William Davidson and the West End Job: Cato Street Conspiracy Bicentenary

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 Archives have been working to raise awareness of an event that has both local and national significance.

This talk will have a particular focus on Jamaican conspirator, William Davidson. Since we began our project, in January 2020, the Netflix blockbuster, Bridgerton, has stimulated a lot of interest in Black Londoners of the period. In doing so, we hope it will shine a spotlight on Davidson’s incredible story that deserves to be more widely known.

This talk will look at events from Davidson’s birth in 1786 to his arrival in Marylebone in 1816 and the final four years of his life and his execution on May 1st ,1820.

To find out more visit our website: https://www.catostreetconspiracy.org.uk