Our Scotland - www.our-scotland.org

Michael Follon

I did a quick scan of the topics on this section of the message board and discovered that this particular topic was not mentioned. I believe that this is a part of Scottish History that has been deliberately ignored and suppressed. The following are extracts from the Prefaces to the 1989 and 2001 editions of the book The Scottish Insurrection of 1820 by Peter Berresford Ellis and Seumas Mac A'Ghobbainn, ISBN 0 85976 519 9 -

'Michael Donnelly, the assistant curator of the Glasgow working people's museum, the People's Palace, also argued that the evidence that Baird and Hardie were buried at the monument was "irrefutable". He pointed to the letter from the Lord Advocate in 1847 and the fact that the letter is also reproduced on the monument itself.'

'Curiously, we discovered that all the records apart from one or two items which had, at the time, been lodged in a 'Baga de Secretis', which we tracked down to the London Public Records Office (PRO KB8), had been removed.'

'The trials for High Treason were actually held under English Law and not Scottish Law, contravening the Treaty of Union of 1707.'

'However, it is very exciting to look at the developments which have taken place since this book was first published. At that time people were astounded that such an event, resulting in 85 indictments of High Treason, in public executions, in transportation and imprisonments, could have been so effectively eliminated from historical consciousness.'

'Even after publication, the event was regarded with some discomfiture by certain sections of academia. Perhaps there was a feeling of guilt that such an important event had previously been ignored by historians.'

'Firstly, the fact that it was an aim of the Scottish Radicals to set up a separate parliament in Edinburgh has been met with skeptical posturing. Yet this aim was clearly spelt out by Glasgow Police Chief, James Mitchell, in his letters to the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, of March 18 and 29 1820. Secondly, a few scholars, such as James D. Young in 'The Rousing of the Scottish Working Class' (1979), and, more recently, Tom Devine in 'The Scottish Nation 1700 - 2000' (1999), have baulked at accepting any widespread involvement of Government agents provocateur in instigating the rising. Again, this is simply a denial of clear primary source evidence.'