The stocks which for centuries had stood in the shadow of Carfax tower, at the very heart of Oxford, were destroyed by fire during the strange riots of 1856. The riots were strange because, for a change, they had nothing to do with Town and Gown. Instead they involved lighting bonfires in the streets to protest against the lack of any official public feasting to mark the end of the Crimean War – an event that townspeople in particular thought would bring down the price of wheat and, in consequence, bread too.

Throughout the 19th century there was in Oxford so much real hunger, bordering on starvation, and so many reasons to riot, that it sometimes seems a wonder that there were not many more such conflagrations. After all, divisions between rich and poor (with attendant snobbery), established church and dissenters, and city and country people were constantly smouldering away, threatening to ignite into riot at any moment.

The year 1814 brought all this into sharp focus. A so-called Peace Stone set into the base of the north wall of Carfax Tower (which was formerly part of St Martin's Church) proclaims that on June 27 that year “Peace was proclaimed in the City of Oxford”.

The peace referred to was ostensibly between France and Britain after the capture of Napoleon and his dispatch to the island of Elba. But it could equally well have referred to matters closer to home: the Napoleonic Wars had created bread prices so high in Oxford that townspeople had often attacked country people in the markets, accusing them of overcharging for wheat and corn; and earlier in the year the MP for Oxford, John Lockhart, had needed an armed escort after he had voted in Parliament against importing wheat.

Fat gownsmen had also been attacked on the grounds that they could, apparently, afford the high bread prices better than most townsmen!

In any case the peace was, paradoxically, celebrated with one of the most splendid feasts Oxford had ever staged – not that the ordinary townsmen got any of the food.

In 1814, most of the bigwigs on the allied side against Napoleon descended on the city for a banquet in the Radcliffe Camera, among them the Tsar of Russia, the King of Prussia, Prince Metternich, the Duke of York, General Blucher, and of course the Duke of Wellington (later to become Chancellor of Oxford University).

And all to celebrate an illusory peace, since of course Napoleon escaped from Elba – and was at large again until defeated at Waterloo, and subsequently sent into permanent exile on St Helena.

But to what extent were Oxford people right in thinking that their rural neighbours were overcharging for wheat? Certainly there were some who tried to profiteer. There is the story of John Jolly, of Enstone, for instance. He accumulated a huge quantity of wheat during the Crimean war and stored it in Jolly’s Ricks – which stood where Worth’s Garage stands today on the A44. He gambled that the price would rise – but he hung on too long and a plague of rats broke into the ricks and ate the wheat. Now there is a moral tale if ever there was one. He was a landowner and coach operator who wanted to take his customers for a rattling good ride.