[1st] April 1813: James Stuart-Wortley recommends a reward for 2 informers

No 45, Lower [Grosvenor] Street

Dear Sir,

I beg leave to call your notice that two persons, named Broughton and Howells, were employed by me for the purpose of detecting certain persons in the town of Barnsley, who had engaged in administering unlawful Oaths. Upon their information and evidence, I committed two persons to take their trial at York, named John Eadon and Craven Cookson, one of whom John Eadon was convicted at the late Special Assizes.

I have to request therefore that they may receive such reward as the Secretary of State may think their services merit. There is also a small sum, I think about 27£ incurred for expences during the time they were employed.

I am Dear Sir
your faithful humble servt
J Stuart Wortley

[To: Lord Sidmouth]

2nd September 1812: Four weavers seized at Barnsley for administering & taking Illegal Oaths

Thomas Broughton, a weaver from Barnsley, had become involved with the local Luddites some time ago. Although it is unclear what had driven him to do so, in June 1812 he had approached Major Seale of the South Devon Militia and offered to obtain information for the authorities. Not long afterwards, Broughton met with the local magistrate and MP for the rotten borough of Bossiney, James Stuart Wortley, who directed him on what would be needed for the authorities to act.

By Tuesday 1st September, Stuart Wortley considered he had sufficient reason to issue warrants for the arrest of four men, and the following day they were arrested: the men were Craven Cookson, John Eadon, Stephen Kitchenman & William Thompson, all weavers from Barnsley.

17th April 1812: Threshing machine & barn set on fire at Carlton, near Barnsley

On the evening of Friday 17th April 1812, a barn full of grain and a threshing machine were set alight at a farm at Carlton, near Barnsley. The whole was the property of James Stuart-Wortley, a local magistrate and MP, who reported in a letter to the Home Office that he heard reports "of bodies of men having been that night coming down from the Westwood".

The Leeds Mercury saw the matter, predictably & myopically, not as an attack on Stuart-Wortley but an attack on the supply of food: "To burn corn and destroy thrashing machines, is the sure way to convert scarcity into famine."