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Davidson had worked for Lord
Harrowby in the past, and knew some of his staff at Grosvenor Square. His job was to find out more details about the cabinet meeting. One of the servants told him that the Earl of Harrowby was not in London. Davidson relayed this information to Arthur Thistlewood, who
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George
Ruthven led 13 police officers to storm the hayloft. Several revolutionaries refused to surrender their weapons. Thistlewood killed police officer Richard Smithers with a single sword-thrust. Davidson had been acting as look-out.
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Eleven men were charged with involvement in the Cato Street
Conspiracy. Robert Adams testified against the other men, and charges against him were dropped. Davidson pleaded innocence and claimed the court was prejudiced against
227:, and sentenced to three years imprisonment. Davidson said that this had caused him to lose his belief in God. He joined the Marylebone Union Reading Society, a club that offered a reading room of radical newspapers such as
291:. Four conspirators, Thistlewood, John Brunt, Robert Adams and John Harrison escaped through a window. However, their identities were given to the police by Edwards and they were quickly arrested.
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William
Davidson is featured in the short animation Cato Street to Newgate, written and directed by Jason Young. It was screened as part of Southwark Black History Month in 2020.
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Davidson's cabinet-making business failed, and he moved to London. He married Sarah Lane, a working-class widow with four children. They had two more children. Davidson became a
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met in a hayloft on Cato Street, near
Grosvenor Square. However, there was no cabinet meeting: the Spenceans had been set up by an undercover police agent, George Edwards.
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on 23 February. Thistlewood selected
Davidson as one of an Executive of Five to organise the assassinations. (The dinner was a fictitious construction.)
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429:"Cato Street Conspiracy and Consuming Crime: How Radical Politics Fed into the Public's Passion for Violent Media Coverage *"
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56:(1751 – 30 April 1828), the Attorney General of Jamaica, and a local black woman. At the age of 14, Davidson travelled to
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When the co-conspirators tried to escape, Benjamin Gill hit
Davidson on the wrist with his truncheon, and he dropped his
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After his discharge, he returned to
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William
Davidson, with his four fellow conspirators, was publicly hanged and decapitated outside
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believed that the servant was lying, and ordered the conspirators to proceed with the plot.
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Davidson met John
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for a subscription of twopence a week. He also read the works of
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On 28 April 1820, William Davidson, James Ings, Richard Tidd,
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466:"Execution of Thistlewood and Others for High Treason".
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Execution of Thistlewood, Brunt, Ings, Tidd and Davidson
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People executed for treason against the United Kingdom
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257:In February 1820, George Edwards, a government
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350:"Davidson, William (1786–1820), conspirator"
72:lawyer, but ran away to sea. Later, he was
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203:Learn how and when to remove this message
87:. Davidson withdrew from study, moved to
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347:Sherwood, Marika (23 September 2004).
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