Tuesday 21st February 1815 saw the igniting of a spark in agricultural areas that would consume different parts of East Anglia over the coming months.
At Gosbeck, near Ipswich, 20 labourers collectively destroyed 2 threshing machines and apparently made threats to destroy others. The local magistrates were quick to act to end the disturbance, and 8 or 9 men were arrested.
As reported in the Bury & Norwich Post of 1st March 1815 and the Ipswich Journal of 4th March 1815: the former says 8 men arrested, the latter 9.
Agricultural machine-breaking in the countryside during the years of Luddism has been given far less coverage by historians than the destruction meted out to machines in the cloth industries in the same
period. Furthermore, I am unaware of any works that mention the two variants of working-class direct action against machinery side-by-side. This website intends to correct that apparent oversight.
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