1842 Pottery Riots

Predominantly centred on Hanley and Burslem, in what became the federation of Stoke-on-Trent, the 1842 Pottery Riots took place in the midst of the 1842 General Strike, and both are credited with helping to forge trade unionism and direct action as a powerful tool in British industrial relations.

[1] The riots took place against the backdrop of the 1842 general strike, started by colliers of the North Staffordshire Coalfield in the Potteries, and part of the popular working class Chartist movement.

The spark that lit both the general strike and Pottery Riots was the decision, in early June 1842, by W. H. Sparrow, a Longton coal mine owner, to disregard the law and fail to give the statutory fortnight's notice before imposing a hefty pay reduction of almost a shilling a day on his workers.

On 13 August prominent Chartist orator Thomas Cooper arrived in Hanley and was given lodgings by coffee shop owner Jeremiah Yates.

[5] On Monday 15 August 1842, Thomas Cooper gave a speech at Crown Bank in Hanley, declaring: "that all labour cease until the People's Charter becomes the law of the land.

"[6][7] John Ward states what happened next in his 1843 book: On Monday the 15th, after some inflammatory sermons by Cooper (a talented Chartist orator from Leicester), on the day before at Longton and Hanley, the fraternity of Chartists and the surly advocates for a fair day's wages (which was all the Colliers in general sought for, and no more than they had a right to expect), assembled in formidable array at the Crown Bank in Hanley, where the Chartist Meetings had been usually held, proceeded thence to stop the engines at Earl Granville's works, broke open the Police Office at Hanley, also a print-works, also a principle pawnbroker's shop there, and the house of the tax collector; proceeded to Stoke, demolished the windows of that Post Office, and afterwards those of Fenton and Longton.

R. E. Aitkens in Hanley, and Albion House in Shelton, the residences of William Parker, Esq., one of the county magistrates, were, with all their valuable furniture, burnt and destroyed.

Josiah Heapy was shot in the head in front of the "Big House" on Moorland Road and died instantly,[9][10] and many more men and women were wounded.