BONFIRE NIGHT is celebrated with great enthusiasm in Bourne although in past times it usually developed into a riotous occasion due to a mistaken belief that Guy Fawkes was associated with the town. 

It was generally thought that the plot to blow up King James I and the Houses of Parliament during the early 17th century was hatched at the Red Hall in Bourne, a suggestion still to be found in some guide books and magazine articles.  

The mistake occurred because one of the leading conspirators, Sir Everard Digby, who was executed for his part in the Gunpowder Plot which he had joined with the sole purpose of restoring the Roman Catholic religion in England, was thought to have been born at the Red Hall and the story persisted until fifty years ago when it was totally discredited by Mrs Joan Varley, archivist to Lincolnshire Archives Committee, after studying parish registers and deeds of the hall, and so the popular theory was well and truly laid to rest. 

It had evolved around the mistaken belief that Sir Everard Digby was born and lived at the Red Hall and it has been frequently stated that as he was one of the main perpetrators, he and his fellow conspirators met at his home where the plot was hatched. The date the hall was built is not known exactly but 1605 is the most favoured. This was the year that the plot was actually discovered and as the building was some time in the planning, it would have been impossible for it to have been the meeting place for those involved in the conspiracy. 

In fact, Sir Everard Digby lived at Stoke Dry, Uppingham, Rutland, and was one of the great landowners in the Midlands although he had no connection with Bourne. But over a century later, the building did pass into the hands of a Digby family who owned and inhabited the Red Hall from then until about a century later and this fact appears to have been the cause of some wishful deduction that Sir Everard was a direct ancestor of the Digbys of Bourne which was certainly not the case. 

After an exhaustive search through the archives, Mrs Varley published her findings in April 1964, with some reluctance it would seem, because she said at the time: “I am sorry in a way that I have robbed Bourne of its best known legend but I was merely trying to get at the truth. It is very easy for incorrect statements to get into local town guides. Stories grow up about places, following generations believe they are true and eventually they are accepted as fact. They are written into books and other authors do not take the time to check and revise them.” 

Nevertheless, this is one of the reasons why Bonfire Night has had special significance in Bourne and on some occasions, particularly during the 19th century, extra police were drafted in because of possible trouble. Riotous behaviour and vandalism became an annual event on every Fifth of November and special sittings of the magistrates were held the next morning to deal with offenders.  

In 1855, a fire was started in the market place by a gang of men who had been drinking in the Nag’s Head, accompanied by a crowd of noisy boys egging them on, letting off fireworks and burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes. There were many arrests and five people were sent to prison for 21 days each. More alarming incidents occurred twenty years later when the authorities became seriously concerned that matters were getting out of hand. In 1873, there was uproar in the streets on the night of Wednesday 5th November accompanied by the discharge of fireworks and even pistol shots. 

Several fires were also lighted in various parts of the town and on Thursday 20th November, three summonses were heard before the magistrates at the town hall when each defendant was fined £1 plus costs. The accused men remained defiant and that evening, a pony and cart containing an effigy purporting to be a representation of the Superintendent of Police, Stephen Pidgeon, headed by a drum and fife band, was paraded through Bourne, along North Street, the market place and South Street, and afterwards burned in a field at the north end of the town. A large number of people joined in and although there was a great deal of commotion caused by the procession, the demonstration passed off without the need for police intervention. 

The worst riot of this kind was in 1877 when 40 men and youths were arraigned on charges relating to disturbances in Bourne and the surrounding villages, their main enjoyment being the rolling of lighted tar barrels down the street, a popular although illegal method of celebration at that time, and of starting bonfires on the highway. Other offences included assaulting the police, firing guns, discharging fireworks in a public place and causing a general commotion to the annoyance of the public. 

Among those who were deeply concerned about this turn of events was Superintendent Willerton Brown who had just been appointed head of the police force in Bourne and was determined to put an end to these annual disruptions that were causing so much distress to law abiding citizens. His position was one of authority and respect in those days when police strength in the town was one superintendent, an inspector, two sergeants and 15 constables, and he also had the support of the magistrates.  

The riots of 1877 gave him an added determination and he directed his endeavours to stopping such practices in the future, a hard line policy that paid off the following year when he drafted in reinforcements from other police stations and there were no incidents as a result.  

Superintendent Brown therefore succeeded in bringing the tar barrel tradition in Bourne to an end, much to the relief of the residents and shopkeepers, and although there were sporadic outbreaks in later years, the occasions never reached the alarming levels of earlier times. 

Disturbances of this magnitude are now unknown although there is a continuing public debate over the sale of fireworks and their indiscriminate use, especially in the run up to November 5th when the night sky is regularly illuminated by rockets while the use of bangers and other explosives in residential areas frightens old people and their pets.  

The current situation is that most of us deplore their universal sale and use because of the dangers involved but would accept some form of regulation that would prohibit all firework events except those which are organised and supervised and this would seem to be the perfect solution.