The Luddites 1811- 1813

In Nottinghamshire in 1811 there was an outbreak of machine breaking. This was carried out by groups of men who thought that machinery used in the textile factories in the textile factories. The problem was that for stocking-frame knitters the factory owner was using a wide frame machine, this was faster and cheaper than using the traditional narrow frame but was poorer quality. The men thought that this reduced wages and put them out of work. This anger turned into violent action and a wave of machine breaking intimidation and rioting and was organised by a mysterious figure of Nedd Ludd. This caused the government alarm with also more machine breaking in Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cheshire which was linked to to the Luddites. The Yorkshire protests were against the introduction of the shearing frame which threatened the skilled croppers jobs useless. In the Lancashire cotton mills, power looms were attacked and smashed by hand-weavers. Yorkshire croppers did try and go through the democratic process and petitioned Parliament to ask to help to safeguard  their livelihoods. This failed so in 1812 they turned to machine breaking and in April the violence became more extreme when William Horsfall was murdered by a group of four Luddites with three of them hanged in the end. As there was more machine breaking soldiers were drafted in to keep order maintained and after more arrest the resistance ended. Within a couple of years hand-loom weavers could not find work because of the power loom. The workers in the textile factories had success as their produce was better quality and their wages rose and unrest died down.

The historian Frank Darvall thinks that the Luddites were not planning a revolution as their was no evidence by government spies and that it was more of a response from uneducated men who saw machines as a threat to their jobs. Also that the outbreaks were not organised were for local reasons and had no wider political reason. Other historians like Edward Thompson thinks that the Luddites were a revolutionary movement. He argues that they were more organised and the attack was not about the machines on it's own but it was against the laissez faire system of the government. He would also say that it is likely that there was a connection between the ringleaders and the geographical proximity of the Luddites disruption as they were mainly in the North around Manchester, Leicester and Huddersfield.

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