The time of the French Revolutionary Wars (1793-1802) was comparatively prosperous for Lancashire workers as although technology had reduced the importance of some traditional jobs, overall there was plenty of work and wages were high.

[2] Alarmed by the situation, the local authorities in 1819 not only constructed a new prison, but took the decision to station troops in the town with temporary barracks established at Lane Bridge.

[8] Conditions across Lancashire had reached the lowest point by 1826, with the situation in Burnley so severe that The Times reported that people were digging-up the carcases of diseased animals for food.

Although the power-loom riots that year affected the Accrington, Blackburn and Rossendale areas, there is nothing in the court records of the assizes or quarter sessions to suggest Burnley was caught-up in the trouble.

[9] The rise of Chartism saw riots in Colne in April and August 1840, with a special constable killed by a mob armed with sharpened iron rails during the second.

[11] During the 1842 General Strike, in August, troops were called to disperse a mob attempting to stop work at a coal mine to the west of the town.

[14] The first Ordnance Survey map of the area from 1848, shows the rectangular barracks located east of the town, with buildings around a central open space and entrances mid-way along the south-western boundary and at the northern corner.

[20] Sir James Yorke Scarlett who rose to prominence in the Crimean War, was a lieutenant colonel in the 5th Dragoon Guards in 1835 when he married Charlotte Hargreaves, a Burnley coal heiress, with the town becoming his adopted home.