17th April 1817: The final Luddite executions at Leicester - John Amos, John Crowther, Joshua Mitchell, Thomas Savage, William Towle & William Withers are hanged

On Thursday 17th April 1817, the final executions of Luddites took place at Leicester. There was coverage in various local newspapers but, unusually, the coverage in the Nottingham Review was short & muted. Although we have displayed their article below, we have placed the article in the Leicester Chronicle first, as it is much more comprehensive:

The Leicester Chronicle Friday 18th April 1817:

EXECUTION 

OF 

Thomas Savage, Joshua Mitchell, John Amos, Wm. Towle, John Crowder and Wm. Withers, for entering Messrs. Heathcote and Co’s factory, at Loughborough, and aiding and abetting the shooting at John Asher; Thomas Babington, for setting fire to a stack of oats belonging to Mr. John Moore, of Newbold Verdon. 

About half past five o'clock on Thursday morning, the above unfortunate men were removed from the County Gaol in a covered cart, escorted by a squadron of Hussars, to the New Bridewell, adjoining the Infirmary, where they immediately proceeded to prayer and continued very devoutly engaged the greater part of the morning. About twelve o'clock, they made their appearance on the platform, chained together by the wrist. Savage was placed first; Mitchell, second; Amos, third; Towle, fourth; Crowder, fifth; Withers, sixth; and Babington, seventh. 

After bowing to the vast numbers of persons assembled, Savage shortly addressed them as follows:— 

"My dear Brethren, I am now addressing you as a criminal. I shall not say a great deal. I hope you will take warning by all by our untimely fate, and not regard Man, but God. I feel confident of meeting my saviour hereafter and hope to be forgiven. I did intend to say more, but I have since declined the idea. In behalf of myself and fellow sufferers, I beg to return thanks to Mr. Vaughan & Mr. Hayton, for the attention they have shewn to us.—Farewell!" 

Amos addressed the spectators—"Friends and Fellow-Countrymen—You now see six young men going to suffer for a crime they are not guilty of, (alluding, we presume, to the firing at Asher) for the man who committed the crime will soon be at large. I would have you take warning by our fate, and be careful what company you keep. Farewell!" 

Babington said, "Gentlemen—I am as innocent as God is true, and [looking up,] God will witness it.—Farewell!" 

Mitchell wished to read a paper, but was not permitted. Amos then invited the crowd to join them in singing the following Hymn, which he gave out, two lines at a time, in a most audible and distinct manner, and was joined therein by Savage, Mitchel, Towle, &c. with equally firm voices. 

HYMN. 

How sad our state by nature is!

Our sin, how deep it stains!

And SATAN binds our captive minds

Fast in his slavish chains. 

But there’s a voice of Sovereign Grace

Sounds from the sacred word;

Ho! ye despairing sinners come,

And trust upon the Lord. 

O may we hear th’ Almighty call,

And run to this relief!

We would believe thy promise Lord;

O help our unbelief! 

To the blest fountain of thy blood,

Teach us, O Lord, to fly!

There may we wash our spotted souls

From sins of deepest dye! 

Stretch out thine arm, victorious King,

Our reigning sins subdue;

Drive the old dragon from this seat,

And form our souls anew. 

Poor, guilty, weak, and helpless worms,

On thy kind arm we fall;

Be thou our strength our righteousness,

Our JESUS and our all! 

The last short offices of devotion being concluded, Mr. Musson and the Executioner proceeded to adjust the ropes about the culprits’ necks, during which the prisoners shook hands with each other, and bade a last farewell to several of their friends whom they recognized before them, throwing to each some oranges, with a request that they might be given to their children, &c. 

Having shook hands with the High Sheriff, Clergyman, the Jaoler, &c. one of the unfortunate men (Amos) at about half past twelve, gave a signal by stamping his foot, when the fatal board fell and they were launched into eternity without much struggling, with the exception of Mitchell, who appeared strongly convulsed for several minutes. 

