John Brunt was born in about 1790. He worked as a shoemaker and for
a time was earning nearly fifty shillings a week. However, during
the post-war depression his income fell dramatically and his wife
and child had to exist on only ten shillings a week. Brunt and his
family were forced to move to a squalid area of London called Fox
Court. Here Brunt met Richard Tidd, another
shoemaker struggling to survive on a low wage. The two men shared
an interest in politics and by 1816 were both members of the Society
of Spencean Philanthropists. Other members of the group included
Arthur Thistlewood, James
Watson, James Ings, William
Davidson, Thomas Preston and John Hopper.
The government became very concerned about this group that they employed
a spy, John Castle, to join the Spenceans
and report on their activities. In October 1816 Castle reported to
John Stafford, supervisor of Home Office
spies, that a small group of Spenceans were planning to overthrow
the British government.
On 2nd December 1816 the Spencean group organised a mass meeting at
Spa Fields, Islington. The speakers at the meeting included Henry
'Orator' Hunt and James Watson. The
magistrates decided to disperse the meeting and while Stafford and
eighty police officers were doing this, one of the men, Joseph Rhodes
was stabbed. Four leaders of the group, James
Watson, Arthur Thistlewood, Thomas
Preston and John Hopper were arrested and charged with high treason.
James Watson was the first to be tried.
However, the main prosecution witness was the government spy, John
Castle. The defence council was able to show that John
Castle had a long criminal record and that his testimony was unreliable.
The jury concluded that Castle was an agent provocateur (a
person employed to incite suspected people to some open action that
will make them liable to punishment) and refused to convict Watson.
As the case against Watson had failed, it was decided to release the
other three men who were due to be tried for the same offence.
The Spenceans continued to meet in 1817.
Arthur Thistlewood was still convinced
a successful violent revolution was still possible. James
Watson now doubted the wisdom of this strategy and although he
still attended meetings, he gradually lost control of the group to
the more militant ideas of Thistlewood.
On 22nd February 1820, George Edwards
pointed out to Arthur Thistlewood
an item in the New Times that several members of the British
government were going to have dinner at Lord Harrowby's house at 39
Grosvenor Square. John Brunt agreed to join Thistlewood and and twenty-seven
other Spenceans in the plot to kill the government ministers dining
at Lord Harrowby's house on 23rd February.
On the
23rd February Thistlewood's gang assembled in a hayloft in Cato
Street, a short distance away from Grosvenor Square. However,
government ministers were not meeting at the home of Earl of Harrowby.
The Spenceans had been set up by George Edwards,
a government spy who had infiltrated the Spencean
Society. Thirteen police officers led by George Ruthven stormed
the hay loft. Several members of the gang refused to surrender their
weapons and one police officer, Richard Smithers, was killed by Arthur
Thistlewood. Four of the conspirators, Thistlewood, Brunt, Robert
Adams and John Harrison escaped out of a window. John Brunt was unaware
that Edwards had been a spy and that the police knew he had been involved
in the plot. Brunt returned to Fox Court where he was arrested the
next day.
Eleven men were eventually charged with being involved in the Cato
Street Conspiracy. Charges against Robert Adams were dropped when
he agreed to give evidence against the other men in court. On 28th
April 1820, John Brunt, Richard Tidd, Arthur
Thistlewood, James Ings and William
Davidson were found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death.
John Harrison, James Wilson, Richard Bradburn, John Strange and Charles
Copper were also found guilty but their original sentence of execution
was subsequently commuted to transportation for life.
(1)
John Brunt, speech in court (April, 1820)
I
had, by my industry, been able to earn about £3 or £4 a
week, and while this was the case, I never meddled with politics;
but when I found my income reduced to 10s a week, I began to look
around. And what did I find? Why, men in power, who met to deliberate
how they might starve and plunder the country. I looked on the Manchester
transactions as most dreadful. I joined the conspiracy for the public
good. I will die as the descendants of an ancient Briton.
(2)
The Traveller (May, 1820)
The executioner, who trembled
much, was a long time tying up the prisoners; while this operation
was going on a dead silence prevailed among the crowd, but the moment
the drop fell, the general feeling was manifested by deep sighs and
groans. Ings and Brunt were those only who manifested pain while hanging.
The former writhed for some moments; but the latter for several minutes
seemed, from the horrifying contortions of his countenance, to be
suffering the most excruciating torture.
(3)
George Theodore Wilkinson, An Authentic History of the Cato Street
Conspiracy (1820)
Thistlewood struggled slightly for a few minutes, but each effort
was more faint than that which preceded; and the body soon turned
round slowly, as if upon the motion of the hand of death.
Tidd, whose size gave cause to suppose that he would "pass"
with little comparative pain, scarcely moved after the fall. The struggles
of Ings were great. The assistants of the executioner pulled his legs
with all their might; and even then the reluctance of the soul to
part from its native seat was to be observed in the vehement efforts
of every part of the body. Davidson, after three or four heaves, became
motionless; but Brunt suffered extremely, and considerable exertions
were made by the executioners and others to shorten his agonies.
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