teifidancer: The Captain Swing Riots"

Friday, 28 August 2020

The Captain Swing Riots"

The Captain Swing riots occurred in England during 1830-31 following years of war, high taxes and low wages, farm labourers, especially in the south and east of England, finally snapped These farm labourers had faced progressive impoverishment and unemployment over the previous fifty years due to the widespread introduction of the threshing machine and the policy of enclosing fields, Labourers were often desperate for food and resorted to poaching to try and feed their families with the result that there was a dramatic increase in the crime rate, Various other matters bought matters to a head in 1830, first the Census showed that the population was increasing, secondly the threshing machine produced widespread loss of employment during the winter months, and at the same time the harvest was poor and there was persistently bad weather.

No longer were thousands of men needed to tend the crops, a few would suffice. The anger of the rioters was directed at three targets that were seen as the prime source of their misery: the Tithe system, the Poor Law guardians, and the rich tenant farmers who had been progressively lowering wages while introducing agricultural machinery With fewer jobs, lower wages and no prospects of things improving for these workers the threshing machine was the final straw, the object that was to place them on the brink of starvation. The Swing Rioters smashed the threshing machines and threatened farmers who had them.was due to modern threshing machines being introduced into agriculture, the result of which was low wages paid by farmers which led to the starvation of farm workers where many died as a result of not earning money to buy food for themselves and their families.

Between 1770 and 1830 ,in the Enclosure Acts of rural England no less than a million acres (24,000 km2) of common land were enclosed by rich landowners depriving the common people of ancient rights to use common ground.For centuries this common land had been used by the poor of the countryside to graze their animals and grow their own produce. This land was now divided up among the large local landowners, leaving the landless farm workers dependent upon working for their richer neighbours for a cash wage.

After the Napoleonic wars in 1815 grain prices plummeted. Many farm workers were thrown out of work and at home they faced poverty and the prospect of the workhouse. Farmers would pay their workers as little as possible, knowing that the parish fund would top up wages. Echoes of working tax credits of today.

Another burden was the tithe demanded by the Church of England of a 10th of the harvest to pay the parson a generous wage and the Swing movement demanded a large reduction in these taxes. In parliament Lord Carnarvon had said that ‘The English labourer was reduced to a plight more abject than that of any race in Europe’ Generally the lot of an agricultural labourer was a pretty miserable one.

Social tensions increased and the labourers naturally rose up, demanding a minimum wage, the end of rural unemployment, tithe and rent reductions. and an end to the threshing machine which destroyed their winter employment. They reinforced their demands with rick-burning, the destruction of the threshing machines and cattle-maiming among other things. The major landowners were concerned for their own farms and due to their influence were able to get military assistance in putting down the riots.

In many places hay ricks were set alight, in some places the protests took on non-violent forms such as church boycotts and walk outs. In Wroughton in Wiltshire the protest amounted to people smoking pipes in the cemetery as a means of getting their point across.

As well as the attacks on the threshing machines the protesters reinforced their demands with wage and tithe riots and by the destruction of objects of their oppression, such as workhouses and agricultural tithe barns During these riots many threshing machines were either dismantled or destroyed entirely.

On the night of August 28 in 1830 in Kent, England a threshing machine was destroyed by angry labourers - the start of the Swing rebellion. Typically a farmer would receive an anonymous note often signed by "Captain Swing", with the intention of creating fear, telling him that unless he destroyed his threshing machine then his barns, haystacks and house would be burned down, and if they did not cave in, mobs would attack the farms, set them a flame and smash the machines., as a reprisal for the injustices that were felt.

One letter read, "We don't want to do any mischief, but we want that poor children when they go to bed should have a belly full of taties instead of crying with half a belly full." Another warned: "This is to acquaint you that if your threshing machines are not destroyed by you directly, we shall commence our labors. Signed on behalf of the whole. Swing." Scrawled warnings such as "Revenge for thee is on the wing, from thy determined Captain Swing" suggested an organization that was not really there. Captain Swing did not exist, but he came to represent the moral fury of the crowds of impoverished, determined laborers.

Attacks concentrated on prosperous farmers who could afford threshing machines, which were expensive and frequently broke down. Farmers with less land who could not afford the machines probably were not unhappy to see attacks on their wealthier neighbors. In some places, the smashing of threshing machines were just part of a movement that included arson threats (a potent arm of the poorest of the poor) aimed at increasing wages. The movement generated its own momentum and in some places paper mills were attacked also.

By the third week of October, over one hundred threshing machines had been destroyed in East Kent. There was no centralised organising committee but such was the deep seated feeling of oppression that as news of the troubles spread, there was no shortage of local volunteers to lead or "Captain" his fellow workers. Night after night fires started by roving mobs lit up the countryside. For many farmers, danger and destruction was a matter of when, not if. Understandably, farmers were frightened by the initial wave of attacks and generally gave in to the demands of the rioting farm workers.This only made the rioters bolder.

Captain Swing Cartoon
Image Source British Museum

Farm workers now started confronting farmers asking for higher wages and other improvements to their conditions. Rectors were told to lower tithes by armed gangs. Often their demands were met.

There are many stories of confrontations from all over the county. One at Halnaker near Chichester ended peacefully when the Duke of Richmond told the mob that they should return home and talk later. Another such confrontation in Lancing ended up less happily with the local landowner taking a severe beating.

The riots continued sporadically until 1831 when those arrested were sent or trial. The recriminations were savage and harsh, In Hampshire, the Duke of Wellington established a special commission to deal with rioters and they imposed very severe punishments in order to make an example of the offenders.

On the 18th December the commission met in Great Hall and of the 300 prisoners, 95 were formally sentenced to death (ultimately 6 had the sentence confirmed although 4 were reprieved and only two men were ultimately executed), 68 rioters were sent to prison and a further 69 were transported. Public opinion was shocked by severity of these sentences, transportation could be for up to 14 years and many of the men never returned to England. In 1835 Lord John Russell pardoned most of the rioters although by then it was too late for many of them.

While there was never any evidence of an organised attempt to overthrow the government, the Captain Swing Riots were the first large-scale demonstration of agricultural labourers' strength, an expression of their fear and anger by the poorest people in the land.who saw their meagre way of life threatened by new technology. Agitation continued, especially after the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. There were no agricultural trade unions because jobs and therefore homes were at stake.Some of the landowners were actually sympathetic to the plight of the poor, and raised wages or offered more employment but in general nothing changed until the advent of prosperity in the mid 1850's when manufacturing started to provide employment and draw the population away from rural areas.

The 'Swing' riots did influence the passing of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act and the 1836 Tithe Commutation Act, but wages and conditions did not improve overall or a long time to come. But the Captain Swing Riots served to encourage a wider demand for political reform culminating in a huge step forward for democracy in Britain with the advent of the Representation of the People Act 1832. This act increased the electorate from about 500,000 to 813,000 by allowing almost one in five adult males to vote but still no women. Demonised at the time as thugs and enemies to progress the Captain Swing protestors had justifiable grievances and were in fact only protesting for a fairer and more prosperous Britain.