Bonfire Night from the Rights of Man in Lewes, England
The perfect pub to celebrate every natural right to burn things in celebration and protest
In 1768 an Excise Officer, or tax collector, by man by the name of Thomas Paine, landed in an old maket town called Lewes in Southern England. Lewes, a comfortable spot for local radicals, joined the parish vestry, an influential local Anglican church group that collected. Over the years, growing more and more disgruntaled with the poor pay and working conditions of Excise Officers among others, he published in 1772, The Case of the Officers of Excise, and spread the 4,000 copies of the 12-page article to Parliament 12-page article to Parliament. He was summarilty dismissed. But Paine kept up his political writing in Lewes, authoring some 31 articles positing that popular political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard the natural rights of its people. Rights of Man, his seminal work, later argued that human rights originated in nature and not political charter, making rights illegally revocable. Paine, whose treatise was also used by American revolutionaries, eventually settled in the States, but his legendary works run deep at this local Harveys Ale brewpub.
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Now, to the topic at hand: Bonfire Night in Lewes
There are few things more unsettling than turning a corner and emerging onto a main throughfare moments before being confronted by a mob of torchbearing people in period dress. But such was the scene on Saturday night in Lewes, East Sussex, as the sun set, the smell of paraffin and fire met the cold air and hundreds of members of Lewes’ seven bonfire societies wound their way through the town’s many narrow streets.
It was the event for which I had been waiting for two years, ever since I had heard the words “Guy Fawkes Night” uttered by a teenage boy when replying to my query of how he was dressing for Halloween, “We dont really do Halloween,” he said. “We have Guy Fawes Night, in which people dress up and burn effegies and build a huge bonfire and then shoot off fireworks.” Sign me up, I thought, ready for more Dark Ages English weirdness, half-expecting half of London to pull out their Tudor outfits, light sticks of wood and march down Euston Road with large effegies of Boris Johnson.
It didn’t exactly happen that way. Despite the origination of the day — the discovery of the famed “gunpowder plot” in which a Catholic crusader named Guy Fawkes was caught just before he blew up King James II and Parliament — it’s small-town Lewes that vociferously celebrates James’ declaration for a “publique Thanksgiving to Almighty God ever year of the Fifth day of November'.
Celebrations in Lewes were not planned or carried out annually, or even in Anglican churches, as suggested by the king. Rather, they more closely resembled Lewes citizens’ own God-given right to drink copious amounts of beer — between sips from flasks — and set whatever their want on fire. This also includes vast amounts of pyrotechnics in various forms.
The website of the Lewes Bonfire Night directs most interested parties to avoid driving to the town, as police block off town streets at 4pm, and points out that train transport is limited. Nonethess, my girlfriend — along with numerous other revelers — took our chances and rented the last available car at the Gatwick Hertz, drove the additional twenty miles, parked in a run-down neighborhood about a mile outside of town and followed the drunken English to hopefully, our best vantage point.
It’s hard to know the best strategy to see the most original effigies and the finest costumes. Any one fails almost as soon as the first bonfire society passes, as mouths drop open and eye widen at the spectacle. There’s no way anything like this would ever be legal — much less sanctioned — in the States.
We caught the Bonfire Boys first, a group of men, women and children in black-and-white striped jumpers and orange beanie caps carrying signs of the original Protestant martyrs and their annual effigy of Guy Fawkes. Next up: the Cliffe Bonfire Society founded in 1853, whose costumes are of French Revolutionaries. Currently the only society to march under a "No Popery" banner, later in the evening, they would "burn" (more accurately explode with fireworks) an effigy of Pope Paul V.
At first, Bonfire nights were a loose affair — think dumpster fires and street drinking — but by 1829, the first of the miscreants, the Lewes Bonfire Boys had a sharp encounter with authorities, who tried, but ultimately failed, to prevent Bonfire night. Today, this history is mimed with men and women in historic police uniforms marching alongside the various societies and lighting the ribbons of firecrackers. Bonfire Night celebrations in Lewes soon became known throughout England as the most spectacular, as well as for their menace and misrule. Misrule reached fever pitch in the 1930s, as the spectre of war loomed over Europe. Bonfire groups voted with their fire sticks over whether to back the policy of appeasement or advocate for war with Hitler — both Hitler and Britain ended up being burnt in effigy at Lewes in 1936. Matters grew ugly in 1938 when rival groups threw fireworks at one another, bbut a year later, Britain was at war, and the bonfires of Sussex — along with everything else in the country — were suspended for the duration of the conflict.
While Lewes retains its politicised bonfires to this day — most controversially, still burning an effigy of the Pope — celebrations in the post-war era became more ritualised and less marked by factional violence. The prime minister, whether it’s David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss or Theresa May, is always a prime target for effigy burning, and 2023 proved no different. The main attraction was Rishi Sunak bursting through the roof of a train, symbolising the commuter train extension from Birmingham to Manchester he deep-sixed last month. (Chancellor Jeremy Hunt driving a train — another tableau devoted to the derailed extension — was also burned.) Home Secretary Suella Braverman made an appearance as an octopus keeping boat-bound immigrants to England underwater. And lastly, the South Street Bonfire Society elected to burn “Pothole Pete,” a indistinguishable civil servant who stands and doesn’t deliver on road maintenance in the various counties south of London.
For more than five hours, I chased and snapped the Mongols, Ancient Greeks and Romans of the Waterloo Bonfire Society; the English Civil War (mid-17th century) soldiers of the South Street Bonfire Society; the Suffragettes and World War I and II British Military of the Nevill Juvenile Bonfire Society; and whatever else caught my fancy. After watching the barn-sized bonfire burn, I raced back to the center of the chaos for the last spectacle of the night: the burning of Pope Paul V by firecracker and the singing of “God Save the King”. At about 1:30 am, despite being foretold of more “fucking mental” fireworks spectacles, I called it a night, fully satisfied that American Independence Day parades had nothing on Bonfire Night festivities and hoping that Amercian Tea-Partiers never found Lewes.
Photos of the spectacle below:
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