Almost throughout the whole of the awful ceremony they conducted themselves with a degree of firmness seldom witnessed on such a melancholy occasion. Though not insensible to religious impression, they appeared to await their approaching end with a composure we scarcely know how to express. Savage, who was a fine, tall, well-dressed, sensible looking man, appeared to be offering up his prayers with great earnestness when he was tied up. Mitchell, a well-made, bold-looking, well-dressed man, did not appear quite so devout. He assisted in adjusting Savage’s rope, as well as his own, with an unexampled coolness, worthy of a better fate. Amos, a tall, strong, decently dressed man, witnessed his fate with a smile upon his countenance, and seemed to be a man possessing great strength of mind. Towle, a fresh looking youth, betrayed no symptoms of agitation, until towards the close of the tragic scene, when, on the cap being pulled over his face, he evidently seemed much affected. Crowder also seemed much agitated towards the last, as did Withers a little, which he evinced by a restlessness in standing. 

It is to be hoped that the dreadful example now made, here and at Nottingham, will operate in putting an end to a system which has caused so much terror and alarm in this and a neighbouring county, and that Justice will now be satisfied. For ourselves, we are of opinion, with a celebrated writer, that "It is not the intenseness of the pain that has the greatest effect on the mind, but its continuance; for our sensibility is more easily and more powerfully affected by weak but repeated impressions, than by a violent, but momentary, impulse;" and consider we that "the death of a criminal is a terrible but momentary spectacle, and therefore a less efficacious method of deterring others, than the continued example of a man deprived of his liberty, condemned, as a beast of burthen, to repair, by his labour, the injury done to society. If I commit such a crime, says the spectator to himself, I shall be reduced to that miserable condition for the rest of my life. A much more powerful preventative than the fear of death, which men always behold in distant obscurity." 

A troop of Huzzars were in attendance on the above occasion, and we understand the Yeomanry Cavalry were also in readiness in case any attempt to rescue or disorder should have been made.—happily, however, the whole passed over without any interruption, the unfortunate malefactors having experienced every accommodation which the humanity of the High Sheriff and the Gaoler, was capable of affording under such circumstances. 

The execution being generally understood to take place on Monday, thousands of persons from all parts of this and adjoining counties thronged the town on that day. The postponement of the execution, it seems, was in consequence of the County Sessions commencing the early part of the week. It is computed not less than 15,000 persons were present on Thursday.

The Nottingham Review of Friday 18th April 1817:

LEICESTER, April 17, 1817.—"This morning about six o'clock, the six Luddites under sentence of condemnation, viz. Thomas Savage, William Withers, Joshua Mitchell, William Towle, John Crowder, and John Amos, together with Thomas Beavington, (for Arson) were removed, under an escort of dragoons, from the County Gaol, to the County Bridewell, preparatory to their being executed on the new drop. The Luddites appeared very cheerful, singing hymns most of the way as they passed along. Beavington seemed very dejected. In the course of the morning a greater concourse of people assembled than was ever known in this town, supposed at least, twenty thousand, to witness the melancholy spectacle. At about half past eleven o’clock, they all came on the platform, accompanied by Rev. Mr. Highton, Chaplain to the Gaol, Rev. Mr. Mitchell, Rev. Mr. Vaughan, &c. After attending the exhortations and prayers on the occasion, which they did with becoming behaviour, Savidge thanked the Ministers, &c. for their kindness and attention, on behalf of himself and fellow sufferers, and particularly for pointing out to them the way to heaven; he said he had intended to have addressed the multitude, but the time being too far gone, he should say very little; he declared their innocence as to the shooting at Asher. Amos said a few words and declared the same—Mitchell also said a few words.—Beavington declared his innocence, calling God to witness, and with his eyes lifted to heaven, said he did not set fire to the stacks. After these declarations, Amos with a firm voice, said he would now give out a hymn, desiring the people to join in singing the same, which was very readily complied with by many. The hymn was Dr. Watts, 90th hymn, 2d book, which begins, 

"How sad our state by nature is,

Our sin how deep it stains;

And Satan binds our captive minds,

Fast in his slavish chains." 

