Joseph Priestley
The riots started with an attack on the Royal Hotel, Birmingham. There a banquet was organised in sympathy with the French Revolution.  Then, beginning with Priestley's church and home, the rioters attacked or burned four Dissenting chapels, twenty-seven houses, and several businesses. Many of them were drunk. They had found liquor while looting, or with which they were bribed. A small core could not be bribed, however, and stayed sober. The rioters burned not only the homes and chapels of the Dissenters, but also the homes of people they associated with Dissenters, such as members of the scientific Lunar Society.