1. The clearest summaries are in Darvall, op. cit., ch. 2, and A. Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, ch. 3. See also F. A. Wells, History of the Midland Hosiery Trade (1935).
2. Nottingham Review, 6 December 1811.
1. For opposition to the broad loom as such, see letters in Leicester Journal, 13 December 1811, Derby Mercury, 19 December 1811.
1. Hammonds, Town Labourer, p. 66; Skilled Labourer, p. 227; Darvall, op. cit., p. 43; Committee on Framework-Knitters’ Petitions (1812); J. D. Chambers, ‘The Framework-Knitters’ Company’, Economica, November 1929.
1. Copy in H.Q. 42.119 (to the tune, ‘Poor Jack’).
2. Conant and Baker to H.O. 42.119 partly reproduced in Darvall, op. cit., p. 170.
1. Nottingham Archives and Records, VIII, p. 139.
1. i.e. Luddites.
1. See Committee on Framework-Knitters’ Petitions (1812), esp. pp. 38–46. One of the men’s witnesses was John Blackner, the historian of Nottingham, who had been a framework-knitter since 1780.
1.Nottingham Archives, 3984 I and II, passim; Records VIII, pp. 139–62; Hammonds, op. cit., pp.229, 270.
2. Copy of Articles and General Regulations (Nottingham, 1813) in Nottingham Archives, 3984 II, f. 126.
1. See the Hammonds, op. cit., pp. 229–54; W. Felkin, op. cit., p. 238; A. Temple Patterson, op. cit., chs. 6, 7; Darvall, op. cit., pp. 139–50, 155–9; Aspinall, op. cit., pp. 169–83, 230, 234–42, 320–28. For a short time Henson was employed full-time by the union. In 1816 he brought two successful actions against hosiers for infringement of the Truck Acts. In 1817 he was arrested while in London where he was petitioning for the lives of condemned Luddites; and he was held without charge for eighteen months during the suspension of Habeas Corpus.
1. Hammonds, op. cit., p. 67, and (for the Arbitration Acts) pp. 62–9, 72 ff.
2. One Who Pities the Oppressed, The Beggar’s Complaint against Rack-Rent Landlords, Corn Factors, Great Farmers, Monopolizers, Paper Money Makers, and War… (Sheffield, 1812), pp. 100 ff.
3. See above, p. 307.
4. A. B. Richmond, op. cit., pp. 14–28.
1. See ibid., pp. 29–40 and Richmond’s evidence, Second Report… Artizans and Machinery (1824), pp. 59 ff.; Hammonds, op. cit., pp. 85–8; Aspinall, op. cit., pp. 137–50, esp. J. J. Dillon to Sidmouth, pp. 143 ff.
1. For the operation of the Spitalfields Acts, see M. D. George, London Life in the Eighteenth Century, ch. 4; Hammonds, op. cit., pp. 209 ff.; J. H. Clapham, ‘The Spitalfields Acts’, Economic Journal, December 1916.
1. See T. K. Derry, ‘Repeal of the Apprenticeship Clauses’, loc. cit., pp. 71–2.
1. H.O. 42.117. See the Hammonds, op. cit., pp. 84–5, for fuller extracts from this remarkable document.
2. General Ludd’s Triumph, in H.O. 42.119.
1. MS. ‘Heads of Proposed Bill…’, Halifax Reference Library.
2. Compare the Tory Cobbett in the Political Register, 23 July 1803; ‘On Sunday the children, being let loose from… those pestiferous prisons ycleped manufactories, may stretch their little cramped up limbs…’; and the Liberal Leeds Mercury (6 March 1802): ‘the large manufactories in this and other towns form seminaries for all kinds of profaneness and obscenity…. The truth of this observation cannot be questioned.’
1. The ‘Declaration’, in fine copper-plate, is dated November 1811, and empowers Edward Ludd to ‘inflict the Punishment of Death’ in case of default, and to distribute £50 among the executioners: J. Russell, ‘The Luddites’, Trans. Thoroton Society, X, 1906, pp. 53–62.