"They all joined and sang the hymn, apparently without faltering; after which at about a quarter past twelve o'clock, the signal being given, the platform fell, and they were launched into eternity;—during the time they were on the platform, they recognised several of their friends, and threw oranges to them, desiring to be remembered to their friends in Nottingham. 

“Every thing was very peaceable—the dragoons attended the platform."

Finally, the Leicester Journal of Friday 18th April 1817:

Expectation was on tiptoe, and curiosity afloat throughout the County and its vicinity, on Monday last, from his supposition that seven of the Malefactors (convicted at the last Assizes) would be executed on that day, an immense influx of people poured in from all quarters, in consequence, during the morning, (many of them from a considerable distance.)—but came to be disappointed. The Sessions for the County taking place in the early part of the week, their execution was postponed until yesterday. At six o'clock in the morning, Thomas Savage, William Withers, William Towle, John Amos, John Crowther, and Joshua Mitchell, LUDDITES, together with Thomas Beavington, for wilfully setting fire to a stack of oats, were removed from the County Gaol, under a military escort, to the New Bridewell, near the Infirmary.—The High Sheriff attended at seven o'clock, to see that the Prisoners had every accommodation consistent with their situation.—The LUDDITES were deeply impressed with the approach of the awful moment, and were very attentive to their devotion, in which they were assisted by the Chaplain, Mr. Hayton, together with the Rev. Mr. Vaughan and Mitchell. Savage acknowledged the justice of his sentence; and expressed himself grateful for the religious instruction he had received from the Rev. Messrs. Hayton, Vaughan, and Mitchell. At half past eleven they appeared upon the scaffold—after bowing to the populace—Savage addressed the multitude, cautioning them against inattention to religion, and neglect of the Sabbath, to which he attributed his own [illegible]. Mitchell was desirous of reading a paper, which was not permitted. Amos told the people, that he and his companions suffered for a crime which they never committed, (alluding to the firing at Asher,) but they all acknowledged to have been at Loughborough, and engaged in the business as proved on the trial. They all then sung an hymn, and were shortly after launched into eternity.—Their deportment to the last, although apparently repentant, savored strongly of hardy indifference.—The immense number present (at least ten thousand) behaved with great decorum, and dispersed perfectly quiet; too much praise cannot be given to the Civil Power, for the judicious arrangements adopted.

28th February 1817: The Tory Leicester Journal calls the growing political reform movements 'political Luddism'

