This week we are going way back - to 1766 - for a story that sounds ridiculous… until it very much isn’t.

At Nottingham’s historic Goose Fair, amid rising food prices and fears of scarcity, tensions boiled over when outside traders began buying up vast quantities of cheese. What followed was one of the strangest  and deadliest  public disorders in British history: wheels of cheese rolling through the streets, the mayor knocked down in the chaos, arrests, smashed windows, the Riot Act being read… and eventually dragoons firing into the crowd .

Plus, as always, we finish with a slightly chaotic quiz - this time on food riots through history. Because nothing says light educational entertainment like revolution sparked by carbohydrates.

SOURCES

George Rude - The Crowd in History: A Study of Popular Disturbances in France and England, 1730-1848

Nottingham Goose Fair - CooksInfo

https://www.cooksinfo.com/nottingham-goose-fair

The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century

https://academic.oup.com/past/article-abstract/50/1/76/1458023

Explore the Archives catalogue

https://www.inspireculture.org.uk/heritage/explore-the-archives-catalogue/

Cheesed Off! Nottingham Food Riots, c.1750-1800 - The University of Nottingham 

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/home/featureevents/2023/cheesed-off-nottingham-food-riots-c.1750-1800.aspx

Damn his Charity, we'll have the Cheese for nought!

https://files.libcom.org/files/cheeseriotsebook.pdf

Local Studies & Family History

https://www.nottinghamcitylibraries.co.uk/our-services/local-studies-family-history/

The Role of Local Authorities in the Provincial Hunger Riots of 1766

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/albion/article/role-of-local-authorities-in-the-provincial-hunger-riots-of-1766/2ACB9C12E4196A979D7C94D243A61391

Morals, Markets and the English Crowd in 1766

https://www.jstor.org/stable/650966?utm_source=chatgpt.com

The Politics of Provisions: Food Riots, Moral Economy, and Market Transition in England, C. 1550-1850

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Politics_of_Provisions.html

Cheese riots and dragoons: The complete history of Nottingham Goose Fair – Notts TV News | The heart of Nottingham news coverage for Notts TV

https://nottstv.com/cheese-riots-and-dragoons-the-complete-history-of-nottingham-goose-fair-2016/

Nottingham Rising | People's Histreh

https://peopleshistreh.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/nottingham_rising_peoples_histreh_digital_edition1.pdf

Visiting Nottinghamshire Archives

https://www.inspireculture.org.uk/heritage/archives/visiting-archives/