The Priestley Riots (also known as the Birmingham Riots of 1791) take place from July 14 to 17, 1791, in Birmingham, England; the rioters' main targets are religious Dissenters, most notably the politically and theologically controversial Joseph Priestley.

Both local and national issues stir the passions of the rioters, from disagreements over public library book purchases, to controversies over Dissenters' attempts to gain full civil rights and their support of the French Revolution.

The riots start with an attack on Birmingham's Royal Hotel—the site of a banquet organized in sympathy with the French Revolution.

Then, beginning with Priestley's church and home, the rioters attack or burn our Dissenting chapels, twenty-seven houses, and several businesses.

Many of them become intoxicated by liquor that they find while looting, or with which they are bribed to stop burning homes.

A small core cannot be bribed, however, and remains sober.

The rioters burn not only the homes and chapels of Dissenters, but also the homes of people they associate with Dissenters, such as members of the scientific Lunar Society.

While the riots had not been initiated by Prime Minister William Pitt's administration, the national government is slow to respond to the Dissenters' pleas for help.

Local Birmingham officials seem to have been involved in the planning of the riots, and they will later be reluctant to prosecute any ringleaders.

Industrialist James Watt writes that the riots "divided [Birmingham] into two parties who hate one another mortally".

Those who had been attacked gradually leave, leaving Birmingham a more conservative city than it had been throughout the eighteenth century.