Voices from the Old Bailey
The new series of 'Voices from the Old Bailey' is on BBC Radio 4, Wednesday 27 July, 9am, repeated at 9.30pm. The first programme is on riots. It's presented, exquisitely as always, by Amanda Vickery. I'll be talking about the Wilkes and Liberty Riots of 1768 (note the BBC website is a little misleading in having riot in the singular - there were many, many riots during that crazy time when John Wilkes's supporters tried to get him out his prison sentence and re-elected back into parliament). The Wilkes riots were important because they were the first time ordinary working people got involved in a mass scale in political demonstrations campaigning for reform in parliament. 'Liberty' had a very ambiguous meaning, so the agitation for the libertine and later Mayor of London Wilkes was able to encompass a wide range of grievances. I'm not sure how much of me will be kept off the cutting room floor, but hopefully I'll also be talking about food riots...
