'Repression And Resistance In West Riding Luddism' by Alan Brooke

(A Paper delivered at the ‘Enoch’s Hammer’ conference, University of Huddersfield, 12 May 2012).

Machinery...is a thief and would rob thousands, we shall find that it shall be the destruction of this country. America won’t get a deal by it – it will be the destruction of that country and in the end, I will venture to say, it will be the destruction of the universe.’[1]

So spoke William Leadbeater, a local ‘operative’, (his occupation is not recorded), at a meeting in Huddersfield in 1830. We may laugh, at the hyperbole, as did those at the meeting, but this quote illustrates a couple of vital points.

Firstly and obviously, that hostility to machinery remained long after 1812. But the main point lies in consideration of the context in which it was made. This was a meeting on distress in Huddersfield following the 1826 bank crash. And this was not the only reference at this time to machinery being a primary factor responsible for unemployment and poverty.

At a meeting on Almondbury Bank on 15 June 1829 one speaker made specific reference to 7 out of 8 cloth dressers being deprived of work by machinery, so earlier struggles were clearly remembered.[2] Indeed one prominent middle class Huddersfield radical claimed that in 1826 he had helped channel local agitation from murmurings about machine breaking to more constitutional political channels. ‘there had been a meeting and some men had been amongst them encouraging them to burn the factories and to rob , rather than to pine or starve...’[3]

The Operatives Committee behind these meetings was composed mainly of handloom weavers, particularly the fancy weavers of Almondbury. Out of such meetings grew the local Political Unions for parliamentary reform, which in the 1830s dovetailed both with trade unionism and with that of the Factory Reform movement, one of the main aims of which, articulated both by radicals and ‘radical Tories’ like Oastler, was preservation of the domestic system of production. Although by now most of the weavers in that sector, particularly in the fancy trade, were proletarianised wage workers.

Therefore, the machinery question, the defence of domestic manufacture and political struggle were all clearly interlinked right through to the Chartist 1840s.

Consider another quote, from another meeting, which discussed: ‘what were the first steps they would take...it was concluded that they should pull down all the machinery, which would return the manufacturing business to the old channel.’[4]

This is from a decade before 1812. It is in the report which was passed on to the authorities of a meeting in Almondbury in 1802 of suspected United Britons, a Jacobin cell.[5] There is clear evidence of Republican activity in the area and no reason to disbelieve that one of the concerns of this group was the impact of machinery. After all, in parts of France machine breaking was part of the revolutionary movement.[6]

But the machinery question was not just a concern of a small group of clandestine Jacobins. In the 1807 Yorkshire county elections the defence of domestic production, machinery and the apprenticeship question was the concern of many of the small freeholders. It contributed, if was not the main factor, in the defeat of Henry Lascelles. Lascelles was the chair of the parliamentary committee in 1806, which found that the domestic woollen industry would not be adversely affected by the repeal of the ancient laws regulating it. William Wilberforce, who was also on the Committee, was elected, but he had not exhibited the same vociferous hostility to the clothiers and cloth dressers as Lascelles. This committee in its report appeared more concerned about the subversive threat from the ‘Institutions’, the organisations representing the clothiers and cloth dressers, than about the threat to domestic manufacture from machinery.

Clearly, both prior to the outbreak of Luddism in the West Riding in 1812, and for a long time afterwards, the machinery question was inseparable from resistance to the factory and defence of the domestic system as a whole. And this resistance implicitly, and often explicitly, had a political dimension.

By political activity I do not simply mean that people were drawing up political programmes expressing their grievances, or were engaged in activities intended to influence or change the parliamentary system. This paper does not consider the wider political concerns of the croppers, such as parliamentary reform and the movement to end the war with France. Nor does it look at their role in elections as enfranchised freeholders, or as non-electors who could at least shout and perhaps kick up a riot. By political I mean that they were forced into a position of responding to and resisting increasing state repression.

This was a state that was shaped by the need to push forward industrialisation at home and to maintain Britain’s commercial predominance abroad, as manifested in the war with France. This was not a remote state apparatus. It was evident on a daily basis in the organisation of the Volunteers in 1794, against not only invasion but ‘intestine commotion’.[7] It was evident in the role of the local magistrates, who since the Combination Acts of 1799-1800 had a direct role in suppressing illegal combinations. And it was increasingly evident in the realisation that parliament was clearly on the side of the manufacturers regarding the machinery question. The armed, the judicial and the legislative arms of the state clearly revealed their class bias, nationally and locally.

Did the active element of the croppers, the occupational group out of which WR Luddism grew realise this? Were they politically conscious in this respect?

