloft on Cato Street, near Grosvenor Square. However, there was no cabinet meeting: the Spenceans had been set up by George Edwards.
George Ruthven led thirteen police officers to storm the hay loft. Several revolutionaries refused to surrender their weapons. Thistlewood shot and killed police officer Richard Smithers. When the co-conspirators tried to escape, Benjamin Gill hit Davidson on the wrist with his truncheon, and he dropped his blunderbuss
. Four conspirators, Thistlewood, John Brunt, Robert Adams and John Harrison escaped through a window. However, their identities were known due to a list Edwards supplied the police, and arrested.
Eleven men were charged with involvement in the Cato Street Conspiracy. Robert Adams testified against the other men, and charges against him were dropped. Davidson pleaded innocence and claimed the court was prejudiced against black people
. However, his presence at the scene with a blunderbuss lead to his conviction.
On 28 April 1820, William Davidson, James Ings, Richard Tidd, Arthur Thistlewood
, and John Brunt were found guilty of high treason, and sentenced to death. John Harrison, James Wilson, Richard Bradburn, John Strange and Charles Copper were also found guilty. However their death sentences were subsequently commuted to transportation for life.
William Davidson, with his four fellow conspirators, was publicly hanged and decapitated outside Newgate Prison
on the 1 May 1820.
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
government
Early years
Davidson was the illegitimate son of the Jamaican Attorney General and a local black woman. At age fourteen he travelled to GlasgowGlasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
to study law. In Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
he became involved in the movement for parliamentary reform
Friends of the People Society
The Society of the Friends of the People was formed in Great Britain by Whigs at the end of the 18th century as part of a movement seeking radical political reform that would widen electoral enfranchisement at a time when only a wealthy minority had the vote...
. He apprenticed to a Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
lawyer, but ran away to sea. Later, he was press-ganged
Impressment
Impressment, colloquially, "the Press", was the act of taking men into a navy by force and without notice. It was used by the Royal Navy, beginning in 1664 and during the 18th and early 19th centuries, in wartime, as a means of crewing warships, although legal sanction for the practice goes back to...
into the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
.
After his discharge, he returned to Scotland. His father arranged for him to study mathematics in Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....
. Davidson withdrew from study, moved to Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, and started a cabinet-making business. He courted the daughter of a prosperous merchant. Her father suspected that Davidson was after her £7,000 dowry, and arranged for Davidson to be arrested on a false charge. When Davidson discovered she had married someone else he attempted suicide by taking poison.
Davidson's cabinet-making business failed, and he moved to London. He married Sarah Lane, a working-class widow with four children. They had two more children. Davidson became a Wesleyan
Wesleyanism
Wesleyanism or Wesleyan theology refers, respectively, to either the eponymous movement of Protestant Christians who have historically sought to follow the methods or theology of the eighteenth-century evangelical reformers, John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley, or to the likewise eponymous...
Methodist, and taught at the Sunday School
Sunday school
Sunday school is the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.-England:The first Sunday school may have been opened in 1751 in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Another early start was made by Hannah Ball, a native of High Wycombe in...
. However, he left after he was accused of attempting to seduce a female student.
Political activism
Following the Peterloo MassacrePeterloo Massacre
The Peterloo Massacre occurred at St Peter's Field, Manchester, England, on 16 August 1819, when cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000–80,000 that had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation....
, William Davidson became involved in radical politics again. In October 1819 Richard Carlile
Richard Carlile
Richard Carlile was an important agitator for the establishment of universal suffrage and freedom of the press in the United Kingdom.-Early life :...
was found guilty of blasphemy and seditious libel
Seditious libel
Seditious libel was a criminal offence under English common law. Sedition is the offence of speaking seditious words with seditious intent: if the statement is in writing or some other permanent form it is seditious libel...
, and sentenced to three years imprisonment. Davidson said that this had caused him to lose his belief in God. He joined the Marylebone Union Reading Society, a club which offered a reading room of radical newspapers such as the Republican and the Manchester Observer for a subscription of twopence a week. He also read the works of Tom Paine.
Davidson met John Harrison
John Harrison
John Harrison was a self-educated English clockmaker. He invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought device in solving the problem of establishing the East-West position or longitude of a ship at sea, thus revolutionising and extending the possibility of safe long distance sea travel in the Age...
at the Marylebone Union. Harrison was a member of the Spencean
Thomas Spence
Thomas Spence was an English Radical and advocate of the common ownership of land.-Life:Spence was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England and was the son of a Scottish net and shoe maker....
