← After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal
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- [00:00]
Maddy Pelling
Hello everyone. It's us, your hosts, Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney.
- [00:04]
Anthony Delaney
But before we begin the show, we want to ask for a few seconds.
- [00:08]
Maddy Pelling
Of your time if you're enjoying After Dark. And we love you if you are, we would love you just a little bit more if you could vote for us in the Listener's Choice category at the British Podcast Awards.
- [00:18]
Anthony Delaney
So go to the Show Notes now, click the link and just then search for After Dark. Fill in your name and your email and don't forget to confirm. They will send you an email you need to confirm. The whole process probably takes about 30 seconds.
- [00:31]
Maddy Pelling
If you've already voted, we are so, so grateful. If you haven't stop what you are doing right now. Vote for us before you enjoy this show.
- [00:43]
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- [01:09]
Anthony Delaney
Your next outdoor adventure@homes.com we do whatever it takes to get you the in depth info on local schools you won't find anywhere else. Things like student teacher ratio, test scores and school programs. And sometimes that requires attending school recitals. So many recitals. That's my son. Isn't he terrific? Yeah, a real prodigy. Homestock, we've done your homework. Welcome to After Dark, the podcast that explores the darker side of the past. Today, it's the true story of the Luddites and their war against the machines. So let's set the scene.
- [02:02]
Maddy Pelling
They emerge out of the Yorkshire dark from the fields that they know as well as they know each other. They are of this land and they have come to settle their score. Some have blackened faces. Others wear masks like highwaymen. Lords of misrule. They sing songs as they light their torches. The hulking shape of the mill is in front of them. A smash of glass now and a crash. And they are inside, confronting their enemies. A row of dark forms made of metal and wood and powered by infernal steam. Machines that can transform rough cloth to smooth as though by magic. Machines that can conjure wealth for some and for others vanish away jobs. The shadows of men and machines dance against the walls in the torchlight. Then herculean hammers, impossibly large, are heaved up. They crash down in a terrible blow, iron groaning and wood shattering beneath them, over and over and over. Then they are done. The men politely wish the shocked factory managers good night and melt back into the lanes that they know so well as they go. One name rings out. Ned Ludden.
- [03:49]
Anthony Delaney
Today, as you might have guessed from that, we are going to talk about the Luddites. And if you've ever felt depressed about AI and we're going to talk about all this, or if you've ever. If you've ever sworn at your computer, which I have this week, then maybe this one is for you. Or if, like my mother, you're absolutely paranoid that all forms of technology are listening to you. Well, actually, she probably has a point.
- [04:09]
Maddy Pelling
There, because sometimes certainly are.
- [04:11]
Anthony Delaney
Yeah, they definitely are. So we're going to start by talking about the context and who the Luddites were. Their mythical leader, Ned Ludd, that Mattie's just been talking about there. Then we're going to go on a deep dive into the Luddites of Yorkshire. Their fight against the machines and the mill owners that ended in murder. But before we do, we need to look at some early 19th century context. We're focusing here on 1811 and 1812. Maddie, what's going on in the world?