The first opposition to gig mills in the West Riding was apparently an attempt to invoke ancient Tudor legislation prohibiting this machine in order to prosecute the Atkinsons of Bradley Mill in 1787. Whether there was any organisation behind this legal initiative is not recorded.[8] According to the Halifax cropper, John Tate, speaking before the 1806 Select Committee on Woollen manufacture, the croppers organisation known as the Institution dated from 1796. In 1799, as a result of the Combination Act, the Huddersfield cloth dressers society, which was presumably the local form of the Institution, was dissolved and its funds disbursed. It called in over 500 membership tickets.[9]

The Institution reformed as a sick brief Institution, ostensibly a friendly society concerned with relieving members in distress. Tate claimed that unlike its predecessor it did not have a Bank of funds, although the suspicion that it did was one of the main concerns of the authorities. It was also an oath-bound society, always grounds for suspicion. Whatever the role of the Institution at this time its’ activities were certainly circumscribed by the Combination Acts. But the limitations of these Acts were shown by the willingness of some croppers to use direct action to resist machinery.
In November 1799 Johnson’s gig mill at Holbeck was destroyed. The description of the event by the merchant and magistrate William Cookson prefigures later Luddite attacks.

‘many hundreds were present and some disguised, ...and though a considerable reward was offered from the government and from the magistrates, and the parties were summoned up who were known to be there, and who could not prove an alibi, no argument or entreaty could prevail upon anyone to confess who were active parties in the business’. (1806).

Similarly, in the West of England disturbances of 1802, a semi clandestine Institution employing strike tactics co-existed with a movement employing direct attacks on the mills housing shear frames. This Institution was clearly linked with the one in the West Riding. Delegates moved between the two areas. The same membership ticket was used showing the Leeds coat of arms and crossed shears and no shearman from the West of England, or West Riding cropper could get work in either area without one.[10]

In the West Riding, where each town had its own committee and sent delegates to central meetings at the White Swan at Birstal, 1802 saw strikes against the gig mill, the employment of non Institution men and the employment of over age apprentices at Huddersfield and Leeds. This had some success since Cookson asked merchants to desist from installing machinery through fear it would lead to ‘horrid outrages’. Fitzwilliam, the Lord Lieutenant, wrote to the Home Office denouncing the ‘system of terror’ and describing the croppers as ‘the tyrants of the country, their power and influence has grown out of their high wages, which enable them to make deposits that puts them beyond all fear of inconvenience for misconduct.’ The powerful closed shop of the croppers had clearly back footed the authorities. Because of the Institution, Benjamin Gott, the merchant and owner of the largest woollen factory in Leeds, was unable to recruit strike breakers in Trowbridge.

But the resistance was not just from the croppers. In 1803 the Rules and Orders of the Clothiers Community, Leeds, established a ‘clothiers brief institution’, in defence of 7 year apprenticeships. [11] Behind that, of course, was desire to protect the domestic system of production as a whole. As one clothier put it in 1805 they were opposed to the ‘mighty factories ...erected ... by these monopolisers.’, wealthy manufacturers and merchants, who were setting up loom shops in their premises. As well as displacing independent clothiers the factory system was held to produce all sorts of baneful moral effects detrimental to the community.[12]

In Leeds in 1805 and 1806 there were numerous strikes both by weavers and other workmen, including shoemakers, tailors, joiners and cabinet makers, bricklayers and flax dressers. In January 1805 five shoemakers were sentenced to 3 months in York for illegal combination. [13] In May in Wortley weavers and spinners were discharged in order to break up the ‘institution formed among themselves for the purpose of relieving each other when sick.’ [14]  While in Farnley, two clothiers were convicted of illegal combination.[15]

In 1805 the merchants and manufacturers of the West Riding had formed a combination of their own. In Leeds 54 firms signed a resolution not to employ any Institution men. Joseph Stancliffe, a clothier, of Hopton, in evidence to the 1806 inquiry, thought that the decision not to employ Institution weavers, ‘has in some measure prevented them.’ But it lead to a bitter dispute. Non Institution men were referred to as ‘snakes’ and homes were attacked in Beeston,Wortley and Armley.[16]

Among the names of the 31 firms signing the Huddersfield resolution are many of those who also supported Lascelles in 1807 [17] and who backed the creation of the Volunteer force. They include the Atkinsons and Horsfalls who were the most prominent advocates of finishing machinery. The class lines were clearly being drawn in this struggle.

Although the main focus of the cloth dressers’ Institution was now on petitioning parliament against the repeal of the old laws regulating gig mills and apprenticeships, they still had enough funds to offer support to other workers. On this point their representatives before the 1806 select committee were intensely interrogated. Payments also included an allowance to Mrs Hilleker, mother of Thomas Hilleker, hung for his alleged part in the burning of Littleton Mill in Wiltshire in 1802.

