Sentenced to Hang: Memoirs of Billy Hands, 1768 - 1853 (Paperback Edition)

LAUNCHING 26th JANUARY 2026

The early 1790s was a turbulent period in an increasingly divided England. Nowhere more so

than in Birmingham, where a strengthening Republican threat inevitably prompted a

desperate Anglican and Tory backlash, resulting in the Birmingham Riots of 1791, in which

Billy was seen to play an active part.

Billy Hands was respected as a common metal-worker, but he was also invited to be a servant

member of a remarkably egalitarian Birmingham Athletic Society. When some of the

gentleman members were developing plans for anti-Republican riots, Billy heard and

understood the gentlemen’s reasons.

Billy also understood the motives of the common rioters, not the excuses they gave their

wives and girlfriends, but the feelings and thoughts in their hearts and minds. Thus, Billy’s

story provides an important insight into public disorder in England that still applies to this

day

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tony Rail is a research chemist, teacher and historian with a particular interest in Eighteenth-

century history. Dr. Rail has published numerous academic articles on Joseph Priestley, the

eighteenth-century scientist, theologian and political radical, including his ‘William Priestley

Vindicated,’ which corrected the historic record in regard Priestley’s second son.