Cato Street Conspiracy

Cato Street Conspiracy
Cato Street Conspiracy
Part of the Revolutions during the 1820s
	The arrest of the Cato Street conspirators.
Date	22-23 February 1820
Location	Cato Street, London
Caused by	Death of George III; Implementation of the Six Acts;
Goals	Overthrow of the Government
Methods	Conspiracy; Assassination;
Resulted in	Conspiracy foiled
Parties
United Kingdom Tory Party; Bow Street Runners; Coldstream Guards; Informants;	Committee of Public Safety
Lead figures
	George IV; Robert Jenkinson; Dudley Ryder; Richard Birnie; Frederick FitzClarence Arthur Thistlewood ; William Davidson
Number
14 police officers	27 conspirators
Casualties
Death(s)	1 police officer
Arrested	13 conspirators
Charged	5 executed; 5 exiled

The Cato Street Conspiracy was a plot to murder all the British cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool in 1820. The name comes from the meeting place near Edgware Road in London. The police had an informer; the plotters fell into a police trap. Thirteen were arrested, while one policeman, Richard Smithers, was killed. Five conspirators were executed, and five others were transported to Australia.

How widespread the Cato Street conspiracy was is uncertain. It was a time of unrest; rumours abounded.^[1] Malcolm Chase noted that "the London-Irish community and a number of trade societies, notably shoemakers, were prepared to lend support, while unrest and awareness of a planned rising were widespread in the industrial north and on Clydeside."^[2]

^ Elie Halevy, The Liberal Awakening 1815–1930 [A History of the English People In The Nineteenth Century – vol. II] (1949), pp. 80–84.
^ Malcolm Chase, "Thistlewood, Arthur (bap. 1774, d. 1820)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004).

[1] Elie Halevy, The Liberal Awakening 1815–1930 [A History of the English People In The Nineteenth Century – vol. II] (1949), pp. 80–84.

[2] Malcolm Chase, "Thistlewood, Arthur (bap. 1774, d. 1820)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004).

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