The 1806 Select Committee concluded that the croppers Institution was not devoted just to petitioning parliament and collecting funds for this purpose, they found in clear reference to the strikes,

‘this explanation far from satisfactory and strongly to suggest the idea of a connection with some other transactions which had taken place not long before in the manufacturing district and in which from their nature the interests of all commercial men were deeply involved’.

Much was made of the membership ticket produced at the committee by Lascelles, and the fact that funds had been given to strikers, to support the finding that the Institution was an illegal combination. More sinister than that, the Committee concluded, 

‘that such Institutions are in their ultimate tendencies still more alarming in a political than a commercial view...a systematic and organised plan and one so efficient and so dangerous both from the amount of its force and from the facility and secrecy with which at anytime and for any purpose that force may be called into action...’

There is no doubt that croppers were aware of the political forces which confronted them. In a last ditch meeting in Huddersfield in 1808 to protest the repeal of the legislation as recommended by the 1806 SC, local croppers stated that they were;

‘...not insensible that it had been the interest and objective of their adversaries to impress opinions upon the different committees of the most unfavourable kind and to describe their endeavours to save themselves and their numerous families from destruction and despair as factious and turbulent...’[18]

With the economic repression imposed by the advance of machinery, with its resultant deskilling of the artisan and imposition of factory discipline, if not the loss of livelihood entirely, combined with the political repression of the croppers organisation and the obstruction of any route to legal redress, the merchants and the government actually shaped the conditions out of which Luddism arose in the West Riding. The ‘Luddite response’ to this is best summarised in the oft quoted anonymous letter, ‘we petition no more, that wont do, fighting must.’[19]

There is no doubt that, even among the Luddites too young to have lived through the experience of the Institution themselves, there must have existed an awareness of the political processes and personalities which had led to the impasse, to a situation where machinery could only be stopped by force. There is clear continuity in the struggle against machinery and the erosion of the domestic system both prior to 1812 and afterwards. I believe that the burden of proof is on those who assert that the Luddites were somehow quarantined from this culture of resistance.

To Summarise. The cloth dressers and others whose lives and livelihood were bound up with the domestic system faced both increasing economic repression and political repression. There response was to resist, by legal channels when possible, but also by direct action. This resistance to machinery was both trans-regional, as is evident in the links with the West of England and trans-occupational, since opposition to machinery and the factory system came not just from croppers, but from the largest occupational group the clothiers, or domestic weavers. The croppers also had a history of strong organisation and of support for other workers. This is the milieu in which they lived and worked and which shaped their ideology. Much of the spilt ink and controversy about the nature of the Luddites has resulted from a failure to recognise this fact. The Luddites have been compartmentalised, pigeon holed, into simply a machine breaking movement.

This predates any retreat from any analysis that appears to be a ‘grand narrative’, though this trend in historiography has created its own problems of obscurantism and confusion. It stems from a reluctance to see the Luddites as part of a wider class struggle. This is not just a fault of the right, some dogmatic Marxists also see Luddism as a reactionary movement, aimed at holding up the inevitable development of the productive forces.

The paradox which both Luddism expresses, and which is evident in later struggles of handloom weavers in the West Riding, is that resistance to the factory system came mainly from workers outside that system. It was those faced with proletarianisation outside the factory, who, through struggle both against employers using machines and the state machine which backed those employers, first developed the clearest class consciousness. The level of political awareness generated by the Luddites left a clear legacy in the Huddersfield area. It cannot be coincidence that two more uprisings occurred in this area, in 1817 and 1820. There is clear evidence from the personnel involved and from the language used that this was regarded as a continuation of the Luddite struggle

This is not to say that the WR Luddites in 1812 were champions of working class liberation or wanted a workers’ revolution, which is a counter-parody of Luddism sometimes voiced on the left, but nevertheless, their struggles were an integral part of the process of the making of the working class. In this, E P Thompson’s seminal work is as valid as ever, and 50 years on, I maintain, it has stood the test of time.

The historical context of Luddism in Lancashire & Cheshire

In 1812, Lancashire and Cheshire were set for a perfect storm.

Unlike cotton spinning, which in 1812 was largely concentrated in factories and was effectively dead by 1830, hand-loom weaving was far from obsolete in 1812. Indeed, it was still widespread in 1820, when despite the existence of 12,000 power-looms, there were still 240,000 hand-looms in operation (Darvall, p.57).

As for the wider context, the spinning & weaving trade in Lancashire had seen the early introduction of many different innovative machines in the 80 years prior to 1812. As far back as 1733, John Kay's Flying Shuttle had halved the labour of weavers needed to operate a wide loom, and was in general use throughout the industry by 1760. Though unpopular to begin with, the high demand for cotton goods acted to deaden any egregious effect upon the workers.