In the last page will be found the Report of the Committee of Secrecy to the House of Commons—we inserted the one to the House of Peers in our last.—The Reports confirm all that we have, from time to time, said upon the subject. There has been an extensive correspondence carried on between clubs and individuals in London, and the disaffected in the country. There is only this difference, that it appears that there have been two or three associations in London, who have not been nominally connected, and which have some shades of difference, but if not nominally connected, they have all been labouring in the same cause; and have poured and united flood of sedition over the populace of London and the manufacturing and commercial parts of the country. We have said, that the agents in all the principal places, where their plans have taken effect, were the old Jacobins, who had been formerly put down by Government, and who had been lying in wait for a favourable opportunity opportunity to exert themselves. The characters drawn in the Report of the most active agents and their measures have no doubt on this head. Their profane scoffings at religion; their attempts to destroy its influence and restraints, in order to fit those they had deluded into instruments desperate enough for their purposes, with the avowal of malignant designs against Kings and Aristocrats, brand the Jacobin character into their foreheads. We have said, that the plan was to make use of the distress of the poor in large towns and manufacturing districta, and this is made out. Clubs, of different names, but having substantially the same object, and corresponding with each other, and with the leading clubs in London, have been very extensively formed; the Reports say in some counties, in almost every village, and this we know to be the fact. These clubs are united, in most instances, by oaths; and, in all, the most rebellious purposes are, without scruple, avowed in the daily conversation of their members. Subscriptions have been raised for the purchase and circulation of inflammatory, seditious, and blasphemous writings; by which, and the active persuasions of idle and dissolute fellows, who are supported for the purpose of seducing the distressed poor  to join their combinations, the clubs have been extended; or the lower classes, in many places, inflamed against the Government, and disposed to acts of outrage.—We have compared these factions to the Luddites;—We need not advert to the fact well known and acknowledged where Luddism took its first rise, that the Jacobinized principles of the operative weavers of Nottingham and its vicinity, more early and more deeply corrupted than in any other part, originated this horrid plot to control, by outrage and assassination, those who employed them—The insolence of these men grew up with their Jacobinical malignity to all above them; and finally issued, where all Jacobinism will issue, in deeds of dark atrocity and blood. This is not, however, the proof of resemblance we mean; the correspondence of the ends and means of political Luddism, and of weaving Luddism, is the proof. Manufacturing Luddism is a plot to bring the master manufacturers under the direction of their journeymen, both as to the prices of labour and the machinery used. To effect this, secret societies are organized, and held together by oaths; the means are, the destruction of machinery, and the assassination of obnoxious masters; whilst vengeance is declared against all who are enemies to the association. In what does political Luddism differ? It is a plot to bring government under the control of a mob, dignified with the name of "the people," to make the very lowest of the population the arbiters of peace and war, the framers of new constitutions, and the frame breakers of the machinery of old ones. To accomplish this similar end, similar means are adopted: Secret societies are formed; they are bound together by horrid oaths; in some instances assassination has been attempted; in all, the members have been taught the right and duty of taking off the heads of their governors. Arms have been prepared, and used; organisation, with reference to insurrection, has taken place; and lists of proscribed victims have been made out. But there is a material difference between the manufacturing and the political Luddites. We have understood that the Luddites of Nottinghamshire have added plunder to their other atrocities. The genuine Luddites, we believe,—spurn the imputation with feelings of offended pride, as no part of that system. The reforming mobs, on the contrary, have, in some instances actually plundered, and in many, have given sufficient indication of their inclination to do so. The Luddites, though they have broken the frames, have never pretended to the right of possessing themselves of the property of their masters. They were still willing to work, though on their own terms, leaving the master to be master still, in full possession of his house, his trade, and his fortune. The reformers, however, carry their Luddism much further; their object is a division of the land, and the extinction of all great capitals, by sharing the general booty.

The Reports enter into the projects and proceedings of the Spafields assemblies, and the persons who promoted them; and show, what indeed no man can deny, that the meeting of December 2d was intended as a cover to an insurrection in London, which was to be the signal for tumultuous proceedings in the country had it succeeded; and which would unquestionably, have been attended with very mischievous consequences had it been deferred, as intended, till the evening. The whole was spoiled by the drunken precipitance of Watson the younger.

What measures ought to be adopted, in consequence of the existing state of things, we shall not presume to say: but that measures of a repressive kind ought to be adopted we have no doubt. The question is not, whether the right of petitioning shall be abridged; but whether plots against the country, and against every man in it who has security, liberty, and property to lose, shall be suffered to ripen. That the danger of an immediate subversion of government has been small, we are ready to allow; because society, at present, has too many bonds and cements to be shaken to pieces by the reformers. Too many of the people remain sound; and the whole of the respectable part of society, excepting some old democrats, and political fanatics, are from their interests, as well as principles, opposed to the reformers. The obvious unlikelihood of success has, indeed, been pleaded against the existence of a plot at all. But this is ridiculous. Men may argue from probability, but that does not annihilate facts; and the fact of an organized insurrection stands upon irresistible evidence. If the reformers themselves judged of things with as much coolness as the persons who thus argue, they would not have attempted insurrection on the 2d of December. But their heated fancy magnifies the importance of their cause; and their egregious concertedness the number of its abettors. The Jacobins of France were at first a small and contemptible party; but they had, like the returning faction, the address to appeal to the populace, and on their shoulders they wrote down all their rivals. The manufacturing Luddites were but few in number, yet their desperate character, joined to the false notion among the poor, that they were keeping up the price of labour, enabled them to keep, for a long time, whole districts in awe, and to prevent informations from being given. A system which spreads delusion among the ignorant, which turns the passions of men against government, except it be a republican one, which is essentially hostile to all those principles on which the constitution is founded, as understood by men of every party, except absolute democrats, cannot be suffered to run on to alienate the great body of the populace from the constitution, who, from their ignorance, are unable to detect the real intentions of their instigators. No government can suffer, or ought to suffer, this organization against itself. Let the right of petitioning remain untouched: but inflammatory public meetings, called by no authority, and affiliated societies, must be put down. It is the country which demands this from Government; it is demanded, not so much to protect Government, as the lives and property of the community.

