Spa Fields riots

Riots in London on 2 December 1816 provoked by demands for parliamentary reform. Discontent was widespread at the time due to an economic depression at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The orator Henry Hunt was due to address a mass meeting calling for universal suffrage and reform of parliament in Spa Fields, London, but radical agitators led the crowd on the City of London. They were confronted by the lord mayor at the head of a force of police and the ensuing riot was eventually broken up by troops.