Bristol riots

At the dinner "two oxen, roasted whole, a proportionate weight of potatoes, and six hundredweight of plum pudding" were served, along with a gallon of strong beer for each man.

When the beer ran out a mass brawl between English and Irish labourers turned into a riot which had to be suppressed by a naval press gang.

[6] Local magistrate Sir Charles Wetherell, a strong opponent of the Bill, visited Bristol to open the new Assize Courts, on 29 October.

[8][9] The rioters numbered about 500 or 600 young men and continued for three days, during which the palace of Robert Gray the Bishop of Bristol, the Mansion House, and private homes and property were looted and destroyed, along with demolition of much of the gaol.

[19] When 20 police officers carried out a raid on the Black and White Café located on Grosvenor Road in the heart of St Pauls, they faced resistance, which escalated into a riot.

[20] The riot continued for many hours and caused large amounts of damage including a Lloyds Bank and post office, several fire engines and twelve police cars.

Tensions were already high between the authorities and community as a result of distrust of the police and issues with deprivation in the area, and they were compounded during the disturbance by the breaking news that Hartcliffe had been denied funding from the government's City Challenge Initiative for the second year running.

[28] Around 80 or so arrests led to more than 60 people charged and taken through the courts, and the policeman who had swerved his car into the path of the motorbike, was found guilty of causing the two deaths by dangerous driving.

[30][31] Allegedly in protest at the opening of a new Tesco Metro, the riot began when police raided a squat,[32] known as Telepathic Heights, opposite the store.

Skips and bins were set alight, bottles thrown, and running battles occurred between police and protestors up and down the street until the early hours of the morning.

Protests had started in Tottenham, London, following the shooting of Mark Duggan, a local man who was shot dead by police on 4 August.