Post cards from Cinderloo

Do you want to help tell the story of Cinderloo?

Write a short blog telling the stories of the social and political events that led to Cinderloo and their impact on the people and places we now call Telford

In his book ‘The Industrial Revolution in Shropshire’ Barrie Trinder provides the narrative that Telford new town inherited, and the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust uses to promote the area as a tourist attraction and the birth place of the industrial revolution. 

Tucked away on page 213 Trinder notes the ‘Cinderhill’ riot and references the work of A. Aspinall and his book ‘The early English trade unions’ published in 1949. Here the events leading to the Wellington collier riots of 1821 are contextualised through reports written to and from the successive Home Secretaries on the concerns of their representatives on the ground of the developing unrest of the ‘working classes’ as they developed organisations to protect their interests and who consistently faced legal and physical attacks on their associations the forerunners of trade unions

As part of the Cinderloo 1821 project a number of local historians interested in the events leading to the riots and similar uprisings across England are researching and writing about the events as the government of the day sought to avoid revolution as had occurred over the channel in France.

This period of history explains a lot about how Telford is today and in a series of short articles we are inviting people interested in writing to share their thoughts to help set out how national events that shaped England and the stories of rebellion that largely remain hidden from the sanitised story told by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum

We intend to structure the project loosly using the chronology of events covered in Aspinall’s book:-

• The Combination laws 1791 – 99 
• The Combination Act of 1799 and 1800 
• The last year of the Napoleonic war
• First years of peace 1815 – 17
• Lancashire cotton workers 1818
• A year of widespread trouble 1819 inc Peterloo
• The last years of the Combination Acts 1820 – 1825

but allowing opportunities for guest bloggers to cover what ever aspect of the Cinderloo story that interests them

If you are interested in writing an article of between 500 and 1000 words, linking national events to our local area, using images and references to illuminate your work please contact us and we will publish the articles on our website with the intention of creating a resource that will be available to future generations interested in this period of history and the events around Cinderloo as we mark its 200^th anniversary.

For more information contact Cinderloo1821@gmail.com