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Date
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Event
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Oct 29, 1795 |
George III on the way to parliament; a mob pummels the King's carriage, shouting "Bread! Peace! No Pitt!"; this becomes the pretext for introducing the "Two Bills." A journeyman named Kyd Wake is arrested for yelling "No George, no War" and sentenced to the pillory, five years imprisonment at hard labor, 1000 pounds sureties and imprisonment until he can come up with the money. |
*The Two Bills |
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Oct 31, 1795 |
John Keats born at the Swan and Hoop livery stable in Finsbury (just north of London). |
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Nov 4, 1795 |
Royal Proclamation vs. public meetings. (Occurs about the same time as the "Two Bills"--and has a similar purpose.) |
*The Two Bills |
| Details |
Nov 6, 1795 - Nov 10, 1795 |
William Pitt and Lord Grenville introduce "The Gagging Acts" or "Two Bills" (the Seditious Meetings and Treasonable Practices Bills) outlawing the mass meeting and the political lecture; if passed, they would redefine virtually all pro-reform activism as sedition and treason |
*The Two Bills |
| Details |
Nov 12, 1795 |
London Corresponding Society holds monster meeting in a field near Copenhagen House, defying the Royal proclamation of 4 November. |
*The Two Bills |
| Details |
Nov 17, 1795 |
Norwich Patriotic and Sheffield Constitutional Society, rural radical societies, hold a meeting. |
*The Two Bills |
| Details |
Nov 17, 1795 |
History of the Two Bills (see 1-10 Nov.): 94 petitions signed by 130,000 people were presented to parliament protesting these acts. |
*The Two Bills |
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Nov 21, 1795 |
William Godwin's Considerations on Lord Grenville's and Mr Pitt's Bills: "These bills are an unwilling homage that the too eager advocates of authority pay to the rising genius of liberty." |
*The Two Bills |
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Nov 23, 1795 |
Fox moves for a week's delay in voting on the Two Bills (see 6-10 Nov.) on the grounds that they repeal the Bill of Rights of 1689; Fox predicts the people will revolt; London Corresponding Society defends itself to Parliament and the People in An Explicit Declaration of the Principles and Views of the London Corresponding Society (while it had always advocated social equality, the Society says, it had never advocated equalization of property). |
*The Two Bills |
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Nov 26, 1795 |
Coleridge, "Lecture on the Two Bills." |
*The Two Bills |
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Dec 7, 1795 |
London Corresponding Society holds huge meeting at Regent's Park: M.C. Brown calls it "the last free meeting of the people under the existing constitutution." |
*The Two Bills |
| Details |
Dec 8, 1795 |
Coleridge, Conciones ad Populum (Sermons to the People). |
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Dec 18, 1795 |
The Two Bills (see 6-10 Nov.) become law, receiving royal assent. |
*The Two Bills |
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Dec 20, 1795 |
In a speech to the Whig Club, Thomas Erskine says they must do everything possible to repeal the Two Bills: every friend of freedom, he said, is "a species of watchman on the outworks of the British Constitution." |
*The Two Bills
*Whig Party |
| Details |
Dec 29, 1795 |
Society for Constitutional Information publishes a lengthy analysis of the Two Bills on how to evade them; the London Corresponding Society reorganizes into small divisions so that no more than 50 people will meet together at a time. |
*The Two Bills |
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