22nd May 1816: Crowd at Clare in Suffolk celebrate the bailing of their comrade by destroying a threshing machine

On Wednesday 22nd May 1816, Clare in Suffolk was once again the site for the destruction of a Threshing Machine. The Suffolk Chronicle of 25th May carried a report of what happened:

On Wednesday ... James Mayes, the younger, of Stoke, near Clare, in this county, was brought before the Rev. B. B. Syer, of Ketton, one of his Majestry's Justices of the Peace, charged with having threatened to set fire to a barn belonging to General Elwes, and, having given surety for the peace as the law requires, was discharged. In consequence of the arrest of this offender, some of the misguided populace assembled and proceeded to break up a threshing machine in the neighbourhood; but the General having, with a very laudable promptitude, procured the attendance of some military force, at the very crisis of the riot, the ringleaders were seized and committed for trial.