James Hargreaves' Spinning Jenny of 1765 acted to increase the output of work that could be achieved by a single spinner, though the fact that the machine could be used in a domestic setting meant the pattern of work for weavers was largely unchanged.

Perhaps the most contentious innovation, and one that provided a flash-point early on, was the invention of Richard Arkwright's Water Frame in 1769. As the name suggests, this was a roller-spinning machine powered by water and implied the rapid movement of the spinning industry into factories. Arkwright was quick to introduce other innovations into weaving processes too. Unrest followed: by the mid 1770s, machine-breaking and attacks on mills were taking place. Arkwright's Birkacre Mill at Chorley was destroyed in October 1779, with attacks also being levelled at Robert Peel's factory at Altham, which was also destroyed. Mobs at Wigan, Bolton, Blackburn, Preston & Manchester sought out the large 20-plus spindle Spinning Jennies (that were not domestic machines) for destruction. There was evidence that the local authorities were not unsympathetic: there were reports that the military had watched Birkacre Mill burn, choosing not to intervene. At Wigan, the use of machinery was suspended by the magistrates. Ruling class & bourgeois solidarity was clearly fractured largely because Arkwright was so unpopular with other manufacturers.

But machine-breaking in Lancashire stopped after this outbreak because of the expansion of trade. When trade contracted in the early 19th century, machine-breaking would emerge again, but this time amongst the cotton weavers.

As Darvall pointed out (1969, p.55) the situation was so serious in the home of the cotton industry during this period that disturbances would have occurred even without the factor of the introduction of machinery.

The target of the Luddite's ire in Lancashire and Cheshire was the steam-powered loom (or 'steam loom'). Invented in 1785 by the Reverend Edmund Cartwright, it's advance has been largely been restricted because it was a clumsy, slow-to-use invention and also because the hand-loom weavers worked at such a low rate. Further innovations in the design in 1803 by William Radliffe of Stockport remedied these defects.

In spite of the new technology, hand-loom weaving remained widespread. What changed things were the economic conditions. The Orders in Council had hit Lancashire particularly hard - Darvall (1969, p.55) points out that merchants couldn't sell goods, mills were running at half time, and middlemen were giving out half the work they usually were. Wages were in decline. In Bolton in 1805, a weaver could earn 25 shillings a week, but by 1811/1812, this had declined to 14 shillings. At the same time, the price of provisions had risen due to war and the blockades had risen by approximately 33% in the space of 12 months (Darvall p.54).

Agitation by the weavers had begun 5 years earlier, with a campaign for a minimum wage seeing a massive petition signed by 130,000 weavers being presented to Parliament in February 1807. But Parliament refused even to discuss a proposed Bill to regulate weavers' wages, and the disappointment at this outcome led to rioting in Manchester. Strikes demanding a 33% increase in wages followed in the summer, with the non-damaging sabotage of machinery (i.e. the removal of shuttles from looms) being employed to ensure that 60,000 looms stood idle in Manchester alone. The strikes apparently went some way to achieving their object, albeit temporarily.

By 1810, wages had declined again and despite the short-lived success of the strikes in 1807, the weavers turned again to petitioning, with 40,000 signatures from Manchester, 7,000 from Bolton and 30,000 from Scotland being handed in to Parliament in May 1811. A Select Committee summed up the contempt of the ruling class when it concluded that the weavers should "work at lower prices or ... employ their labour in some other manner." (Hammonds, p.64)

So the stage was set for the confrontations that occurred in 1812. In particular, Stockport had been the seat of innovation with power-looms, but the physical situation of the factories in the district could not have been more provocative: in the midst of Irish immigrant hand-loom weavers who had no recourse to parish relief during hard times. It was in these circumstances that the subtle increase in power-looms became a source of added and bitter discontent.

The historic context of West Yorkshire Luddism in 1812

In 1812, the West Riding of Yorkshire was the centre of the woollen cloth industry in England. But it had not always been this way: for a long period of time the South West of England - and in particular counties like Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Somerset - had been at the forefront of the woollen trade. But the industrial revolution saw the centre of gravity shift to the North of England.

The wool trade had 2 distinct branches - woollen and worsted. In the woollen or cloth branch the raw material was short wool, which was first carded and then spun, whereas in the the worsted branch, long wool was prepared by combing prior to spinning. Spinning and weaving were common to both branches, but the cloth branch required separate processes: 'felting' ('milling' or 'fulling') which strengthened the cloth and 'finishing' which involved raising the fibres into a nap, which was then cut, leaving a smooth, high quality finish.

