Sentenced to Hang

The early 1790s were a turbulent period in an increasingly divided England, nowhere more so than in Birmingham, where a strengthening Republican threat inevitably prompted a desperate Anglican and Tory backlash. As a young Birmingham metal-worker who was there, Billy gives a vivid first-hand account of the part he and his friends played in the Birmingham Riots of 1791, and the resulting trials which attracted the attention of the whole country. Through Billy's eyes the reader comes to understand the social and political unrest of those turbulent times.

Billy Hands describes his life as a common but well-respected metal-worker. Billy was also invited to be a free or servitorial member of a remarkably egalitarian gentlemen's Birmingham Athletic Society. When some of the gentlemen members were developing plans for some anti-Republican riots, Billy heard and understood the gentlemen's reasons. Thus, Billy's story provides an important insight into public disorder in England that still applies to this day.