William Davidson and the West End Job: Part One HD 1080p

digital:works have been working with Westminster Archives on a project about the Cato Street Conspiracy..

William Davidson and the West End Job:
The Bicentenary of the Cato Street Conspiracy
On 1 May 1820, outside Newgate Prison, in front of a huge crowd of onlookers, William Davidson and his fellow Cato Street conspirators Arthur Thistlewood, James Ings, Richard Tidd and John Brunt — were hanged for high treason. Then they were decapitated in the last brutal act of a murderous conspiracy, ‘The West End Job’ as they’d called it, that aimed to assassinate Prime Minister Lord Liverpool and his cabinet and spark a British version of the French Revolution. The Cato Street conspirators matched the Gunpowder plotters in their daring—and in their fate—but sadly their story is almost unknown by people today.

Thanks to a grant from the Heritage Fund, Westminster Community Reminiscence and Archive Group and our partners aim to use the bicentenary to raise awareness of an event that has both local and national significance. The plotters invoked Magna Carta in their defence and in our current turbulent political times this story allows us to look at how Britain's democracy has evolved.

2020 has also shone the spotlight on Britain’s colonial past and its role in the slave trade. By telling this story through the eyes of Jamaican conspirator William Davidson, we can also look at inequalities beyond these shores. We would like to thank actors Michael Lyle (William Davidson) and Gary Kane (john Cam Hobhouse) for helping us to bring this story alive. We hope the film they have helped us to make will raise awareness of a significant individual in Black British history, whose story deserves to be more widely known.

Having been convicted of committing high treason, Davidson was asked by the judge, why he should not be sentenced to death. Invoking Magna Carta, he likened his co-conspirators to the barons who had stood up to King John in 1215. In Davidson’s view, the King’s ministers could be called to account if they breached the rights of the people, and this did not amount to treason against the King himself.

The words in the films you are about to see are not those of William Davidson but are based mainly on research undertaken by our volunteers Rebecca Simons and Amber Hederer from contemporary sources. Our key source has been: An Authentic History of the Cato-Street Conspiracy,’(1820) and the transcripts of the trial that are available from the Old Bailey Online websitewww.oldbaileyonline.org. Both of which have provided contemporary accounts of Davidson’s story that I have been able to adapt as if written by Davidson himself.

To find out more about our project please visit:
https://www.catostreetconspiracy.org.uk

Peter Daniel Westminster Archives February 2021

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