- [04:39]
Maddy Pelling
Oh, this is my favorite time period, as I' so many times before anything from 1790 to about 1837. Yum. Love it. Okay, so George III is on the throne, but his son, George iv, as he will become, is currently the Prince Regent. The regency has begun. The prime minister at the time is Spencer Percival. Hold that name in your mind, Spencer Percival, because we are going to come back to him and let's just say he ain't going to be Prime Minister for that long. It's the height of the Napoleonic wars at this moment, which of course end in 1815 with the battle of Waterloo. In Britain, there's a kind of pervasive feeling of fear and panic. The French Revolution that began in 1789 has spilled over into what is now, you know, the rise of Napoleon and this expansion of the French Empire under this new emperor. Essentially, there's a fear that there will be an invasion by the French of Britain. There has been unrest in Ireland and an alliance in, is it 1798, I think, between the Irish and the French against the British. So there's enemies on all sides. There's huge tension. And in the north in particular, not exclusively, but certainly in the north, there have been bread riots. Food prices are rising because of the war and the lack of travel and trade on the continent and there are famines, there's a shortage of food production, and, of course, all this is going on in the shadow of the Industrial Revolution. What's interesting about this period, compared to the later Victorian period, is you've got regions that make specific things still. So it's, to a certain extent, you still have sort of little cottage industries and then bigger factories building up. So the Industrial Revolution is happening, but it's not exactly as you would imagine it in the Victorian era. Right. So you have, like, in the East Midlands, for example, they're mostly stocking knitters. In West Yorkshire, you have wool workers. In Southeast Lancashire, you've got cotton workers. And this isn't exclusively the case, but these areas kind of are famous for these different things. So the food shortages that we get in this period are really important because people have been moving more and more from the countryside into towns and cities to begin working in factories. Their little cottage industries, where they were, you know, literally making cloth in their cottages at home, in the countryside, is disappearing. They're having to go to these centres for work. And now this workforce isn't getting fed very well. So there's a lot of unrest, there's a lot of resentment. The other thing that's happening, which is very relevant to what we're going to be talking about today, is that steam engines are coming in along with other kinds of machinery. By the end of the 18th century, there are more than 2,000 steam engines in use across Britain. These are in ironworks, in coal mines and, of course, in factories as well. So there's new technology coming in that's changing how people work, where they live, what their lives look like, the hours that they work, the kind of work that's available to them. And that is very much the context of. Of what's happening.
- [07:36]
Anthony Delaney
So this is a word, the word Luddite, that people will have heard of, and there's probably a few misconceptions that are. Because this is actually a really fascinating movement, I think, and the really special thing about it is I think we can relate to this in a really personal and immediate way in our own time. So before we get into the kind of nitty gritty of this history, talk to me about what exactly a Luddite is and why, or do they hate machines so much?
- [08:06]
Maddy Pelling
Okay, so there's a lot of myth, I suppose, surrounding what a Luddite is. And I remember even growing up, maybe this was a Northern thing, the word Luddite being used to describe someone who was kind of didn't have much cultural knowledge, who was a bit of a sort of thug, maybe someone who didn't understand the delicacies of life and would sort of go smashing through things. And I think that's kind of interesting. There is a lot of myth and we'll get into some of that. The historian Adrian Randall does describe. He says the single defining feature of Luddism is a common resistance to labour saving technology. Right. So these new machines that are coming in, it's important to say that there isn't really a singular movement of Luddites. Right. These are movements that spring up simultaneously and certainly they are connected to the same issues that we've just set out. This idea of machines taking people's jobs, of poverty creeping in in urban areas where people have been pushed together for the first time, and the sort of perceived destruction of their quality of life through the new factor. These pockets come about separately and I think it says so much about how widespread these issues were, particularly in the Midlands and the north of England. Of course, there were industrial areas in the south of England as well, particularly in the West Country. I'm thinking about places like Bristol and the surrounding towns there. The Luddite movement really takes place between 1811, 1812 and into the start of 1813. That's kind of the height of it. Right. There's this myth or this idea, I suppose, that they hate technology, that they will not tolerate any kind of machinery and they want to go back to a simpler time when people are hand making things. And that's not necessarily the case. There's a little bit more nuanced than that. Luddites essentially start to target specific machinery that threaten to destroy artisanal livelihoods. Right. So people who do very, very skilled work, that's now being replaced. And, you know, I can absolutely see why. Maybe in this episode we're going to make comparisons to modern day technology and its kind of destruction or devaluing of skilled creative work, for example, that people do today. So you can see why this would piss people off now and why it pissed people off then.
- [10:13]
Anthony Delaney
Right. And so you've kind of set up this geographical map where these advancements are happening. So does that mean that Luddism is connected to specific geographical places too, or is it just widespread?
