THE decades-old question of “who killed the bears?” will be posed again to mark the 130th anniversary of one of the Forest’s most shameful incidents.

Reading the Forest is hosting an exhibition, screenings, a talk and discussion to commemorate when a 200-strong mob attacked four travelling Frenchmen and killed two Russian black dancing bears on April 26, 1889.

A dozen local men were found guilty at Littledean Police Court and fined for their part in the attack, and the national headlines left a stain on the Forest which seeped into the region’s folklore.

Reading the Forest spokesman Roger Deeks said: “The facts are known and make for grim reading today – 130 years ago, four Frenchmen were visiting the Forest of Dean with a pair of dancing bears.

“A rumour started – completely false – that the bears had killed a child and as they left Cinderford, an angry mob gathered and attacked the Frenchmen.

“By the time they reached Ruardean the four Frenchmen had been beaten senseless and the bears killed. In the trial that followed a dozen local men were found guilty and heavily fined.

“News of the incident reached the national newspapers and for many confirmed the idea of the Foresters as a “robustic wild people, that must be civilized by good discipline and government” and “bear killers”.

He added that instead of being forgotten over time, it remains one of the defining stories about the Forest.

“False news, sensationalism and social media are ways of confirming prejudices and beliefs, but that is nothing new”, says Roger. “How the bears’ story has been told informs us how working people and rural communities were demonised and the story has been put to a variety of uses since then.”

The Reading the Forest event, which takes place from 12 noon on Saturday, April 27, at Ruardean Memorial Hall, will feature screenings from documentaries, animations and films about the killing of the bears, such as Dennis Potter’s A Beast with Two Backs.

Original documents from the time of the trial, as well as poems and other works will also be on show, while the talk Bear facts, Bear stories and Bearing history will focus on how the story has been used down the years.

BBC Gloucestershire’s Kate Clark will be hosting a discussion about the reverberations of the bear stories, and among the panel will be Ruardean historian Andrew Gardiner and the Dean Heritage Centre’s Nicola Wynn.

To this day, people from Cinderford and Ruardean still blame each other for the killing, although only one of the 12 men convicted reportedly had any connection with the village.

The attack happened after their French owners Gabriel Yas, Gabriel Huguet, Thomas Sirgent, and Alfred Gerard paraded the chained animals in Cinderford before a rumour spread that the bears had mauled a child to death and attacked a woman, prompting miners to pour out of two Nailbridge pubs to assault them.

Fourteen colliers and labourers were put on trial on May 3, 1889, charged with ill-treating, torturing and maliciously killing two bears and assaulting the Frenchmen, and all but two were found guilty.

The incident was back in the news 15 months ago, when a Forest homeowner discovered a faded witness summons, wrapped in brown paper, to the court hearing, after an attic chimney collpased, .

As part of the 130th anniversary, Raurdean pub The Malt Shovel will be hosting a ‘truly grizzly’ local trivia and bear-themed pub quiz on Friday, April 26, at 8pm in aid of animal charity World Animal Protection.

For more details, see www.readingtheforest.co.uk/news