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On 9 June 1817, a mob of men marched nervously through darkness and driving rain down the country lanes of Derbyshire. They were on their way \u2013 or so they thought \u2013 to capture Nottingham, 14 miles away, as part of a national revolt to overthrow the government. They did not know it at the time but the Pentrich revolutionaries, as they came to be called, were taking part in the last armed insurrection in English history \u2013 and, according to the late historian EP Thompson, the first entirely working-class political uprising.<\/p>\n
Armed with pikes and a few muskets, and led by an unemployed stocking weaver called Jeremiah Brandreth \u2013 known to them for his Luddite activities as \u2018the Nottingham Captain\u2019 \u2013 they expected to be joined by thousands of others marching down \u201clike a cloud\u201d from Yorkshire and Lancashire.<\/p>\n
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They were assured that a further 50,000 men in London could be quickly summoned to seize the government and capture the Bank of England. In reality, they were on their own.<\/p>\n
Most of the men were unclear as to what the political aim was, beyond cancelling the national debt and shooting ministers. Perhaps a provisional government would be set up, one that would hand out provisions to the starving populace \u2013 but, more immediately, the men had been promised money, food, rum and boat rides on the river Trent.<\/p>\n
As they marched wearily on, Brandreth led the singing: \u201cThe time is come, you plainly see\/The government opposed must be.\u201d<\/p>\n
The men on the march were weavers, farm labourers and iron workers. Most were related to each other, and many \u2013 including Brandreth \u2013 were Primitive Methodists. They blamed the autocratic government and aristocratic ministers for their distress. Many were out of work and without food, the result of the contraction of the economy after the Napoleonic Wars<\/a>.<\/p>\n But they were also victims of a natural phenomenon of which they had no idea. An ash cloud from the 1815 volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora, on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, is now recognised to have affected the climate across the world over several seasons, wrecking harvests in the northern hemisphere. As a result, food and particularly bread had become expensive \u2013 landowners\u2019 incomes were protected by the newly enacted Corn Laws<\/a>, keeping wheat prices high \u2013 and in short supply.<\/p>\n