click on the images for a larger, clearer view of the contemporary portrayal of the 'conspirators', and other pictures.

The Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820 was just one relatively small part of the on-going waves of the Radical Movement in Britain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. ( see E P Thompson, The making of the English working class, 1963, Chapter 15, for one historian's view of the time.) The leader of the group involved was Arthur Thistlewood, a well-known London Radical (note), but a government secret agent, George Edwards, was also a key figure in developing the plot. The primary intention was to kill the entire British Cabinet while they were, all too conveniently and publicly, taking dinner at the house of the Earl of Harrowby, Lord President of the Council, in Grosvenor Square. Beyond this there were ideas about setting up a provisional government, seizing barracks and arsenals, and getting support across the country. All this seems fairly fantastic, but it was being carried through at the time of the death of George III and the succession of George IV; in December1825 a group of Russian officers tried a similar plan in similar circumstances, with a little more success, though being quickly crushed by the new Tzar, Nicholas I; it was a time when there were many patriots who saw it as their duty to overthrow established governments. In the event the 'conspirators' were arrested before they could do any harm, in a hay loft over a stable in Cato Street.

William Davidson's role in the 'Conspiracy' is not entirely clear; reportedly it was Edwards who brought him into the group of shoemaker Radicals. He became secretary of a shoemakers' union and helped with organisation. Since he had once worked for Harrowby, he was apparently used to 'suss out' the situation at the house on Grosvenor Square. He was also, reportedly, responsible for acquiring considerable amounts of gons, gunpowder and ammunition for the group. He was made responsible for guarding the hay loft on Cato Street, the groups' headquarters where all the military supplies were stored. As the conspirators prepared, on February 23, 1820, to launch their attack, the forces of the authorities lay in wait for them, and burst into the hayloft, capturing nine of the group, including according to the official reports, William Davidson, who was armed with a sword. Thistlewood escaped but was soon tracked down.

In the treason trials which followed ten men were eventually found guilty, but the sentence of death on five was commuted to transportation. Davidson was among the five executed; Lord Chief Justice sentenced the men as follows “That you, each of you, be taken hence to the goal from whence you came, and from thence that you be drawn on a hurdle to a place of execution, and be there hanged by the neck until dead; and that

afterwards your heads shall be severed from your bodies, and your bodies divided into four quarters, to be disposed of as his Majesty shall think fit. And may God of His infinite goodness have mercy upon your souls”. The actual executions, on May 1st, included the hanging and beheading, the other stages having been excluded for varying reasons; this was the last time that the sentence of 'hanging, drawing and quartering', albeit in attenuated form from the earlier horrendous process, was carried out in England. The form of execution was used once more in Scotland, but stayed on the the statute book until 1870, less than a century and a half ago.

The accounts of the public executions all seem to agree that the five men died bravely, and that the large crowd clearly showed its sympathy with them.

Throughout the trial Davidson maintained his innocence; speaking in his own defence (link) he denied having any part in the conspiracy, insisting that witnesses must have mistaken him for another 'man of colour' who was involved. He accused a man who had once employed him, and who was in fact in league with the government agent, Edwards, of tricking him into being on Cato Street on the evening of the planned coup. While the scenario seems unlikely, the difficulty White witnesses still seem to have in distinguishing one Black man from another, means that Davidson's protestations of innocence are within the bounds of possibility. If he was telling the truth, he died the victim of a horrendous miscarriage of justice; if he was lying, he died as one of the many martyrs in the cause of violent political revolution. Either way he symbolises the helplessness of the 'ordinary man' confronted by the relentless power of the state.

There are two statements in his defence which seem to point to a considerable level of alienation, in spite of his apparent integration into life in London. He said - 'I am a stranger to England by birth, but I was educated in England; my father was an Englishman, my grandfather was a Scotch-man. I have not a friend in England. I have not a relative.' This total distancing from his English 'heritage' has a reverse side in his dissociation from his African 'heritage' - 'I never associated with men of colour, although one myself, as I was very well brought up, and always found most of them so very ignorant . . .' This may be the most disturbing feature of William Davidson's story.

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Personal note:

I am so intrigued with the ambiguities of this story that I shall have to come back to it and see what more I can find out. Any help anyone can give will be most welcome!

Joy Lumsden