What historical event is depicted in Barnaby Rudge?

Barnaby Rudge depicts the Gordon Riots of 1780.

The novel is a historical story set largely against the violent anti-Catholic disturbances that shook London in June 1780. The riots grew from opposition to the Catholic Relief Act of 1778, which eased some restrictions on Roman Catholics. Lord George Gordon, associated with the Protestant Association, helped lead the movement, though the disorder soon expanded far beyond the original political protest.

In Dickens’s narrative, crowds attack Catholic churches, homes and businesses, while prisons and other buildings are threatened or burned. The fictional characters become entangled in the unrest: Barnaby is drawn into the mob, the Maypole Inn and the Warren are attacked, and Newgate Prison is set on fire. Dickens combines invented family conflicts with a real event whose scale exposed weaknesses in policing and government.

The title’s subtitle, A Tale of the Riots of Eighty, directly signals the historical setting. The French Revolution, Peterloo Massacre and Chartist Riots belong to different periods and movements. Barnaby Rudge was published in 1841 and was Dickens’s first historical novel; his other major historical novel is A Tale of Two Cities.