Porteous Riots
April-September 1736 riots in Edinburgh
The Porteous Riots surrounded the activities of John Porteous, Captain of the City Guard of Edinburgh, Scotland, who was lynched by a mob for his part in the killing of innocent civilians while ordering the men under his command to quell a disturbance during a public hanging in the Grassmarket, Edinburgh in April 1736. Although the rioters were generally supportive of the convicted smugglers, Porteous seems to have been a somewhat overbearing official, despised by the mob and the underclasses of Edinburgh society.
Riot
In April 1736 three convicted smugglers, Andrew Wilson, a "notorious smuggler", William Hall and George Robertson, had been tried and condemned to death. While Hall's sentence was commuted to exile, Wilson and Robertson awaited their fate in the condemned cell at Edinburgh's notorious Tolbooth Prison next to St Giles Cathedral. A few days before their execution the pair tried to escape. Wilson removed a bar from the cell window but became stuck "being a very stout man" and blocked Robertson's escape.
On 14 April 1736, Andrew Wilson and George Robertson were publicly hanged in the Grassmarket. However, when the body of Wilson was cut down by a sailor, Captain Porteous of the City Guard reacted by grabbing a musket and firing at the sailor. Unfortunately he missed and killed a man standing behind in the crowd. Porteous ordered the City Guards to fire on the enraged crowd, killing a further five people.
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This entry incorporates text from “Porteous Riots” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.