The Gordon Riots, 1780

In 1780 the protestant zealotry of Lord George Gordon inspired rioting in the London streets. The protesters were opposed to the Papists Act of 1778 that sought to mitigate anti-catholic discrimination. The fashionable late-Victorian historical painter, John Seymour Lucas, shows a ‘desperate and infernal gang’ ransacking the house of Lord and Lady Mansfield in Bloomsbury Square. A magistrate, having first read the riot act, twice gave orders to fire on the mob, but to no effect. The house was destroyed.