Philanthropists in London. Davidson soon became a Spencean. He met Arthur Thistlewood
Arthur Thistlewood
Arthur Thistlewood was a British conspirator in the Cato Street Conspiracy.-Early life:He was born in Tupholme the extramarital son of a farmer and stockbreeder. He attended Horncastle Grammar School and was trained as a land surveyor. Unsatisfied with his job, he obtained a commission in the army...
, and after a few months he became one of the Committee of Thirteen that ran the organisation.
In February 1820, George Edwards, a government provocateur, drew Davidson and Thistlewood and twenty seven other Spenceans into a plot to kill government cabinet officers as they dined at Lord Harrowby
Dudley Ryder, 1st Earl of Harrowby
Dudley Ryder, 1st Earl of Harrowby, PC, FSA was a prominent British politician of the Pittite faction and the Tory party.-Background and education:...
's house at 39 Grosvenor Square
Grosvenor Square
Grosvenor Square is a large garden square in the exclusive Mayfair district of London, England. It is the centrepiece of the Mayfair property of the Duke of Westminster, and takes its name from their surname, "Grosvenor".-History:...
on 23 February. Thistlewood selected Davidson as one of an Executive of Five to organise the assassinations.
Davidson had worked for Lord Harrowby in the past, and knew some of his staff at Grosvenor Square. His job was to find out more details about the cabinet meeting. One servants told him that the Earl of Harrowby was not in London. Davidson relayed this information to Arthur Thistlewood, who believed that the servant was lying, and ordered the conspirators to proceed with the plot.
On the 23rd February the Cato Street Conspiracy
Cato Street Conspiracy
The Cato Street Conspiracy was an attempt to murder all the British cabinet ministers and Prime Minister Lord Liverpool in 1820. The name comes from the meeting place near Edgware Road in London. The Cato Street Conspiracy is notable due to dissenting public opinions regarding the punishment of the...
met in a hayloft on Cato Street, near Grosvenor Square. However, there was no cabinet meeting: the Spenceans had been set up by George Edwards.
George Ruthven led thirteen police officers to storm the hay loft. Several revolutionaries refused to surrender their weapons. Thistlewood shot and killed police officer Richard Smithers. When the co-conspirators tried to escape, Benjamin Gill hit Davidson on the wrist with his truncheon, and he dropped his blunderbuss
Blunderbuss
The blunderbuss is a muzzle-loading firearm with a short, large caliber barrel, which is flared at the muzzle and frequently throughout the entire bore, and used with shot and other projectiles of relevant quantity and/or caliber. The blunderbuss could be considered to be an early form of shotgun,...
. Four conspirators, Thistlewood, John Brunt, Robert Adams and John Harrison escaped through a window. However, their identities were known due to a list Edwards supplied the police, and arrested.
Eleven men were charged with involvement in the Cato Street Conspiracy. Robert Adams testified against the other men, and charges against him were dropped. Davidson pleaded innocence and claimed the court was prejudiced against black people
Black British
Black British is a term used to describe British people of Black African descent, especially those of Afro-Caribbean background. The term has been used from the 1950s to refer to Black people from former British colonies in the West Indies and Africa, who are residents of the United Kingdom and...
. However, his presence at the scene with a blunderbuss lead to his conviction.
On 28 April 1820, William Davidson, James Ings, Richard Tidd, Arthur Thistlewood
Arthur Thistlewood
Arthur Thistlewood was a British conspirator in the Cato Street Conspiracy.-Early life:He was born in Tupholme the extramarital son of a farmer and stockbreeder. He attended Horncastle Grammar School and was trained as a land surveyor. Unsatisfied with his job, he obtained a commission in the army...
, and John Brunt were found guilty of high treason, and sentenced to death. John Harrison, James Wilson, Richard Bradburn, John Strange and Charles Copper were also found guilty. However their death sentences were subsequently commuted to transportation for life.
William Davidson, with his four fellow conspirators, was publicly hanged and decapitated outside Newgate Prison
Newgate Prison
Newgate Prison was a prison in London, at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey just inside the City of London. It was originally located at the site of a gate in the Roman London Wall. The gate/prison was rebuilt in the 12th century, and demolished in 1777...
on the 1 May 1820.