1. E. Lipson, The History of the Woollen and Worsted Industries (1921), p. 181.
2. W. Dodd, The Factory System Illustrated, p. 15.
1. Felkin, op. cit., pp. 441 ff.; T. Cooper, Life, pp. 137–42. See also J. F. C. Harrison, ‘Chartism in Leicester’, in A. Briggs, Chartist Studies, pp. 121–9.
1. K. Marx, Selected Works (1942), II, p. 439.
2. See E. J. Hobsbawm, ‘The Machine Breakers’, Past & Present, I, February 1952, pp. 57 ff.
1. Darvall, op. cit., pp. 67–70; Hammonds, op. cit., pp. 261–5; Leeds Mercury, 7, 14, 21 December 1811.
2. Aspinall, op. cit., p. 118.
1. Leeds Mercury, 15 February 1812; Nottingham Review, 7 February 1812.
2. Henson claimed that he advised the formation of trades clubs as an alternative to Ludding: Fourth Report… Artizans and Machinery (1824), p. 282.
1. Leeds Mercury, 18 January, 29 February 1812; Frank Peel, op. cit. (1880 edn), p. 17.
2. Peel, op. cit. (1895 edn), pp. 44 ff. It should be noted that wherever Peel’s account can be checked it is generally accurate, even in detail.
1. W. B. Crump, op. cit., p. 229.
2. Ibid., pp. 229–30. Mr Hanson is presumably the Colonel Hanson, imprisoned for supporting the weavers in 1808.
1. Asa Briggs, Private and Social Themes in Shirley (Brontë Society, 1958), p. 9.
2. A. L., Sad Times, p. 112.
3. Frank Peel, Spen Valley: Past and Present, p. 242.
1. Leeds Mercury, 11 April 1812; Darvall, op. cit., p. 114.
1. Radcliffe MSS., 126/32. The writer of the letter in fact confused the details of the funeral of John Booth, who was buried hurriedly in Huddersfield in anticipation of great crowds assembling to pay a tribute, with the funeral of Hartley in Halifax, for which see p. 641 below.
1. Brief, Rex v. Milnes and Blakeborough, T.S. 11.2673.
2. The ‘folklore’ of Luddism is found in A.L., Sad Times; F. Peel, Risings of the Luddites, and Spen Valley: Past and Present; Sykes and Walker, Ben o’ Bill’s. Where possible these accounts have been checked with those in the Leeds Mercury and in the ensuing trials. Cartwright’s letters, describing the attack and the ‘treachery’ of his soldiers, are in the Hammonds, op. cit., pp. 305–6; and in H. A. Cadman, Gomersal: Past and Present (Leeds, 1930), pp. 114–16.
1. See A. Briggs, The Age of Improvement, pp. 164–6; A. Prentice. Historical Sketches of Manchester, pp. 41–7; Chester New, Life of Henry Brougham (Oxford, 1961), chs. 4 and 6.
2. D. F. E. Sykes, History of the Colne Valley (Slaithwaite, 1906), p. 309.
1. And also the repeal of 5 Eliz. c.4 in 1813 and 1814.
2. These towns and villages are mentioned as sending delegates to various secret meetings in the statement of Yarwood and reports of ‘B’ (Bent) for April 1812, in H.O. 40.1. See also Thomas Whittaker’s deposition in H.O. 42.121 that at a meeting on 25 March at ‘The Good Samaritan’, Salford, delegates were present from almost every town within fifteen or twenty miles. For the authenticity of these reports see below, pp. 648f.
1. See below, p. 644.
1. Prentice, op. cit., pp. 48–52; Darvall, op. cit., pp. 93–5.
2. Anonymous letter, 19 April 1812, in H.O. 40.1.
1. Leeds Mercury, report from Middleton, 25 April 1812.
2. The tortuous story of ‘Old S.’ and ‘Young S.’ is told in the Hammonds, op. cit., ch. 10; Darvall, op. cit., chs. 5, 14; Prentice, op. cit., pp. 52–8; and Anon. The Blackfaces of 1812 (Bolton, 1839).
