History and Today

Easy wordling and noding with  http://voyeurtools.org/tool/Links/ 1817 Seditious Meetings bill debate in the House of Commons, 10 March 1817 - http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1817/mar/10/seditious-meetings-bill seditious meetings bill debate, 10 March 1817 All the debates in the Commons and Lords about the seditious meetings bill, February-April 1817 http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/search/seditious+meetings+bill?page=4&year=1817&sort=date all debates in parliament on the seditious meetings bill, 1817

This is a post about historical parallels in methods of protest. Recently, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Bristol North West, Charlotte Leslie, had her and her family's cars attacked by anonymous 'vandals'. Their cars had: the tyres let down the paintwork scratched  graffiti 'Tory scum' spraypainted across Leslie's car. 'maimed' car, Bristol Post Objectively, a historian would ask was this a form of political protest or just crime? The last tactic suggests some political motive, especially in the context of the immediate run up to the general election - so language and context matters - and the line between protest and crime is blurred. What came to my mind immediately on seeing this story are the classic studies of rural protest in England, notably John E Archer's By a Flash and a Scare: Arson, Animal Maiming and Poaching in East Anglia, 1815-1870 (recently republished by Breviary Stuff), and Timothy Shakesheff's Rura