ABSTRACT
In eighteenth-century England the most characteristic form of popular protest was riot, and riots occurred on a wide range of issues, including elections, religion, politics, recruiting, and enclosures. However, the most persistent and widespread riots were those associated with food, for it has been calculated that two out of every three disturbances in the eighteenth century were of this type. Recent work has shown that food riots became common in England in the latter part of the seventeenth century, occurred with increasing frequency during the eighteenth century, and began to die out in the first decades of the nineteenth century. The government, however, was determined to keep out of the internal corn trade and attempted to keep up the normal circulation of grain, so that the large urban centres would be supplied.
