17th June 1813: James Alan Park cautions the Home Office about cases brought by West Riding Manufacturers

Linc. Inn Fields, June 17th
1813

My dear Sir,

I mentioned to you & the Lord Sidmouth, that I had presented certain cases from being brought on at the last Assizes at York, from a desire not to have the witnesses, who had given evidence, particularly the accomplices upon the Special Commission, again submitted unnecessarily to public inspection. I communicated this to Mr Baron Thomson, who highly approved of my motives. I had another inducement for my conduct, which I considered as highly connected with the public interest, namely, that in the discussion of these civil rights, it would appear, by the decision of the Judge, what cases fell within the riot act, & what did not: & how far rioters might go in the execution of their plans, without incurring the guilt of felony

It did It did not appear to me to be wise to have this too generally known, especially in the County of York. I therefore thought, that it was by no means an unwise proceeding to inform Government of these proceedings causes, before I permitted them to be tried, & as the sum sought to be recovered in all these cases is not large, humbly to suggest to his Majesty’s Secretary of State, whether it would not be wise to pay these monies, rather than have the matters discussed. Every one of the Sufferers has really been injured by the Riots, & all of them are well entitled to the merciful consideration of Government: although perhaps the same reasons, which operated upon my mind not to persevere in the prosecutions, might in strictness prevent them from recovering against the Governments Hundred. No harm can arise, because the precedent can never be drawn into any thing like a determination on the part of Government to relieve in similar cases.

The whole sum sought by all the Complainants is under £530—& if the remaining £170—making up £700. is Scattered amongst all of them to pay the Costs of the Defts which must be done, if the plaintiffs do not proceed, I think every one would be satisfied—& all the dangers I apprehend the discussion would be avoided. Or perhaps the Hundred would agree to let the causes drop without requiring Costs. However, if that is to be attempted it should be so, before Government are known to interfere. At all events, if His Majesty’s Secretary of State do not think proper to adopt my suggestion, I really think the parties ought to be put in status quo, as if I had not interposed: for the plaintiffs, who withdrew their records, on my suggestion, will have to pay Costs to the Dfts for having done so. I beg Lord Sidmouth’s earliest convenient attention to this business, as the Assizes are again approaching, & I remain, with much regard, Dear Sir,

Very faithfully Your’s
J A Park.

17th March 1813: Cases at the York Lent Assizes

The York Lent Assizes for 1813 concluded with sentencing on Wednesday 17th March, but by then, several cases connected with the Luddites had been before the Court.

Two teenagers from Huddersfield - Joseph Sykes, a 15 year-old cropper and John Thornton, a 14 year-old wool-sorter, had been accused of breaking into the house of Abraham Horsfall (most likely William Horsfall's father) in Huddersfield and stealing spirits and other articles. They were found Not Guilty.

Various manufacturers whose premises were attacked by Luddites had brought compensation claims against the local authority. The Leeds Intelligencer covered what happened:

Thirteen different actions were brought by manufacturers and others, against the Hundred or Wapentake of Agbrigg and Morley, to recover compensation for damages done to their machinery and buildings by the Luddites. The business was to have come on, on Tuesday, when Mr. Parke, counsel for the Plaintiffs, stated his objections to the court, against their proceeding. Five of the actions were ordered to stand over till the next assizes; and the records on the remaining eight were withdrawn, under the expectation that Government will make the requisite compensation to the sufferers.

Finally, a case left over from the York Special Commission was also heard. Again, the Leeds Intelligencer had the details:

James Starkie, who was held to bail, to appear at the present Assizes, on a charge of conspiring to affect the demolition of Rawfolds Mill, did not appear when called on. One of his bail said that Starkie had acted under the advice of his attorney.

Mr Parke said, the Defendant had been ill-advised; it was his duty to have appeared personally in Court to answer to this indictment, as it was impossible that he could know what course might have been adopted respecting him. But it was not his intention to insist upon his appearance. If the Defendant had been tried it late Special Assize, I should have thought it my duty, in the then state of the County, to have laid evidence before his Lordship and you on the subject; but, in consequence of the present happy and tranquil state of the County, the result of those severe but necessary examples which were made on a late occasion, I have determined to lay no evidence before you, and to consent to the acquittal of the Prisoner. And I hope this will be considered as a further proof that Government wish to do nothing oppressive to any of his Majesty's subjects, and that their only anxiety has been to restore tranquillity and good order.

The Jury of course acquitted the Prisoner.

