The Spa Fields riots arose from two mass meetings held at Spa Fields, Islington, on 15 November and 2 December 1816, organised by a small group of revolutionary Spenceans who invited the popular radical speaker Henry Hunt to address the crowds. The meetings took place against a backdrop of sharp economic downturn following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, which had brought mass unemployment and widespread distress. The Spenceans hoped the gatherings would culminate in rioting during which they could seize control of the government by taking the Tower of London and the Bank of England. The first meeting, attended by around 10,000 people, ended peacefully after Hunt persuaded the organisers to moderate their demands and abandon plans to march on the Prince Regent's house; Hunt and Sir Francis Burdett were elected to deliver a petition calling for electoral reform and relief from hardship.
At the second meeting on 2 December, before Hunt arrived, both Watsons harangued the crowd and Watson junior picked up a tricolour flag, symbol of the French Revolution, and led a section of the crowd in the direction of the Tower. The rioters raided a gunsmith's shop in Snow Hill, during which shots were fired, the gunsmith was wounded and a passer-by killed. At the Royal Exchange, troops closed the gates and exchanged shots with the rioters, and further skirmishes took place at Fleet Market, Snow Hill and the Minories, which the rioters held for some hours. Thistlewood then led an armed band to the Tower of London, climbed a wall and invited the soldiers to surrender, but the soldiers refused, and the disturbance, described as the most serious public disorder in London since the Gordon Riots of 1780, gradually petered out.
In the aftermath, four leading Spenceans, John Hooper, Thomas Preston, Arthur Thistlewood and James Watson, were arrested and charged with high treason. Watson was tried first; the chief prosecution witness was John Castle, a government spy who had infiltrated the Spenceans, but his evidence was discredited by defence counsel, who exposed previous instances of entrapment and presented him to the jury as an agent provocateur. Watson was acquitted, the prosecution presented no evidence against the remaining defendants, and all four were released. The riots marked the start of a period of mass anti-government meetings and unrest, including the march of the Blanketeers in March 1817, the Pentrich rising in June 1817, and the Peterloo Massacre in August 1819.
Thistlewood led an armed band from the Minories to the Tower of London, climbed a wall and invited the soldiers to surrender; they refused, and the most serious public disturbance in London since the Gordon Riots of 1780 gradually petered out, leaving behind a trail of skirmishes at the Royal Exchange, Snow Hill, Fleet Market and the Minories, a dead passer-by, a wounded gunsmith and a government case for high treason that collapsed when the chief prosecution witness was exposed as an agent provocateur.
A passer-by was killed during the raid on the gunsmith's shop in Snow Hill; the gunsmith was wounded. Shots were exchanged at the Royal Exchange. A sailor, John Cashman, was later found guilty of theft of firearms and hanged on 12 March 1817.
A section of the crowd led by Watson junior and Thistlewood, armed with weapons raided from a gunsmith's shop, faced troops stationed at the Royal Exchange and the Tower of London.
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