1. At Lancaster, of 58 prisoners, 28 were convicted – 8 sentenced to death, and 13 to transportation. At Chester, of 47 prisoners, 29 were convicted – 15 sentenced to death (although only two were hanged), 8 to transportation.
2. Lloyd to H.O., 17 June 1812, H.O. 40.1; F. Raynes, An Appeal to the Public (1817), pp. 20–21 et passim.
1. Leeds Mercury, 2 May 1812; T.S. 11. 5480.
2. H.O. 40.1; Prentice, op. cit., p. 46; Leeds Mercury, 16 May 1812; Peel, Risings of the Luddites, pp. 156–7; A. Briggs, Age of Improvement, p. 157.
1. Radcliffe MSS., 126–91. Radcliffe was pursued with threats for several more years. ‘Ludding is going to start here again,’ he was warned, in March 1815, by an anonymous correspondent. The croppers ‘swear they will shoot thee first, old Bellsybub they call thee’: 126/136.
2. Here there is a rough drawing of a gallows, with the grim note; ‘this frame works all full price and fashion’. H.O. 42.122.
1. See C. Gray, Nottingham Through 500 Years (Nottingham, 1960), p. 165.
1. This is not impossible. There was a colony of English framework-knitters at Calais. See Henson’s evidence in Fourth Report… Artizans and Machinery (1824), p. 274; and H.O. 79.3 f. 31.
2. Confessions of W. Burton in H.O. 40.4; depositions of Thomas Savage, H.O. 42.163; H. W. C. Davis, Age of Grey and Peel, p. 172; Darvall, op. cit., pp. 144–9, 155–9; Hammonds, op. cit., pp. 238–42.
1. Loc. cit., p. 339. My italics.
1. Loc. cit., pp. 174–96.
1. Rex v. Eadon, Howell’s State Trials, XXXI, 1070.
2. Oaths fabricated by agents provocateurs were usually far more grisly – one including a pledge to cut off the head and hands of any traitor and of all his family.
3. This was the reason why the major Luddite trials were by Special Commission.
1. Fitzwilliam Papers, 9 July 1812. F.46 (g).
2. For this curious tangle, see Hammonds, op. cit., pp. 315 ff. and Darvall, op. cit., pp. 125–33.
1. The brief, Rex v. Baines, in the Treasury Solicitor’s papers, commences: ‘the elder Baines is a Hatter, a man notoriously disaffected to the Government’: T.S. 11.2673.
2. The evidence of F. Raynes, An Appeal to the Public (1817) on all this is overwhelming. Captain Raynes commanded a unit with special responsibility to infiltrate and detect the Luddite instigators, in Lancashire (June–September 1812) and the West Riding (September–December 1812). From motives of private grievance he later published an account of his service, together with his correspondence with superior officers. In several Lancashire districts such as Newton, the oath was ‘almost universal amongst the manufacturing and lower classes’. On more than one occasion his agents succeeded in penetrating the conspiracy, but the Luddites (realizing that they were detected) immediately hastened to the nearest magistrate and ‘untwisted’ themselves by taking the oath of allegiance – to Captain Raynes’ intense irritation. Scepticism as to the prevalence of oath-taking cannot survive a careful reading of this pamphlet (Copy in Manchester City Reference Library.)
1. This point has been laboured because it also helps to explain some of the confusion surrounding the cases of Despard and of Brandreth. Surviving briefs in the Treasury Solicitor’s papers reveal the great care with which the law officers of the Crown sifted their evidence for the overt acts most easily brought to proof. Even in the case of O’Coigly (above, p. 187) the. Crown brief is annotated: ‘Should the invasion of Ireland be mentioned?’ (T.S. 11.333). For the case of Thomas Bacon, see below, p. 729.