In the South West, the industrial model saw master manufacturers or 'gentlemen clothiers' buying the raw material and then employing others to produce the finished product. An increase in trade had led to many of these capitalists becoming merchants.

In the West Riding of Yorkshire, the system was semi-domesticated, dominated by an increasing number of small master manufacturers who worked on the wool and took it to market themselves. The workers were self-sufficient, frequently living on small plots of land which they cultivated to provide much of their food. Later, factories took on much of the 'felting' process, but spinning, weaving and finishing remained semi-domesticated.

The introduction of machinery into the industry came first in the form of James Hargreaves' Spinning Jenny, a machine that could be used to spin multiple spindles of yarn. The effect was to increase output, but it was still possible for the industry to remain domestic, since the Jennies could be used at home. Nevertheless, the introduction of Jennies by the capitalists in the trade in the South-West in 1776 caused serious uproar amongst cloth workers there, with rioting taking place at Shepton Mallet. Workers were naturally concerned about increased mechanisation leading to widespread unemployment and severe hardship. An increase in trade had negated the ill-effects of mechanisation. When the conditions of trade took a turn for the worse, hardship increased with predictable results.

Specific existing legislation afforded woollen workers some economic protection from a 'race to the bottom' amongst laissez-faire capitalists, at least in theory. These were: a statute of Edward VI prohibiting the use of gig mills; a statute of Elizabeth 1 enforcing apprenticeship in the woollen trade; and a statute of Phillip & Mary limiting the number of looms that clothiers and weavers could own outside of cities and certain towns. It was the abrogation and eventual repealing of this legislation which escalated the class conflict in the period running up to 1812. The workers at the sharp end of the changes in the industry at the beginning of the nineteenth century were those working in the cloth finishing trade, and in particular the 'Croppers' as they were called in the West Riding (they were known as 'Shearmen' in the South West).

The Croppers/Shearmen were amongst the most skilled and privileged of workers in 1812. They played a crucial part of the cloth finishing process, using huge four foot long hand shears which weighed 30 to 40 pounds, to crop or shear the nap that had been raised by another worker using a teazle. The direct application of their skill could increase or decrease the value of a piece of cloth by as much as 20%, placing them in an unusually strong bargaining position. They controlled the finishing process, and could keep out unskilled labour. Between 3,000 to 5,000 croppers were employed in the West Riding, largely concentrated in the Spen Valley, with only a third of this number employed in the South West.

The use of gig mills - a machine that raised the fibres on a piece of cloth to produce a nap - had been a flash point in the South West in 1802, when the introduction of this machinery had become more widespread, along with the more limited introduction of shearing frames, a machine which mechanised the shearing of cloth. A number of mills containing the machinery had been attacked and destroyed and a parallel wages dispute had resulted saw clothiers conceding to the demands of Shearmen. Despite the Combination Act, the Shearmen/Croppers were very highly organised, and there were links between those working in the South West and those in the West Riding. But because of the Combination Act, the workers had good reason to have no faith that the capitalists would keep to their word.

In Yorkshire, the unrest in the South West had horrified the authorities to the extent that they discouraged manufacturers from installing them in their mills, and in August 1802, the mere threat of a strike by Croppers over the introduction of more machinery had brought the capitalists to heel. Another strike by Croppers came about when Benjamin Gott of Leeds had used non-apprenticed labour in his factories - the strike lasted for months, and the Croppers won.

Thereafter, the disputes in the woollen trade moved to the Parliamentary level. The clothiers of the South West first mounted a campaign to repeal all the protective legislation, and were soon joined by clothiers in the West Riding. The Shearmen and Croppers organised and petitioned to oppose the changes. The campaign was long fought, and in the interim a number of suspending acts were introduced giving the clothiers temporary suspension. In 1806, the House of Commons produced a report into the state of manufacture of the woollen industry in England, which recommended the repeal of the laws that the clothiers objected to. This was not actually achieved until 1809 with introduction of Woollen Manufacture Act (49 Geo.III.c.109.)

With the 1806 parliamentary report being particularly vitriolic in it's attitude to the Croppers/Shearmen and the way they were organised, these workers now had no choice but to go underground. With the declaration of war with North America in and the consequent loss of the American market for cloth goods, the West Riding was hit particularly hard. Allied to the broader context and in this climate, the capitalists increasingly moved to step up the pace of mechanisation in an effort to undercut their rivals and corner what little trade was now left.

The scene was set for confrontation.

Rising tensions in Nottinghamshire - Winter to Spring, 1811

"Class alignments hardened month by month, and the goodwill which had formerly existed between those employers who were political reformers and their journeymen was dissipated"¹

E.P. Thompson sets the scene for the months leading up to the first outbreak of violent direct action which took place on March 11th 1811. This period of shifting phases of negotiation is important enough to spend some time examining.

