Jeremiah Brandreth was born in Wilford, Nottingham
in 1790. Brandreth became a stockinger by trade and later moved to
Sutton-in-Ashfield where he lived with his wife and three children.
It is believed that in 1811 he took part in Luddite
activities.
In May 1817 Brandreth met William Oliver
from London. Oliver claimed that a large
group of Radicals were planning an armed uprising in London on 9th
June and asked Brandreth to persuade local workers to join the rebellion.
This was untrue and it is now believed that Oliver was working as
an agent provocateur for Lord Sidmouth,
the Home Secretary.
On 9th June, Jeremiah Brandreth, led 300 men on a march on Nottingham.
Armed with a few pistols and pikes, Brandreth expected others to join
him on the way to the city. This did not happen and the authorities
had little difficulty dispersing the proposed insurrection.
Thirty-five of the men were charged with high treason. Brandreth and
two others were sentenced to death and another eleven men were transported
for life. The men were originally sentenced to being hung, drawn and
quartered, but the quartering was remitted.
On the
scaffold one of the men shouted out that they were victims of Lord
Sidmouth and Oliver the Spy. Percy Bysshe
Shelley campaigned against the use of agent provocateurs in The
Examiner. Edward Baines of the
Leeds Mercury investigated
their claims and was able to find enough evidence to implicate the
government in the conspiracy. In his article exposing William
Oliver, Baines described him as a "prototype of Lucifer,
whose distinguishing characteristic is, first to tempt and then to
destroy."
The execution of James Brandreth
(1)
A government spy reported on Jeremiah Brandreth on 1st June, 1817.
I
went to Jerry Brandreth's between six and seven this evening. We left
his house and met Stevens and walked up Sandy Lane. Stevens said I
should have been here on Monday night. He stated that there was a
London Delegate, who reported that there was about 70,000 in London
ready to act with us; and that they were very ripe in Birmingham.
(2)
William Stevens, a radical reformer from Nottingham, gave his account
of William Oliver's visit in William Cobbett's Political
Register (16th May, 1818)
On the 1st or 2nd of June,
Oliver came to Nottingham. He said, that all would be ready in London
for the 9th June. Oliver had a meeting with us now, at which meeting
Brandreth and Turner, and many others were present. At this meeting
he laid before us a paper which he called a plan of campaign. When
Oliver had thus settled everything with us, he prepared to set off
to organize things in Yorkshire, that all might be ready to move in
the country at the moment that the rising took place in London, where
he told us there were 50,000 men with arms prepared, and that they
would take the Tower of London.
(3)
William Cobbett, Political Register
(16th May, 1818)
Oliver drew towards London, leaving his victims successfully in the
traps that he had prepared for them. The employers of Oliver might,
in an hour, have put a total stop to those preparations, and have
blown them to air. They wished, not to prevent, but to produce those
acts.
(4)
Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Examiner,
(9th November, 1817)
On the 7th November, Brandreth,
Turner and Ludlam ascended the scaffold. We feel for Brandreth the
less, because it seems he killed a man. But recollect who instigated
him to the proceedings which led to murder. On the word of a dying
man, Brandreth tells us, that "Oliver brought him to this"
- that, "but for Oliver, he would not have been there."
See, too, Ludlam and Turner, with their sons and brothers, and sisters,
how they kneel together in this dreadful agony of prayer. With that
dreadful penalty before their eyes - with that tremendous sanction
for the truth of all he spoke, Turner exclaimed loudly and distinctly,
while the executioner was putting the rope round his neck, "This
is all Oliver and the government." What more he might have said
we know not, because the chaplain prevented any further observations.
Troops of horse, with keen and glittering swords, hemmed in the multitudes
collected to witness this abominable exhibition. "When the stroke
of the axe was heard, there was a burst of horror from the crowd.
The instant the head was exhibited, there was a tremendous shriek
set up, and the multitude ran violently in all directions, as if under
the impulse of sudden frenzy. Those who resumed their stations, groaned
and hooted."
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