29th April 1812: Huddersfield bourgeoisie petition the government for help

To the Right Honorable the Secretary of State for the Home Department

The Memorial of the secret committee for the preventing unlawful depredations on machinery and Shearing frames in the Town and neighbourhood of Huddersfield in the west Riding of the County of York.

Sheweth,

That the Town and neighbourhood of Huddersfield have been greatly disturbed by the nocturnal depredations of Shearman and other lawless Characters, associated under the pretence of destroying certain shearing frames worked by machinery – but which your memorialists believe to be only a cover the much deeper designs.

That such depredations, having succeeded in destroying nearly all the Shearing frames which are not connected with establishments on a large Scale, proceeded on the 12th inst. to commence a regular attack upon a large mill at Rawfolds in this neighbourhood, occupied by Mr William Cartwright & used entirely free shearing with the obnoxious frames; but, after having kept up a brisk and well directed fire for a considerable time, & attempted to force the doors & windows by large sledge hammers, without effect, they were repulsed; and left two of their party desperately wounded upon the spot, who are since dead.

That the depredators finding themselves unable to destroy the large establishment by force, have changed their plans, and now avow their intention to accomplish their purpose by means of assassination; and that your memorialists have obtained credible information that parties associated for these diabolical purposes, bind themselves by the following Oath,

“I. AB. do swear in the presence of Almighty God that I will be faithful to the Object to which this Oath is taken – moreover that in Case of failure in point of fidelity by any person, I will pursue him to death, and the Verge of nature”. So help me God”

That in pursuance of their new System, the above named Mr. Cartwright strongly suspects he was fired at within a quarter of a Mile of Huddersfield in broad Day, on his way home from the market, but happily without effect - And, but yesterday Mr. William Horsfall of Marsden near Huddersfield, who was one of the principal proprietors and a strenuous supporter of the shearing frames, on his return from the Market early in the Afternoon was waylaid by four persons within a mile and a half from this Town, who fired at him on the Turnpike Road, and lodged four slugs in his Thighs and the lower part of his Body, and he is now lying alive indeed, but without any hope of recovery—

That the respectable and loyal Inhabitants of the Town & neighbourhood are generally deterred from coming forward in support of the outraged Laws of the Country, by threats of assassination, which are held out to all who are acting, or are suppose likely to act in opposition to the designs of these lawless men. And already Joseph Armitage Esqr. the Son of the neighbouring Magistrate, and an active Special Constable has had his Lodging Room twice fired into. And one Mr George Whitehead another active Special Constable has been shot at when going to bed with a candle in his hand, and two slugs and a large piece of Bone lodged in his Apartment. And one Allen Edwards another special Constable in Huddersfield had his low house & Hay Loft set on fire last Monday Evening; and during the fire various reports of the assembling of mobs in different parts, were propagated, and the firing of musquets, sometimes singly, and at other times as if in Vollies, were heard in various directions & appeared to have been intended to divert the attention of the military and call them out of Town, that the Town and prison might be left unprotected in order to afford an opportunity of rescuing several prisoners confined therein, on suspicion of being concerned in the attack on Mr Cartwright’s mill - And some of the military Officers also, have been knocked down in the Streets, and the most violent threats been held out against the whole of them—

That one Betty Armstrong who was suspected of having given information against one of the wounded Men in Custody was assaulted by a mob in a most inhuman way last friday night in the Town of Huddersfield, at the door of an Inn where a piquet of Horse is regularly station, & was rescued from destruction by dragoon at the Hazard of his life – And on the following morning as she was on her way to a magistrate she was again assaulted by a mob at midday, who stand her in such a manner that she now lies languishing at an Inn & her life is despaired of

That while these alarming occurrences have been taken Place the neighbourhood Villages have held meetings (which have been attended by nearly the whole Population) to petition the magistrates not to enforce the Watch & Ward Act, and even the people of Huddersfield have themselves petitioned against it: and, tho’ it may not have been openly declared to the Magistrates, it is well known and openly avowed to be General determination among the lower and middling Classes is to oppose its being acted upon; and hitherto it is not enforced—

That in all the depredations committed by these designing men they have taken away all the fire arms they could collect, and within the last week several Houses have been forcibly entered by armed men and arms taken away, which they have tauntingly said “they would bring back when the wars were over”. And they now boast that they shall soon be able to meet their Enemies in the open day, and in various anonymous Letters they boast their numbers to be nearly 30,000, and possess a connexion with the Roman Catholics of Ireland.