10th August 1816: Leicester bourgeoisie turn out in force to protect the Assizes Judges

The 16th August 1816 edition of the (Tory) Leicester Journal described the scene early in the morning immediately prior to the commencement of the trial of James Towle and two others for frame-breaking at Loughborough:

Saturday morning presented a most interesting a grateful spectacle: the violent and disgraceful proceedings which are stated to have occurred during the late Assizes at Nottingham, and which were said to have intimidated the Jury, from a conscientious discharge of their duty, induced a large portion of the most respectable inhabitants of this town, to rally round the Constituted Authorities, and give their aid towards the faithful administration of Justice. At 6 o’clock between two and three hundred assembled at the Exchange, each receiving a white wand and a club, and headed by the Chief Magistrate, proceeded in fours to the Judges lodgings, where they formed on each side of the street, after the Judges had entered their carriage, they escorted them to the Castle, and the trials of the LUDDITES were immediately proceeded in.

26th July 1816: Weather report from the Leicester Journal

THE WEATHER—The continuance of the present very unseasonable weather has been attended with most baneful effects in various parts of the country. Such an inclement summer is scarcely remembered by the oldest person living. The hay generally has been so much injured by the incessant rains that the only alternative left to the proprietor is to convert it into dung for manure. The clover likewise has sustained equal damage with the hay, and has been made the same use of.—This unexpected visitation from Heaven, added to the severe distress to which the country is otherwise reduced, as infused into the minds of the people the greatest apprehension and alarm. It is now to be feared, that not only the clover and hay will experience the ill effects of the weather, but that the corn will be seriously injured by the heavy rains which have fallen. Should the present wet weather continue, the corn will inevitably be laid, and the effects of such a calamity and at such a time cannot be otherwise than ruinous to the farmers, and even to the people at large. The weather, it would seem, is not unseasonable to this country only; for we find that upon the Continent it has been equally unfavourable.

12th July 1816: The Tory Leicester Journal sees the 'Loughborough Job' as a consequence of 'democratic principles'

On Friday 12th July 1816, the Tory Leicester Journal carried an article reporting recent arrests for the 'Loughborough Job' in which it blamed 'democratic principles' for the growth of Luddism:

In the commitments to the County Gaol during the last week, were two men named Benjamin Badder and John Slater, both of Nottingham, on suspicion of being concerned in the late attack upon Mr. Heathcote’s manufactory at Loughborough.—Jas. Towle, of Basford, near Nottingham, has also been committed to the said Gaol, charged with being concerned in the said offence. Luddism has very justly been attributed to the influence of those democratic and disorganizing principles which have very extensively prevailed among many of the higher classes in the countries where the stocking and lace manufactory is carried on. The charge we believe to be too well founded. Democratic newspapers, and democratic principles, have had a very wide circulation, and many tradesmen and manufacturers, instead of counteracting them, have lent their utmost aid to give them authority. It is true they did not expect to have their frames broken, their property destroyed, and their servants murdered. They indulged their own political theories, and wished to realize their own schemes of reform and revolution on those above them. But they have had experience, in the Luddite system, of their own principle carried into effect against themselves; and if the innocent had not, in many instances, like the present, suffered with the guilty, and that demoralizing principles were encouraged in the lower classes, we should not be sorry for their claims and sufferings. These are the genuine effects of the interest the lower classes in many manufacturing places have been taught by their superiors to take, first, in the French revolution, and then in the character and exploits of Bonaparte.