#st coelwulf

[maypoleman1]

15th January

St Coelwulf’s Day / The Glasgow Five

Frontspiece to “Wm Taits Edition of the Trial”, Edinburgh 1838. Source: Grosvenor Prints website

Today is St Coelwulf’s Day. Coelwulf was an eighth century King of Northumbria who was deposed and tonsured by rebels. Giving a crowned head a monastic shave was a way to disqualify a king from the throne, according to East Roman practice. Coelwulf however soon returned to the throne but he did abdicate in 737 of his own free will and joined the monastery at Lindisfarne making it fabulously wealthy in the process and guaranteeing his eventual sainthood.

On this day in 1838, the trial of five Glasgow cotton spinners concluded. The striking workers had been accused of killing a blackleg by shooting him in the back. The evidence was flimsy at best, and the presiding judge acquitted the men of both murder and conspiracy to murder. However the judge also had an aversion to working class assertiveness so he instead convicted the strikers of “Illegal Activities” and sentenced the accused to transportation. The illegal activity concerned was picketing. The ensuing sense of injustice and sympathy for the convicted men was immense and a swiftly penned broadside song summed up popular sentiment towards the powers that be:-

Whigs and Tories are united, we see very plain,

To crush the poor labourer is their daily aim.

The outcry against the convictions was such that the spinners were never transported and the so-called Glasgow Five were eventually freed after serving two years in Woolwich gaol.