Reading List
This reading list brings together key texts and historical sources that explore the life of Sir William Courtenay, the wider social unrest of the period, and the events surrounding the 1838 uprising in Bossenden Wood. From contemporary newspaper reports to modern academic studies, these works provide valuable insights into the political, social, and cultural context of the last armed rebellion on English soil.
Bloom, Clive. Victoria’s Madmen: Revolution and Alienation. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Breckon, Ian. Mad Tom’s Rising: The Revolutionary Mystic Sir William Courtenay and the Last Battle Fought on English Soil. Icon Books, Due 12/02/2026.
Brighton Patriot. ‘Fatal Riot near Canterbury’. 5 June 1838.
Canterburiensis. The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Sir William Courtenay : Knight of Malta, Alias John Nichols Tom, Formerly Spirit Merchant and Maltster, of Truro in Cornwall : Being a Correct Detail of All the Incidents of His Extraordinary Life, from His Infancy to the Dreadful Battle at Bossenden Wood … Concluding with an Accurate Account of the Trial of the Rioters at the Maidstone Assizes. James Hunt, 1838. https://archive.org/details/lifeandextraord00cantgoog.
Carl J. The Rural War: Captain Swing and the Politics of Unrest. Manchester University Press, 2012.
Davey, Kevin. Toothpull of St Dunstan. n.d.
Hampshire/Portsmouth Telegraph. ‘The Affray near Canterbury’. 11 June 1838.
Hobsbawm, Eric J., and George F. E. Rudé. Captain Swing. Pimlico 75. Pimlico, 1993.
James, Louis, ed. Print and the People 1819-1851. Typeset in Monotype Modern 7. Allen Lane, 1976.
London Dispatch. ‘Anecdotes of the Manic Courtenay’. 24 June 1838.
Morning Chronicle. ‘Inquests on the Constable Catt, Courtenay, and Others’. 5 June 1838.
Nuttgens, Jamie. ‘Sir Wiliam’. PhD, Kent, 2022. https://doi.org/10.22024/UniKent/01.02.95546.
Reay, Barry. Microhistories: Demography, Society and Culture in Rural England, 1800–1930. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Reay, Barry. The Last Rising of the Agricultural Labourers: Rural Life and Protest in Nineteenth-Century England. Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press, 1990.
Reay, Barry. ‘The Last Rising of the Agricultural Labourers: The Battle in Bossenden Wood, 1838’. History Workshop, no. 26 (1988): 79–101.
Rogers, P. G. Battle in Bossenden Wood: The Strange Story of Sir William Courtenay. Oxford University Press, 1961.
Thompson, E. P. The Making of the English Working Class. Revised. Penguin, 1968.