On Friday 19th June 1812, two days after his arrest, the Secretary of the Manchester Secret Committee, Humphrey Yarwood, was making confessions to the notorious Stockport Solicitor, John Lloyd.
On this day, Lloyd made notes about the content of their 'conversations' since his arrest. In the preamble, Lloyd paints Yarwood as having represented himself as originally having a concern for the working conditions and pay of his fellow weavers and how they had been organised (which was itself illegal activity), before moving on to describe his encounters with others who had different designs - chiefly John Buckley Booth.
In Lloyd's notes, Yarwood goes on to describe how the Manchester Secret Committee was formed, and the introduction of illegal oaths into this circle, and how the meetings of the Committee progressed, until the final dissolution of this insurrectionary tendency in early May, only a month ago, in a quarrel about subscriptions.
However, Lloyd was not yet satisfied that Yarwood was being open enough and this was not the last information he would 'extract' from him over the coming days.
Lloyd's 'Memorandum of conversation with Yarwood on 19th June 1812' can be found at HO 40/1/1.
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