Rural Crime, and Protest? Poaching and Incendiarism in Early 19th Century Gloucestershire,

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The final Historical Association Gloucestershire Branch talk of this academic year will be on Rural Crime, and Protest? Poaching and Incendiarism in Early 19th Century Gloucestershire by Tom Wilkinson, teacher at Severn Vale School and PhD student at the University of Gloucestershire.

This will be held in person at Francis Close Hall Campus (with thanks to the University of Gloucestershire) or on Zoom: Please register for the talk in advance using TicketSource. Guests on Zoom are asked to pay £4.32.

Crimes such as poaching and incendiarism have been labelled by anthropologist James Scott as examples of 'weapons of the weak', covert actions that allow the powerless within a society to resist exploitation without having to resort to more overt deeds such as riot and rebellion. While these acts are conducted on a small scale, their cumulative impact can be considerable. The stereotype of the lone poacher, forced into criminality through the desperation of poverty, taking food from the lands of an uncaring elite in order to support his family, has long been considered synonymous with the concept of protest through crime. Poachers have been represented as fighting in a 'crusade against privilege and the class monopoly of the Game Laws', and have come to represent a fundamental element in the creation of working-class consciousness in the nineteenth century. The reality, however, was far more nuanced.

The same concepts have been applied to incendiarism, particularly the targeting of agricultural property. Arson has been described as the 'prime weapon of rural war a hallmark of social protest' during the nineteenth century. Historians have pointed to the hopelessness felt by the rural poor during this period, a time that saw their quality of life 'degraded to a state of wretchedness', their living standards often worse than the animals to which they tended. It has been argued that incendiarism, and crime in general, provided the rural poor with a level of agency they otherwise lacked. Their crimes, therefore, were justified.

Early nineteenth century Gloucestershire provides a fascinating case study regarding these issues. This talk will examine examples of poaching and incendiarism within the county. The extent to which both crimes should be considered a justifiable form of protest will also be discussed.