The mob in Didsbury in 1793 …………… opposing progress and the ideas of the day

January 1793 was an uncertain time across the country.  

Didsbury in 1853

The weather was unseemingly cold, the harvest had been poor, and in France the survival of the monarchy was in doubt.

All of which might explain why a crowd gathered to watch as an effigy of that well-known radical, Thomas Paine was burned on the village green in front of the two village pubs.*

And after the event some of the crowd will have settled down in the Old Cock, and the Ring o’Bells which would be rebuilt as the Church Inn and is now the Didsbury Hotel.

Just how many of those swapping stories in the two pubs, were in favour of Tom Paine, and how many had taken against the man who supported both the American and the French Revolutions, we will never know, but our two publicans may well have been pleased at the turn of events which brought in the customers.

The crowd who assembled to see the event may have been driven by a fear of Paine’s ideas or out of sheer curiosity, but they weren’t alone, because in all that orgy of burning, Bromsgrove in Worcestershire was “the only town in England in which an effigy of Tom Paine was not burned”, leaving the Manchester Guardian to add that there in Bromsgrove, “Democracy predominates.”**

Thomas Paine, 1792

And that leads me to the only description of a burning that we have for Manchester, which was the one carried out on December 17th 1792,
"The inhabitants at top Deansgate, hanged the effigy of Tom Paine, dressed in a Maroon coloured Coat, Striped Waistcoat, and greasy pair of Breeches, a Barber’s Block with a Wig on supplied the Place of a Head, from his Coat Pockets hung shreds of Paper and on the shoulder a Quantity of Thread, emblematical if his ci devant Trade, with ‘The Rights of Man’ stitched on his Breast; thus he hung an Hour, amidst the Acclamations of Hunderds of Spectators; he was afterwards dragged through the Streets, and then committed to the flames the Populace singing ‘God Save the King’"***

This event came during a surge of ‘loyalism’ in Manchester where a carefully crafted campaign had been waged against those who had embraced the French Revoultion and argued for a Radical ideas.

In the same month, the home of Thomas Walker on South Parade was attacked by an organizaned mob of Church and King supporters, and Walker was forced to drive them off by discharging a pistol.

Writing later of the event he commented,

“Emboldened by drink and fired on by agitators, groups hostile to the radicals began to gather around the city.  Walker was in no doubt that this was pre-planned.  

Thomas Walker, 1794

Parties were collected in different public houses, and from thence paraded in the streets with a fiddler before them, and carrying board on which was painted with CHURCH and KING in large letters’ 

On four separate occasions a mob gathered outside South Parade, broke the windows and attempted to force their way in.  Supported by friends Thomas Walker was forced to fire into the air to disperse the crowds. 

The magistrates did nothing to prevent the events and while a “regiment of dragoons was in town, booted and under arms” and ready to disperse the rioters no order was given. 

As if to add insult to injury the main concern of the magistrates when they finally met Walker was that he should not fire at the crowd again if the mob returned!  These attacks had been matched by similar ones on the home of Priestly in Birmingham and in Nottingham.” ****


Location; Didsbury and Manchester

Pictures; Thomas Paine, 1792, Thomas Walker. 1794, Didsbury showing the Church Inn and Old Cock, 1853, from the OS for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/


*Axon, William, The Annals of Manchester, 1885, page 120

** Bromsgrove, Manchester Guardian, January 20th, 1793

***Manchester Mercury, January 1, 1793, quoted by O’Gorman Frank, Manchester Loyalism in the 1790s from Return to Peterloo Manchester Region History Review, Volume 23 2012

**** Walker, Thomas, A Review of some of the events of the last five years, London 1794 page 23

“administering medicine to the dead” ……. The American War of Independence ..... and Thomas Paine

“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, ….. is like administering medicine to the dead”

Thomas Paine, 1792

Now I have to thank my friend Christianna for introducing me to this wonderful riposte to those who wallow in the depths of Holocaust Denial, outlandish conspiracy theories or walk with anti-vaxxers.

And I think it is worth quoting the entire original paragraph, which runs, “To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture. 

Enjoy, sir, your insensibility of feeling and reflecting. It is the prerogative of animals. And no man will envy you these honors, in which a savage only can be your rival and a bear your master”.

We might today quibble with the last sentence, but in its entirety, it remains a powerful guide to how to treat the outlandish arguments of those who have travelled beyond the borders of reason and reminds me of Deborah Lipstadt’s often referenced explanation for why she doesn’t debate with Holocaust Deniers because it is as pointless as discussing with “the flat-Earth people or the Elvis-is-alive people”.

And so back to the original quotation and a bit of history.   

It was written in the March of 1778 by Thomas Paine who was political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary. His written works included Common Sense written in 1776, the Rights of Man, 1791 and thirteen pamphlets which collectively are known as and The American Crisis,  which came out between 1776–1783.*

The American Crisis was written with a view to galvanise American support for the cause of independence, and contains some pretty good one liners, like, "These are the times that try men's souls: 

The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman”, and "Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph”.

And it was from one of those thirteen pamphlets published on March 21st 1778, that our quotation comes from.*

General Sir William Howe, engraving, 1872

It is a long piece and is best read in one sitting and concerns itself with General Sir William Howe, who was at the time Commander-in-Chief of British land forces during the American War of Independence, and is a comment on the state of the war and the actions of Sir William.

In places it is savage and funny, as when Thomas Paine speculates on the type of monument which might in the fulness of time be erected to Sir William Howe.

But I will close with the last paragraph which perfectly sums up the case for the British withdrawl from America.

"Go home, sir, and endeavor to save the remains of your ruined country, by a just representation of the madness of her measures. 

A few moments, well applied, may yet preserve her from political destruction. I am not one of those who wish to see Europe in a flame, because I am persuaded that such an event will not shorten the war. 

Battle of Bunker Hill, painted in1909

The rupture, at present, is confined between the two powers of America and England. 

England finds that she cannot conquer America, and America has no wish to conquer England. You are fighting for what you can never obtain, and we defending what we never mean to part with. 

A few words, therefore, settle the bargain. Let England mind her own business and we will mind ours. Govern yourselves, and we will govern ourselves. 

You may then trade where you please unmolested by us, and we will trade where we please unmolested by you; and such articles as we can purchase of each other better than elsewhere may be mutually done. 

If it were possible that you could carry on the war for twenty years you must still come to this point at last, or worse, and the sooner you think of it the better it will be for you".

And that is it.

Pictures; Thomas Paine, Laurent Dabos, circa 1792, National Portrait Gallery, Gen. Sir William Howe, Henry Bryan Hall  1872, Battle of Bunker Hill" 1909, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

*Thomas Paine US History .org, https://www.ushistory.org/paine/crisis/c-05.htm