Scan the pages of the Nottingham Journal between January and March 1811, and one can virtually feel the rising tension and the "dissipation of goodwill." The editions of 19th and 26th of January, and the 2nd of February contain the same advert taken out by a long list of hosiers with this statement at the head:

We, the under-signed, feel ourselves called upon (to state) publicly our decided DISAPPROBATION of ANY ATTEMPT to REDUCE the PRESENT STATED PRICES OF MAKING SILK and COTTON HOSE.²

What was compelling them to "state publicly" their negative feelings towards other hosiers? William Felkin relates the tale that before frame-breaking began in earnest, a group had been removing the jack wires from the frames of hosiers who were not paying the full prices. This act rendered the frames useless, but was clearly not as severe a measure as frame-breaking, since the wires could be restored later³. He also relates that the wires were hidden in churches, in particular in Arnold, as 'hostages'.

Nevertheless, the previous statement from the multitude of hosiers did not go unappreciated by some framework knitters, and the 26th January edition of the Nottingham Journal carried the following statement:

The FRAME-WORK KNITTERS of the County of NOTTINGHAM, 

IMPRESSED with the most lively Emotions of Gratitude to those Gentlemen Hosiers who have generously stepped forward at this moment, so awful to the Working Classes, and signified their Intention not to reduce the Price of making Plain Stocking, beg leave to State to these Gentlemen, that the prayers of our Wives and Children shall be put up to heaven for their prosperity for so great and good a Deed―The Frame-work Knitters further hope that the other Gentlemen Hosiers will follow so generous an Example, and thereby merit the Approbation of all good men. 

The Frame-work Knitters 

January 24th, 1811

In the same edition, some soon to be familiar names crop up – a clearly rattled hosier very plainly states his case:

To Frame-work Knitters, &c. 

From circumstances of a Public Nature which are occurring in the Trade, Mr BOLTON thinks it proper to state that since the Time he relinquished his Manufactory (about two years ago), he has not, nor does he receive any Annuity, Advantage, or Allowance of any Kind Whatever, from Messrs. BROCKSOPP and PARKER, his Successors. 

His STOCKING FRAMES were LET to them on LEASE; some years of which are unexpired; he being at the Expense of keeping them in good repair. 

By an Act of Geo III "Any Person whom shall wilfully and maliciously break, destroy, or damage any Stocking Frame, shall be adjudged guilty of Felony." 

Nottingham, January 23, 1811.

Bolton is shifting the blame onto Brocksopp & Parker who are speculators. In the same edition of the Nottingham Journal, there is a long statement signed by Brocksopp and Parker, as well as other hosiers which makes their position plain. They urge the framework knitters as a body to not accept work from those hosiers who were paying low prices:

To the EDITOR of the NOTTINGHAM JOURNAL. 

SIR,—There appeared in your last week’s paper an Advertisement, signed by a number of the Manufacturers in this town, stating their disapprobation of any reduction in the prices of making Silk and Cotton Hose; we see amongst them the names of several Houses who have, for a length of time, been ion the habit of making Women’s Hose at the price of Slender Women’s, and Slender Women’s at the price of Maids’, and other sizes in proportion; this, undoubtedly, is a reduction.—There are others amongst the, who, under a pretence of leaving out the fashion, have considerably reduced the prices: we will just name one article—the standard price of Slender Women’s, 30 guage, Cotton Hose is 17s. per dozen; this article is now making at 12s. per dozen, Welted, under the pretence of deducting 1s. for leaving out the shape, 1s for being bound in down the leg, instead of being narrowed, and the remainder for having slit partings, in lieu of being spliced and having out the bindings at the heel and beginning of the foot bottom; so that 5s. per dozen is deducted from the Workman, for work left out, which is not worth more to him than 3s. at the utmost, other qualities are also made on the same principle. 

Now, we would ask those Gentlemen who thus publicly avow their disapprobation of reducing the price of making Hose, what they call this but a Reduction.—We have had much conversation with the Workmen on this subject, and they all say that the fashion thus left out is by no means adequate to the price deducted for it; in which opinion we most decidedly agree with them. 

It is well know, that Stocking-makers who have frames of their own, or independent frames, have taken work at very reduced prices, for the sake of employment: this essentially injured both us and out Workmen; and it became necessary for us to consider, whether we would discharge our old Workmen, let out own frames stand still, and employ the independent frames at the reduced prices, or whether we would give our own Workmen the preference of work, at such a price as would enable us to cope with those Manufacturers who, by employing independent frames, and marking their goods on the plans above described, have hitherto possessed such great advantages over us. These reasons, therefore, made it indispensible for us to reduce the price to our own Workmen, leaving it entirely at their option, whether they would take the prices we offered them, or work on the same principle as the independent frames. 