2. Fitzwilliam Papers, F.46 (g).
3. There is a considerable amount of this kind of testimony, as to drilling, delegates, revolutionary ambitions, in the Home Office papers. Darvall makes his argument easier by quoting none of it, and dismissing every example, in contemptuous footnotes, as the work of imaginative or interested informers.
1. F. Raynes, op. cit., pp. 114–15.
1. An Historical Account of the Luddites (Huddersfield, 1862), p. 79; Peel, Risings of the Luddites (1895 edn), p. 278; Peel, Spen Valley: Past and Present, pp. 261, 264; Hammonds, op. cit., pp. 241–2; Sykes and Walker, Ben o’ Bill’s, p. 335. In post-war years it became the practice of the authorities to promise working-class informers their passage to one of the colonies. See also Hammonds, The Town Labourer, pp. 259–61.
2. Peel, Spen Valley, pp. 255–6. Cf. Leeds Mercury (9 May 1812): ‘… We believe there is a very general disposition amongst the lower classes to view the actions of the persons engaged in this association with complacency, not to say with approbation. This is the strength and life’s blood of the Association.’
3. T. Bailey, Annals of Nottinghamshire (1855), IV, p. 280.
1. H.O. 42.122.
2. An officer who witnessed the execution wrote to Radcliffe: ‘I consider there were eight real Luds… and nine Depredators who took advantage of the Times’ [i.e. house-breakers]. He was informed by the Chaplain that the ‘real Luds’ refused to make any confession: ‘I really believe they did not consider it as any great if any offence.’ He adds: ‘I believe they were all Methodists.’ Colonel Norton to Radcliffe, January 1813, Radcliffe MSS, 126/114.
1. Proceedings under the Special Commission at York (Leeds, 1813), pp. 67–9; Hammonds, op. cit., p. 332; H. Clarkson, Memories of Merry Wakefield (Wakefield, 1887), p. 40.
2. Authorized introduction to York trials, in Howell, State Trials XXXI, 964.
3. Shirley, chs. 8, 30.
1. Leeds Mercury, 23 November 1811; Bailey, op. cit., IV, p. 247.
1. J. U. Walker, History of Wesleyan Methodism in Halifax (Halifax, 1836), p. 255; E. V. Chapman, John Wesley & Co (Halifax) (Halifax, 1952), p. 35; F. A. West, Memoirs of Jonathan Saville (1844), pp. 24–5.
2. Hammonds, op. cit., p. 239.
3. Peel, op. cit., pp. 6, 18.
1. Report of Proceedings under Commissions of Oyer & Terminer… for the County of York (Hansard, 1813), pp. xiv–xix. It should be said, however, that a few of these were pseudo-Luddites, accused of housebreaking, while the hatter, shoemakers and cardmaker were the Halifax democrats. Nearly all those indicted for their part in the Rawfolds affair were croppers. See also T.S. 11.2669.
2. See, for example, an intercepted letter from Yorkshire correspondents to a brother in Nottingham, relating to a Nottingham man who was staying with them: ‘We… received him as a friend from you which we believed He is, & we have enjoy’d ourselves over a pot or two of Beer, & he read Mr Luds Song’; 19 April 1812, Radcliffe MSS, 126/32.
3. Radcliffe MSS., 126–27.
1. W. B. Crump, op. cit., p. 230.
1. Peel, op. cit. (1880 edn), pp. 23–6. In the preface to the second edition, 1888, Peel recounts how this tradition was preserved.
2. Report of the Proceedings… under Oyer and Terminer, pp. 124, 207.
3. James Mann, a Leeds cropper, was held under the suspension of Habeas Corpus in 1817 (below, p. 733) and later became Leeds’ foremost radical bookseller. It would be of interest if these two ‘Manns’ were the same.
1. Reports of ‘B’, 25 March, 18 April 1812, H.O. 40.1. The ‘old Committee’ and the ‘old business’ presumably refer to the conspiracy of 1801 and 1802, above pp. 517–21.
