Luddites
The Luddites were a social movement of British textile artisans in the early nineteenth century who protested — often by destroying mechanised looms - against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt threatened their livelihood.
This English historical movement has to be seen in its context of the harsh economic climate due to the Napoleonic Wars; but since then, the term Luddite has been used to describe anyone opposed to technological progress and technological change.
The Luddite movement, which began in 1811, took its name from the earlier Ned Ludd. For a short time the movement was so strong that it clashed in battles with the British Army. Measures taken by the government included a mass trial at York in 1812 that resulted in many executions and penal transportation.
The principal objection was to the introduction of new wide-framed looms that could be operated by cheap, relatively unskilled labour, resulting in the loss of jobs for many textile workers.
In the early months of 1811 the first threatening letters from General Ned Ludd and the Army of Redressers, were sent to employers in Nottingham. Workers, upset by wage reductions and the use of unapprenticed workmen, began to break into factories at night to destroy the new machines that the employers were using. In a three-week period over two hundred stocking frames were destroyed.
In March, 1811, several attacks were taking place every night and the Nottingham authorities had to enroll four hundred special constables to protect the factories. To help catch the culprits, the Prince Regent offered £50 to anyone "giving information on any person or persons wickedly breaking the frames".
Luddism gradually spread to Yorkshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire. In Yorkshire, croppers, a small and highly skilled group of cloth finishers, turned their anger on the new shearing frame that they feared would put them out of work. In February and March, 1812, factories were attacked by Luddites in Huddersfield, Halifax, Wakefield and Leeds.
In February 1812, the government of Spencer Perceval proposed that machine-breaking should become a capital offence. Despite a passionate speech by Lord Byron in the House of Lords, Parliament passed the Frame Breaking Act that enabled people convicted of machine-breaking to be sentenced to death. As a further precaution, the government ordered 12,000 troops into the areas where the Luddites were active.
On of the most serious Luddite attacks took place at Rawfolds Mill near Brighouse in Yorkshire. William Cartwright, the owner of Rawfolds Mill, had been using cloth-finishing machinery since 1811. Local croppers began losing their jobs and after a meeting at Saint Crispin public house, they decided to try and destroy the cloth-finishing machinery at Rawfolds Mill. Cartwright was suspecting trouble and arranged for the mill to be protected by armed guards.
Led by George Mellor, a young cropper from Huddersfield, the attack on Rawfolds Mill took place on 11 April, 1812. The Luddites failed in gain entry and by the time they left, two of the croppers had been mortally wounded. Seven days later the Luddites killed William Horsfall, another large mill-owner in the area. The authorities rounded up over a hundred suspects. Of these, sixty-four were indicted. Three men were executed for the murder of Horsfall and another fourteen were hung for the attack on Rawfolds Mill.
Throughout 1812 there were attacks on Lancashire cotton mills. Local handloom weavers objected to the introduction of power looms. On 20 March, 1812 the warehouse of William Radcliffe, one of the first manufacturers to use the power-loom, was attacked in Stockport.
Wheat prices soared in 1812. Unable to feed their families, workers became desperate. There were food riots in Manchester, Oldham, Ashton, Rochdale, Stockport and Macclesfield. On 20 April several thousand men attacked Burton's Mill at Middleton near Manchester. Emanuel Burton, who knew that his policy of buying power-looms had upset local handloom weavers, had recruited armed guards and three members of the crowd were killed by musket-fire. The following day the men returned and after failing to break-in to the mill, they burnt down Emanuel Burton's house. The military arrived and another seven men were killed.
Three days later, Wray and Duncroff's Mill at Westhoughton, near Manchester, was set on fire. William Hulton, the High Sheriff of Lancashire, arrested twelve men suspected of taking part in the attack. Four of the accused, Abraham Charlston, Job Fletcher, Thomas Kerfoot, and James Smith, were executed. The Charlston's family claimed Abraham was only twelve years old but he was not reprieved. It was reported that Abraham cried for his mother on the scaffold. A local part-time journalist, John Edward Taylor, investigated the case and claimed that the attack had been the result of action taken by spies employed by Colonel Fletcher, one of Manchester's magistrates.
In June 1812, John Knight organised a meeting for weavers at a public house in Manchester. As the meeting was coming to an end Joseph Nadin, Deputy Constable of Manchester, arrived and arrested Knight and thirty-seven other weavers. Knight was charged with "administering oaths to weavers pledging them to destroy steam looms" and they were accused of attending a seditious meeting. At their subsequent trial all thirty-eight were acquitted.
In the summer of 1812, eight men in Lancashire were sentenced to death and thirteen transported to Australia for attacks on cotton mills. Another fifteen were executed at York. This was followed by further sporadic outbreaks of violence, but by 1817 the Luddite movement had ceased to be active in Britain.
However, the movement can also be seen as part of a rising tide of English working-class discontent in the early 19th century. An agricultural variant of Luddism, centring on the breaking of threshing machines, was crucial to the widespread Swing Riots of 1830 in southern and eastern England.
In recent years, the terms Luddism and Luddite or Neo-Luddism and Neo-Luddite have become synonymous with anyone who opposes the advance of technology due to the cultural and socioeconomic changes that are associated with it.
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