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The Cato Street Conspiracy

The Cato Street Conspiracy was an attempt to murder all the British cabinet ministers and Prime Minister Lord Liverpool in 1820. The name comes from the meeting place near Edgware Road in London.

On February 23, 1820, Richard Bimie, Bow Street magistrate, and George Ruthven, another police spy, went to wait at a public house on the other side of the street of the Cato Street building with 12 officers of the Bow Street Runners. Bimie and Ruthven waited for the afternoon because they had been promised reinforcements from the Coldstream Guards, under the command of Lieutenant FitzClarence, the late king George III's grandson. Thistlewood's group arrived during that time. At 7:30 pm, the Bow Street Runners decided to apprehend the conspirators themselves. In the resulting brawl, Thistlewood killed a police officer, Richard Smithers, with a sword. Some conspirators surrendered peacefully, while others resisted forcefully. William Davidson failed to fight his way out. Thistlewood, Robert Adams, John Brunt and John Harrison slipped out the back window but they were arrested a few days later.

Eleven men were later charged for the plot. During the trial, the defence argued that the statement of Edwards, a government spy, was unreliable and he was therefore never called to testify. Police persuaded two of the men, Robert Adams and John Monument, to testify against other conspirators in exchange for dropped charges. Most of the accused were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered for high treason on April 28. All sentences were later commuted, at least in respect of this medieval form of execution, to hanging and beheading. The hangman was John Foxton who was assisted by Thomas Cheshire in this high profile execution and an unnamed person who actually cut off the conspirators' heads.

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