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The data consists of a catalogue of 414 riots from Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester (1800 to 1939). The riots were found using keyword searches of digital newspaper archives and the accounts presented there were triangulated against further archival material (including other newspapers, Home Office records and local police materials). The catalogue describes the basic narrative of the riot and includes codes representing the type of actions done by rioters, the spaces in which the riot took place and the temporal aspects of the events (their duration, when they took place and the significance of that time).

Data was collected in two stages. The initial list of riot events was collected by searching three digital newspaper archives (The Times, the Annual Register, and all of the relevant local newspapers stored in the British Newspaper Archive as of August 2016)[1] using keywords (riot, riots, rioting, rioter, rioters, mob, disturbance, disturbances, tumult, tumults, disorder, disorders plus Manchester/ Liverpool/ Glasgow). These searches produced nearly 20,000 results which I went through manually to determine whether they referred to a riot happening in each city or not. Riot was defined as collective violence against people/property involving more than 20 participants.

The initial catalogue was then supplemented using: all the newspapers stored on microfilm at Glasgow City Archives, Manchester Central Library and Liverpool Record Office[2]; local police records; Home Office records (HO 40, 44 and 45); and secondary literature. This produced 414 riots and over 1200 sources.

The data is presented in several files.
- Bibliography: contains all the sources used to compile the catalogue.
- Codebook: describes how each event was coded.
- Then there are two files for each city. One lists the date of the riot and the relevant sources (e.g. Glasgow_Riots_Sources.csv). The other contains a coded record of each event (e.g. Liverpool_Riots_Coding.csv).

Footnotes:

1. For Manchester: Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser (1825-1830, 1832, 1834-1870, 1874, 1876-1916), Manchester Evening News (1870-1887, 1890, 1892-1895, 1897, 1899, 1901-1903, 1914-1921, 1939-1949), Manchester Mercury (1752-1830) and Manchester Times (1828-1829, 1831-1862, 1864-1872, 1874-1895, 1898-1900). For Liverpool: Gore's Liverpool General Advertiser (1800, 1805, 1822-1823, 1826-1841, 1843-1853, 1855, 1857-1860, 1863-1865, 1867-1876), Liverpool Courier and Commercial Advertiser (1870), Liverpool Daily Post (1855-1871, 1875-1876, 1881-1882, 1887, 1905-1906, 1914-1918, 1939-1945), Liverpool Echo (1879-1886, 1888-1893, 1897-1999), Liverpool Evening Express (1911, 1914, 1939-1945), Liverpool Mail (1836-1837, 1839-1858, 1860-1868, 1870-1874, 1877, 1880), and Liverpool Mercury (1811-1835, 1837-1871, 1873-1897, 1899-1900). For Glasgow: Daily Record (1914-1918, 1939-1945), Evening Citizen (1866-1870, 1879-1890, 1892), Glasgow Citizen (1844-1845), Glasgow Constitutional (1853, 1855), Glasgow Evening Post (1867, 1870, 1879-1881, 1883-1893, 1895), Glasgow Free Press (1853, 1856, 1858-1868), Glasgow Gazette (1849-1852), Glasgow Herald (1820-1822, 1826-1827, 1844-1900), Glasgow Morning Journal (1858, 1862-1865), Glasgow Saturday Post, and Paisley and Renfrewshire Reformer (1861, 1864), Glasgow Sentinel (1850-1865), Scottish Guardian, Glasgow (1853-1856, 1859), The Scotsman (1817-1950), and Sunday Post (1914-1928, 1935, 1939, 1941-1950).

2. Manchester: Cowdroy's Manchester Gazette, Gorton Reporter, Manchester and Salford Advertiser, Manchester City News, Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, Manchester Evening Chronicle, Manchester Evening News, Manchester Mercury, Manchester Times, and Wheeler's Manchester Chronicle. Liverpool: Gore's Liverpool General Advertiser, Liverpool Courier, Liverpool Courier and Commercial Advertiser, Liverpool Daily Post, Liverpool Echo, Liverpool Evening Express, Liverpool Mail, Liverpool Mercury, and Liverpool Weekly Albion. Glasgow: Daily Record, Evening Citizen, Evening Times, Glasgow Chronicle, Glasgow Courier, Glasgow Echo, Glasgow Examiner, Glasgow Free Press, Glasgow Gazette, Glasgow Herald, Glasgow Sentinel, Glasgow Weekly News, North British Daily Mail, Scottish Guardian, Scotsman, Sunday Mail, and Sunday Post.