The Pentrich Rising

Pentrich is a small village on the edge of the Peak District in Derbyshire. These events took place in 1817 when England was in a state of turmoil following the French Wars. Civil disobedience and potential revolution were in the air...

This poem was inspired by the lecture (with music) by John Young detailing the story behind the Rising and its tragic (at least for some) ending.

You can read a full account here

The Pentrich Rising

In eighteen hundred and seventeen
three hundred men and true
marched on the city of Nottingham
to fight to get their due

The Corn Laws raised their prices
They could buy no bread
Cheap labour taking all their jobs
They were hanging by a thread

The government in London
cared nothing for the poor
The bastard Henry Addington
was master of the law

He suspended habeus corpus
he crushed rebellious thoughts
He used his secret agents
and his lackeys in the courts

The men had surely had enough
when they gathered at the inn
They were part of a national movement
that would free their kith and kin

But as they marched together
their problems became clear
No food, no guns or muskets
Not even any beer

They never reached their target
At Eastwood they fell short
The army quickly crumbled
and the ringleaders were caught

There were no other armies
There were no other troops
They fell for Addington's dirty tricks
They were sacrificial dupes

They took them off to Derby
and held them in the jail
They silenced all the protests
no one could tell the tale

They were drawn upon a carriage
to their hanging place
Six thousand saw them struggle
into death's cold embrace

Others were transported
Their sentences reduced
But Brandreth, Turner and Ludlam
faced the hangman's noose

The elite had won the battle
but there was more to do
Fifteen more were slaughtered
in the shame of Peterloo

So remember not to trust the rich -
raise a glass of English Beer
in memory of two hundred years
since the Pentrich mutineers

Tim Fellows 2018