That is such a state of things, the ordinary means of maintaining peace are all together insufficient – the extraordinary ones are not submitted to, and the intended Actors in them scarcely trustworthy — information of the plans of these diabolical men is not to be procured – no rewards a large enough to tempt them – and even unwilling witnesses are in danger of their Lives – the courage of the bold is useless – the timid are terrified – and every loyal man feels himself in jeopardy –

Having disclosed these facts, Your Memorialists leave it to the Wisdom of Government to adopt such measures as it shall think prudent under the existing Circumstances; but your Memorialists cannot conclude without suggesting that any measures short of a general search for Arms, or subjecting the Town neighbourhood to a lenient exercise of military Law, will not have much Avail —

Huddersfield
29th April 1812

Thomas Holroyd
Thomas Allen
W W Stables
Jno. Battye
John Whitacre
Jas. Crossland
Jo: Haigh
Jno. Allison
Francis Vickerman
Thos. Atkinson

28th March 1812: West Riding manufacturers turn their Mills into fortresses following warnings

On Saturday 28th March 1812, William Cartwright received a warning from a man called Abraham Pule. Pule was a cropper who had formerly worked for Cartwright before he automated his factory, and had in between times become a dealer in pigs, but was now back working as cropper at Halifax.

Pule told Cartwright that two days earlier at the place where he now worked, Waterhouse's factory, he had been party to a private conversation: the workers there said that they had heard from Huddersfield Luddites, who were planning to attack Rawfolds within the next four nights, unless they determined that Cartwright was "on his guard": if the latter, then the attack would be deferred for between 2 to 3 weeks.

Pule promised to alert Cartwright as soon as he knew the date of the attack. But Cartwright did not trust him, viewing Pule's friendly approaches as "affected motives". In any event, he had been preparing the Mill at Rawfolds for all possible eventualities.

The Mill had a certain built-in defensive nature, in the sense that it was surrounded on one side by the Spen Beck, which effectively acted as a moat. Cartwright had replaced the main door with a more substantial one reinforced with studded iron. Although the ground floor was left unprotected, he intended to use the first floor as his firing platform: the flagstones nearest the windows had been propped up against them to form embrasures, a robust defence for a defender with a musket. Cartwright planned to arm a small number of his workforce when they were needed. Later, he would apply to the Cumberland Militia to station soldiers at Rawfolds.

Cartwright had also planned to raise the alarm, by fitting a bell to the roof with a rope than ran all the way down to the ground floor to allow it to be pealed by those inside. Cartwright later estimated he had spent £80 on his preparations, equivalent to more than £53,000 at today's prices.

Ottiwells Mill (since demolished). The remains of the defensive wall & gun loops can be seen bottom left.

Another manufacturer who had an aggressive & defensive mentality was William Horsfall. Over the hills at Marsden lay the 'manufactory' of his family, Ottiwells Mill. He he had built a stone wall to surround the front of the Mill facing the road, complete with gun loops which could be used by those of his employees he had armed with muskets. Like Cartwright, he had started a night watch at Ottiwells.

A view of William Horsfall's House, Ottiwells House, showing the defensive wall, from the Huddersfield Weekly News, 27th November 1880

One thing that was clear was that any Luddite attacks on such premises would not be the one-sided affairs they had experienced thus far in the West Riding.

29th February 1812: The West Riding manufacturer William Cartwright, takes up residence in his Mill at Rawfolds

William Cartwright

In 1812, William Cartwright was a relative newcomer to the area of the Spen Valley, having occupied the Mill at Rawfolds, near Cleckheaton, for the past 3 years. He was a manufacturer or, more accurately, cloth finisher.

The Mill itself had stood well before Cartwright had taken his tenure there. It had been built by Benjamin Broadley, after he became the owner in 1774 and had previously functioned as a Scribbling Mill, although the Mill itself was only part of a complex of buildings at Rawfolds which eventually included private residences, a workshop and a chemical factory. Surrounding the complex were plots of private land, an Orchard to the South and the Spen Beck, which powered the Water Wheel on the Mill via the Mill Pond and Weirs.

At some point during his tenure, Cartwright had begun to use shearing frames in the Mill, and his large establishment was the only one of its kind in the immediate surrounding area, which was populated with small cropping shops, employing 3 or 4 croppers who used hand shears. According to Frank Peel (1968, p.10), the arrival of Cartwright and his use of the new technology changed all that, with even the much larger cropping shop belonging to John Jackson at nearby Hightown suffering. In the midst of this hardship, Cartwright was prospering, having done well enough to buy 425 yards of land in a field called Broadroyd, which was opposite Rawfield House in 1810. Hall & Kipling (1984, p.10) describe Cartwright as a Whig, opposed to the war and the Orders in Council. But his political values went hand-in-hand with a belief in an aggressive and ruthless capitalism that had no qualms about undercutting his rivals still using a domesticated system, deploying machinery that could be operated far a less skilled, and cheap, labour force. We can also surmise he must have not lacked a certain amount of arrogance, employing these business methods in an area where the Clothdressers' proto-trade union, the Brief Institution, had been so prevalent.