We have been told by some Gentlemen who have signed that Advertisement, that we should have followed the same system that others have done; then no notice would have been taken of it:—to which we answer, that, never having been accustomed to reduce the stated prices given by the Trade at large, by any such mode as making one size and paying for a less, we do not choose now to adopt such a ruinous measure. 

It remains only for us to state, of those Gentlemen are really anxious to prevent any reduction in the price taking place, they will return to the old standard mode of making and paying for their Work; then there will not be found any Individual amongst them who will not pay the old price with greater pleasure than 

 J. and T. WATSON, NELSONS, and Co.
CHURCHILL and PRICE.
RICHARD EATON.
BROCKSOPP and PARKER.

At the time, Gravenor Henson – later a focus of much 'legal' activity to do something about the situation of the framework knitters, in contrast to the Luddites 'illegal' activity – had attempted to get this group of hosiers prosecuted under the Combination Acts. He related this before a Parliamentary Select Committee⁴ thirteen years later in 1824:

Do you think there would have been any difficulty in prosecuting them (the hosiers) for the meeting, at which they came to resolutions at the post office? – Yes; I had a case in point: in 1811 the masters met at Nottingham, in the spring of that year. 

How did they manifest their resolutions? – They published them in the public papers, week after week, signed by four distinct persons, to reduce the wages three-pence per pair, unless the workmen could induce the rest of the masters to make the stockings in the same way, as to forming them, as they made them.

…and later, Henson relates the mood of the framework knitters and his attempts to pursue a legal course:

…the manufacturers would not listen to those committees, and they at last came in crowds; and very soon it was supposed that the men would begin to break the machinery, because a person had advertised, in the public papers, that the frames which particular masters rented were not the masters’ property; I went myself, seeing this disturbance, to lay information against those four persons. 

To whom did you go? – To the magistrates at the Town Hall; the magistrates told me, that I had not got sufficient evidence; I produced the newspaper, I told them, I thought they might summon the printer, under the Combination Act, and he would give evidence; they said, their opinion was, that I had better not go on. I went again and the magistrates said, they would grant me a warrant against them; but when I went to the town clerk, he refused to grant me a warrant, because I could not prove the parish where they had met in; the reason was, that part of the penalty is to go to the poor of the parish. 

You gave up the prosecution? – Yes.

Thomis tells us that despite their public protestations, Brocksopp & Parker and the others eventually "introduced a cut in their own wages, protesting their reluctance to do this but justifying it on the ground of their inability otherwise to compete with their undercutting rivals"⁵. But they were exposed by the proclamations of the no-doubt unnerved hosiers that had stated their intention to abide by the “stated prices”. The statement of the five hosiers now looked hollow and manipulative. What was to follow will be related in the next post.

Earlier echoes of frame-breaking

Frame-breaking was not a new form of direct action undertaken by workers within the frame-knitting industry. Felkin¹ traces the history back to London in 1710, with 100 frames being broken by unemployed journeymen, protesting about the use of a large number of apprentices by a hosier named Nicholson. The tactic was successful, so much so that "none of the rioters were punished, it is said not even apprehended." But widespread rioting over similar practices led to the House of Commons making machine-breaking a capital offence in 1727.

Shortly afterwards, much of the trade moved North to Nottingham: echoing practices of over one hundred years later, speculators had bought up frames, renting them to stockingers and paying them for cheaper products which broke the standards laid down by the London Company of Frame-work Knitters. The Nottingham magistrates refused to recognise the authority of the London Company, and the speculators moved their trade there.

Predictably, the worst capitalist practices led to grievances and further direct action followed. In 1778 & 1779, the stockingers had looked to Parliament and lobbied for the introduction of a Bill to regulate prices and afford them a degree of protection. The Bills failed, in part because of the connivance of some Nottingham hosiers who enlisted the help of MPs for rotten boroughs in Cornwall.

