Mold Riots
The Mold Riots happened in the summer of 1869, in and around the town of Mold in north-east Wales.
It started at Leeswood Green Colliery, in Leeswood (about 3.5 miles from Mold). The manager of the colliery, John Young, first banned the miners from speaking Welsh underground. Welsh was still the native language of most in the area. He then announced that their wages would be cut, on 17 May 1869.
Two days later the miners held a meeting, and some attacked Young, before forcibly taking him to the police station. Seven men were arrested and all were found guilty. Ismael Jones and John Jones, who allegedly led the attack, were sentenced to a month's hard labour.
The case had gained a lot of attention. As the two prisoners were being taken from the court to the railway station (from where they would later go to jail at Flint Castle), there was a huge crowd of over 1000 miners and their families. They threw stones at the guards.
However there were soldiers there. They shot into the crowd, killing 4 people and injuring many more. Eventually the Welsh jury found these as "justifiable homicide".
The Mold Riots caused the authorities to rethink how they dealt with public disorder.