For a physical picture of Cartwright, we have to turn to Elizabeth Gaskell who supplies a pen portrait of him in her by the subject about, in her book about Charlotte Brontë, an author who was later to romanticise Cartwright as the fictional Robert Moore, in her book Shirley:

"Mr. Cartwright was a very remarkable man, having, as I have been told, some foreign blood in him, the traces of which were very apparent in his tall figure, dark eyes and complexion, and singular, though gentlemanly bearing. At any rate, he had been much abroad, and spoke French well, itself a suspicious circumstance to the bigoted nationality of those days. Altogether he was an unpopular man, even before he took the last step of employing shears, instead of hands, to dress his wool. He was quite aware of his unpopularity, and of the probable consequences."

At the end of February 1812, Cartwright was so aware of his unpopularity that he was not even sleeping at his home a quarter of a mile away. Instead, he had set up a bed in the Counting House in the Mill, at this stage being the only occupant outside of normal operating hours. Although it's likely that Cartwright had already received anonymous threatening letters that were doing the rounds among the hated manufacturers in the West Riding, none have survived. How much his constant presence at his Mill was from an obsessive concern to guard it from anything untoward that may occur or, instead, to draw attention away from his home where his wife and small children lived is not clear. But Cartwright would be resident here from now until eventually something did occur in due course.

29th February 1812: Huddersfield 'Committee for Suppressing the Outrages' publishes resolutions & offers a reward

Following the attack on William Hinchliffe early in the morning of the 27th February, some Manufacturers & Merchants in Huddersfield formed themselves into a 'Committee to Suppress the Outrages'. They met at the George Inn at Huddersfield and passed resolutions, agreeing to offer a reward for information. The Handbill below was issued two days later on the 29th February.

27th February 1812: Huddersfield Manufacturers & Merchants form 'Committee for Suppressing the Outrages'

Following the Luddite attack on the premises of William Hinchliffe in the early hours of Wednesday 27th February 1812, Merchants and Manufacturers in Huddersfield convened a meeting later the same day at the George Inn in Huddersfield to discuss what their response should be. The resolutions of this 'Committee for Suppressing the Outrages' and the rewards they offered for information were formally published two days later. The meeting itself was chaired by John Horsfall, the brother of William Horsfall, the manufacturer who had a factory at Marsden that utilised shearing frames. Huddersfield historian Alan Brooke has written a short piece about the 'Huddersfield Elite' manufacturers and merchants at the heart of the opposition to the Luddites in the West Riding:

There were meetings of merchants and manufacturers held as early as 1800 to deal with trade questions, including, no doubt, the machinery question and the Parliamentary enquiries thereinto. For example, a meeting was held in April 1800 in the George to oppose the repeal of the prohibition of wool exports to Ireland.

In response to the growth of the Clothdressers Institution and other clandestine unions, in 1805 a meeting of woollen manufacturers resolved to resist ‘unlawful combinations of workmen ... by all legal means’, in effect agreeing on a blacklist of any workers striking for ‘an advance of wages, or for attempting to enforce regulations contrary to law.’

Among the backers of these meetings occur many of the names who appear later as supporters of Henry Lascelles (see clipping from the Leeds Intelligencer, 24th August 1807, opposite), the Tory candidate in the 1807 County Election, including the Atkinsons (Bradley Mill), the Horsfalls and J Harrop of Dobcross, as well as Whitacre, Jos Scott, Jos Radcliffe, the landowner R H Beaumont and other names too common to be certain they are the same persons, such as the various Brooks and Armitages. These people were also either in the forefront of promoting machinery or in their capacity as magistrates , repressing the Luddite movement.

Lascelles was on the 1806 Inquiry into the Woollen Trade when he made his hostility to the clothiers attempts to limit machinery and retain apprenticeships according to the ancient statutes quite clear. He also attempted to implicate the clothiers Institution with that of the croppers and, by association, with the West of England disturbances of 1802. The machinery question was consequently one of the main issues in the 1807 election, particularly among the Leeds clothiers.

The merchants, manufacturers and magistrates who met in 1812 to repress the Luddites had behind them over a decade of efforts to introduce machinery, lobby parliament to repeal the laws protecting domestic industry and actively suppress working class organisation. The class and political element in the polarisation of local society must have been evident to the participants, even if it is not to some historians.