The response from the stockingers in Nottingham and the Midlands was prolonged and violent. Between 10th-19th June 1779, frame-breaking and rioting was widespread, with the houses & mills of offending hosiers being attacked. Randall² describes a diversionary attack being mounted against the factory of one hosier, a Mr Need, whilst another force wrecked his house and broke 50 frames in a workshop he owned in the Nottinghamshire village of Arnold, (a place we’ll return to shortly). The house of another hosier who had given evidence against the Bill before parliament, was burnt down. Felkin³ tells us that this convinced the hosiers to agree to terms: "provided an immediate cessation of violence took place, to remove every oppression from their workmen, and to bring all the manufacturers up to a fair price." 300 frames were broken during the disturbances: "rioting in fact had proved more successful than applications to Parliament"⁴

Nottinghamshire & The Midlands in 1811

It was early in the spring of 1811 that the phenomenon of Luddism first manifested itself in the Midlands and, in particular, Nottinghamshire. Yet if the popular understanding of Luddism is as a response to labour-saving technology, then what took place in Nottinghamshire does not necessarily provide a good example. In the early nineteenth century, the destruction of machinery was the response to a number of factors which were leading to the exploitation of working-class artisans in the hosiery trade at this time.

Unlike some of the other mechanical devices that Luddites in other areas attacked, the mechanical knitting machine ('stocking frame') was not a new device, having been invented over 220 years before by William Lee in the Nottinghamshire village of Calverton in 1589.

The men who worked the machines, stockingers, were skilled artisans, but their economic status was as outworkers, and that status was deteriorating. The trade was controlled by master hosiers, who acted as merchants selling the products produced by the artisans. Some of the hosiers owned factories in the town but, by and large, hosiery was a domestic system, and the stockingers either worked from home in the villages surrounding Nottingham or in the workshops of ‘small masters’. Most of them rented their stocking frames from either the hosier or independent speculators who had invested in machinery during the boom years, meaning that despite their ‘artisan’ status, in reality stockingers had relatively little autonomy.

The early 1800s saw a declining market for hosiery and lace, chiefly influenced by the closing of foreign markets with the introduction of the Orders in Council in 1807. Unemployment was severe: William Felkin¹ records 4248 families receiving relief from the poor rates in Nottingham in early 1812 – a total of 15,350 people – half the population. Also in 1807, the expiry of a 20 year-old agreement between stockingers and hosiers regarding prices paid for work led to a veritable 'race to bottom' amongst hosiers, with the least scrupulous employing up to three main methods to either cheapen production or economise labour:

Truck – or payment in goods or in kind. Payment in goods was frequently via the hosier’s store, in which the price of provisions was much higher than in the marketplace. Payment in kind saw hosiers giving their stockingers material: Darvall² has the example of one stockinger being owed two weeks ages amounting to £2 8s., being paid with cloth and buttons to the value of £2 12s. 6d., but which could only be sold for 10s 6d. In both ways, the stockinger was being exploited and had no freedom to spend their own money as they chose.

Colting – the employment of unskilled labour, or of too many apprentices, resulting in a fall in quality of the goods, which affected both the reputation of the trade and the stockinger.

Cut-ups – or the rise in production of large pieces of material on wide stocking frames which were then 'cut up' and sewn together to make stockings, rather than being formed as a tube in the case of 'full wrought' work. The result was a vastly inferior product which not only grossly offended the artisans' sense of pride in their craftsmanship, but also made his skill less necessary. Cheap techniques encouraged cheap labour.

The various grievances now coalesced around a dispute with four particular hosiers in the early months of 1811.

The Broad Context of Luddism

Luddism belongs to a specific time and specific context. Understanding, or at the very least appreciating, that context is important if we are to properly consider the relevance of the uprisings that took place 200 years ago.

As Adrian Randall¹ has pointed out, the Luddite disturbances "share economic and political context which shaped both their development and the response that greeted them." External events in France and Europe prior to and during the period are the key to understanding this.

Britain had been at war with France since 1793, following the revolution of 1789. The fear amongst the English ruling classes that something similar may occur here was reflected in their attempts to stifle both political and industrial activity. The Combination Acts of 1799 & 1800 attempted to circumscribe workers’ organisations by prohibiting trade unions and collective bargaining. But the effect of this repression was merely to drive activity largely underground. E.P. Thompson² argued that repression helped to dissolve "the remaining ties of loyalty between working people and their masters," with illegal trade unionism being "the stock upon which Jacobinism had been grafted."

The economic context was also strongly shaped by the position with France. Napoleon’s dominance of continental Europe lead to economic warfare: a series of tit-for-tat measures resulted in the Orders in Council of 1807, whereby Britain effectively blockaded the ports of France and her allies, resulting in a severe depression of trade. This was made worse by the American Non-Intercourse Act of 1809, which closed American ports to British ships. In turn, this hit the cotton and woollen industry of the North of England particularly hard, and affected the internal market as well. Unemployment rose and allied to the absence of imports, bad harvests in 1810 & 1811 increased the price of food, in particular the basic staples that most working people relied upon, with the price of corn reaching a peak in 1812 that it never saw for over 100 years. Distress and starvation was all too common.

Albeit a brief summary, this is the wider context for the emergence of Luddism in 1811.