Description:On 10th September 1797 Granville Leveson-Gower (1721-1803), the Marquis of Stafford, received a letter from the Duke of Portland, reporting that there had been riots in Leek against taxation.
In 1797 Income Tax was introduced to support the economy during the war with France. Portland’s letter suggests that there was much anger and opposition against this measure in Leek.
The Duke of Portland’s letter tells the Marquis that the ‘Commissioners for the collection of the new and additional Taxes’ were on Saturday 9th September ‘interrupted in the execution of their duty, at Leek, by a riotous Assemblage of people’.
Portland writes that there were ‘several hundreds’ of people assembled preventing the Commissioners from collecting the taxes in Leek. The Duke of Portland requested that the Marquis contact the Magistrates of the District about the matter to ensure that the Commissioners were given ‘every support’ by the implementation of ‘effectual measures’ to prevent future disturbances.
This letter provides an intriguing insight into the reaction amongst people in Leek to national political and economical developments at the end of the eighteenth century.