The Age of George III

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The career of "Oliver the Spy"

After the end of the French Wars, it became increasingly clear that England was suffering from great social, economic and political upheavals. These problems collectively became known as the 'Condition of England Question'. Many of these problems would have occurred eventually but had been speeded up by the effects of the French Wars on the country. Most of the major changes were the direct result of the French Wars. Others came from natural growth and change. The distress and discontent caused by these enormous changes were manifested in a series of events in the period 1811-19.

There were few means of maintaining law and order at the disposal of the government. There was no police force on the mainland until 1829 so troops and the local militias had to be used. Likewise, means of communication were slow: news travelled only as fast as the fastest horse. In order to gather information, the governments of the time had to rely on Lords Lieutenant, local magistrates and Justices of the Peace - and spies whom they employed. Unfortunately, these men were paid by results and ultimately became agents provocateurs. One of the most notorious of these spies was WJ Richards, alias Oliver the Spy.

Among those who attended the meeting at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand was Joseph Mitchell, a journeyman printer from Liverpool, whose wife had a draper's business. Mitchell travelled to Lancashire in search of work and became a self-appointed political "missionary", visiting a series of Lancashire towns and paying for his upkeep by selling copies of his own and Major John Cartwright's pamphlets.

At the end of the delegate meeting in London, Samuel Bamford and Mitchell attended a meeting of the Spencean Philanthropists, including Arthur Thistlewood, the Watsons and Mr Preston. Bamford then returned to Middleton (near Nottingham); Mitchell remained in London for several months longer. In April, he visited Charles Pendrill the Jacobin shoemaker and former associate of the Spenceans. Pendrill recently had helped a friend to get out of the debtors' gaol. Soon after this, the friend, WJ Richards - known to Pendrill as William Oliver and to history as Oliver the Spy -'began to make very vehement professions of patriotism, and expressed uncommon anxiety to know whether there were any Political Associations into which he might obtain admittance' (Cobbett's Political Register, 16 May 1818). Pendrill had known William Oliver since 1811, when Oliver was a foreman to a carpenter. Oliver has been described as a builder, carpenter and accountant. In fact, he was either a superior clerk or book-keeper and surveyor.

By March, Oliver had been admitted to the inner circle of London's reformers. On 28 March he requested an interview with Lord Sidmouth. In April he was introduced by Pendrill and other reformers to Joseph Mitchell. Mitchell went to Oliver's rooms;Oliver told Mitchell that 'it was the desire of the London friends to form a connexion with the country friends' but when Mitchell requested a meeting with the London committee, Oliver said it was too dangerous a time to call them together. Mitchell was persuaded to allow Oliver to accompany him on his next tour in the provinces and the two men set off on 23 April, on a tour that was to obtain, for Oliver, introductions to leading reformers in the main centres of the Midlands and the north. The itinerary was as follows:

On 5 May, Oliver attended a delegate meeting at Wakefield that was attended by men from Birmingham, Sheffield, Huddersfield, Barnsley, Leeds and by Thomas Bacon for the North Midlands area . Promises were made about the number of men who would rise in each district: the date was set for 26 May and Oliver promised that London would be ready for the insurrection. Meanwhile, on 4 May, Mitchell had been arrested; this meant that the only contact between the radicals in the north and the London radicals was a government spy.

On his second tour, which began on 23 May, Oliver talked of plans for a general insurrection.He suggested that plans were further advanced in every place than the one where he happened to be; his attentions were concentrated particularly on the West Riding of Yorkshire and Nottingham - areas where Luddism had been strongest. William Stevens gave an account of the events of early June 1817:

Between 2 and 6 June Oliver moved rapidly from town to town in Yorkshire, in preparation for a delegate meeting at Thornhill Lees, near Dewsbury, on 6 June. On 4 June he had a private interview with Major-General John Byng, commanding the troops in the north. The Thornhill Lees meeting was surrounded and the delegates seized by troops under General Byng's personal command. Oliver was allowed to 'escape', but was seen a few hours later by a reformer in a Wakefield hotel, shortly before his departure on the Sheffield coach, in conversation with a servant of General Byng's, and the truth leaked out. By the time Oliver reached Nottingham and the meeting there was a cross questioning of Oliver that he was lucky to survive. Unfortunately, Jeremiah Brandreth was not at the Nottingham meeting and the Pentrich Rising went ahead as planned. Oliver the Spy's plan cost the lives of Brandreth and his colleagues.