Barnaby Rudge Helping Lead the Gordon Riots

Charles Green was one of the most successful black-and-white illustrators in Victorian England, known especially for his images related to the novels of Charles Dickens. The subject of this drawing relates to the writer's historical novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty, based on the Gordon Riots. Here, Green depicted participants in an anti-Catholic protest against the Papists' Act of 1778, the most violent outpouring of religious hatred in 18th-century Britain.