The data consists of a catalogue of 414 riots from Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester (1800 to 1939). The riots were found using keyword searches of digital newspaper archives and the accounts presented there were triangulated against further archival material (including other newspapers, Home Office records and local police materials). The catalogue describes the basic narrative of the riot and includes codes representing the type of actions done by rioters, the spaces in which the riot took place and the temporal aspects of the events (their duration, when they took place and the significance of that time). This research was inspired by a desire to think about riots as a strategic practice with their own particular history. Compiling a systematic, long run catalogue of riots in three of Britain's largest cities should enable sociologists and historians to situate other riots in their historical context and to reconsider classic theories about the evolution of protest and social movements over the 19th and 20th centuries.This work was supported by doctoral research funding from the University of Manchester’s School of Social Sciences Studentship.

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