2. Leeds Mercury, 6 June 1812.
3. Peel, op. cit. (1880 edn), p. 9.
1. See The Skilled Labourer, pp. 67, 73 and above, p. 538. It is not absolutely certain, however, that this was the same ‘B’, since other ‘B’s were employed – for example, Barlow, see above, p. 534.
2. Deposition of H. Yarwood, 22 June 1812, in H.O. 40.1. He was also described as ‘a respectable cotton-merchant’: see The Trial at Full length of the 38 Men from Manchester (Manchester, 1812), p. 137.
1. Ibid., pp. 274–5, 297, 336–7.
1. Throughout the early Spring of 1812 ‘B’ reported regularly and garrulously. The Hammonds rest their account of the Stockport meeting, in February, upon the confession of Thomas Whittaker in H.O. 42.121. But ‘B’ reported on 25 March that he still had not succeeded in gaining entry to any of the secret meetings although he hoped to be admitted shortly (H.O. 40.1). He did succeed in attending several of the weavers’ meetings in April, but was excluded from an important meeting in May because of a dispute about money (deposition of Yarwood, H.O. 40.1).
2. See Aspinall, op. cit., pp. xxiii n. 2, 98–9 n. 1, 100–101 n. 2.
1. See the evidence of A. B. Richmond, cited above p. 592. There is also a full deposition in the Fitzwilliam Papers, F.46 (g) as to a shadowy ‘weavers’ union’, said to stretch ‘from London to Nottingham, and from thence to Manchester and Carlisle’, bound by the strictest secrecy, with different degrees of oaths at different levels of the organization, extreme precautions in the transmission of papers – the night assignation on the moor, the message left in a hollow stick in the corner of a designated field, and so on.
2. Perhaps local preacher?
1. Cf. Peel’s comment on the reaction of the Halifax democrats to the assassination of Horsfall: ‘Assassination found no advocate or defender in the old democrat Baines.’ Peel, op. cit., p. 164.
1. See example on p. 205 above.
2. Enclosures in Rev. W. R. Hay, 16 May 1812, in H.O. 41.
3. Oliver reported of a West Riding delegate meeting (28 April 1817): ‘I found there were many among them who did not hesitate to say they were well prepared with Despard &c. in 1802, and that Job was lost entirely by the loss of a few who had neglected to keep up a close Communication between them’. Oliver’s ‘Narrative’, H.O. 40.9.
1. This discussion of Lancashire Luddism is largely based on statements of Bent, Yarwood, Whittaker, ‘R.W.’, magistrates’ reports and anonymous letters in H.O. 40.1 and 42.121 and 42.123.
2. Darvall, op. cit., p. 175. Cf. Beckett to Maitland, 29 August 1812: ‘there must be more simultaneous cooperation and more system in what they do before any serious mischief need be feared from them’, H.O. 79.2.
1. See The Historical Account of the Luddites, p. 11: ‘An opinion prevailed that the views of some of the persons engaged in these excesses extended to revolutionary measures, and contemplated the overthrow of the government; but this opinion seems to have been supported by no satisfactory evidence; and it is admitted on all hands, that the leaders of the riots, although possessed of considerable influence, were all of the labouring classes.’
2. Cole, Life of. Cobbett, p. 180.
3. Darvall, op. cit., p. 310.
1. F. Raynes, op. cit., p. 58.
1. In addition to letters probably emanating from bona fide Luddite groups, the period was productive of a good deal of free enterprise in letter-writing. Among authors whom I have noted are: ‘Mr Pistol’, ‘Lady Ludd’, ‘Peter Plush’, ‘General Justice’, ‘Thomas Paine’, ‘A True Man’, ‘Eliza Ludd’, ‘No King’, ‘King Ludd’, and ‘Joe Firebrand’, with such addresses as ‘Robin Hoods Cave’ and ‘Sherwood Forest’.
1. Radcliffe MSS., 126/46 and 126/127A; An Appeal to the Nation (Halifax, 1812); Lockett to Beckett, 12 January 1817, H.O. 40.3.