Bristol Riots: Burning Toll House on Prince Street Bridge, c.1832 (oil on paper)

The Bristol Riots of 1831 took place after the House of Lords rejected the second Reform Bill, which aimed to get rid of some of the rotten boroughs. Local magistrate Sir Charles Wetherell, a strong opponent of the Bill, visited Bristol to open the new Assize Courts, on 29 October, and an angry mob chased him to the Mansion House in Queen Square. The rioters numbered about 500 or 600 young men and continued for three days, during which the palace of Robert Gray the Bishop of Bristol, the Mansion House, and private homes and property were looted and destroyed, along with demolition of much of the gaol. Four rioters killed; and four men hanged despite a petition of 10,000.