Daylight Robbery - Background Information and Tasks

How do we know what happened at William Coopers house on 23rd May 1816?

If you carried out the previous enquiry "Riot or Revolution? How revolutionary was Britain between 1800 and 1850?" You will have looked briefly at the Ely and Littleport riots of 1816 and made a judgement on how revolutionary this, and several other events, were during the period.

In this enquiry you are going to look in more detail at the Ely and Littleport Riots and investigate what happened at William Cooper's house on 23rd May, 1816 during the riots. Several rioters, including a bricklayer from Ely, Aaron Layton were accused of robbing George Stevens and William Cooper, millers who ran shops in Ely. This enquiry is divided into 3 tasks. It will:

• Give you a chance to transcribe at least one original document dating from the trials of the rioters in June 1816.
  
• Give you a chance to evaluate information from a variety of different sources about what happened at George Steven's and William Cooper's houses on 23rd May 1816.
  
• Give you an opportunity to write your own script based on the evidence for what you think might have happened at George Steven's and William Cooper's houses on 23rd May 1816.

1. Task 1: Using different sources for research and transcribing old documents
   
2. Task 2: Evaluating different sources of information
   
3. Task 3: Writing your own script for the events