- [10:24]
Maddy Pelling
So it begins in Nottinghamshire and this is a relatively small incident where a large crowd destroys, well, 50 stocking frames. Not considered an unimportant event in that region, but this is going to become far more widespread throughout 1811. Then we get attacks that spread through Nottinghamshire in 1811. And it spreads throughout that county in that year. But then it starts to spread in 1812, first to Lancashire and also to Yorkshire, which has a vast industrial complex, essentially that's already been set up. And what's interesting, and I think what unites all of these issues, is that one name in particular begins to emerge. People start to sign letters with this name. They start to shout it and sing it when they are breaking machines. And that is the name Ned Ludd.
- [11:10]
Anthony Delaney
I mean, it makes total sense, but I didn't necessarily realize that there was an actual person. Well, or is there called Ned Ludd? I didn't realize there was a name associated with it, put it that way. I thought it was just a movement. I wasn't quite sure where this word had come from. And then I was like, oh, Ned Ludd, who is this person? Tell me a little bit more about him as much as you can.
- [11:34]
Maddy Pelling
Okay, so he both exists and doesn't exist.
- [11:36]
Anthony Delaney
Yeah.
- [11:37]
Maddy Pelling
So there was a real Nedlud in Leicestershire in the 1770s. So two generations, at least one generation before we're talking about this period. He did break a stocking machine, though, in his own lifetime. But he's sort of irrelevant to what's happening in 1811, other than the fact that his name kind of springs up now. It does become mythologised. He starts to be called General Ludd, as though he's the leader of this army, this invisible army of industrial workers, and he becomes a kind of folk figure. Right. So we're not necessarily talking about a real person anymore. Now, the Luddites, as I said, they sign letters with his name, they sing songs about him, and they all cite him, no matter where they are geographically, as their leader, which is so fascinating because these groups aren't necessarily organizing in relation to other groups in other geographical regions. And it's this folk figure that seems to be the uniting banner. We do have an image for you to look at, Anthony. And what I think is so interesting about this is that it's not only is it a fascinating image, but it's, I believe, the only image of a depiction of Ned Ludd from this period that we have that survives.
- [12:46]
Anthony Delaney
It really is fascinating. I'm going to start, unusually, maybe, with what's happening in the background. So in the background, we have hills, mountains, probably we have sky with some clouds coming in, and we have a group of men either side of this image who are fighting, who are very kind of rowdy. There's sticks in the air, there's hats in the air. They're shouting, they're gesticulating. In the center to the back we have burning, I'm guessing factories, but certainly buildings. There's flames, there's smoke coming out from them. Then right bang in the center, standing on a kind of a dirt track, which is relatively surrounded by a little bit of grass, we have. Who is, I presume, the leader of the Luddites, Ned Ludd, as it says underneath. And Ned is depicted as a man wearing very ragged female clothing. He's wearing a woman's hat with a feather and a ribbon around it. He's wearing think very Jane Austen clothing. That's kind of what he's wearing. He's got a neckerchief around his neck. But this is all very worn, this is all very old looking. There's holes in it. Then on his feet he has kind of. Sorry, not on his feet, on his legs he's wearing basically rags and he has only one shoe on one foot. So what we're faced with is this kind of man who is not quite comfortable in his masculinity. And as a result, the whole world is turned upside down, there is chaos, men are fighting amongst themselves, buildings are burning. And this whole idea of British industrialism and the greatness that is British Industrialism apparently at this time is being eroded because of this silly looking man, I suppose. So it's very much not a pro Luddite image, I would imagine.
- [14:31]
Maddy Pelling
Yes, it's very much an anti Luddite image, isn't it? Designed to mock this great folk hero? This is absolutely an image that is satirical. It's meant to poke fun at the Luddites. However. So we have this version of Ned Luddite, who is obviously impoverished but also has no sort of fixed identity. Right. He's sort of confused in terms of his manhood. In terms of his identity, he's presenting as a pauper, as a beggar, but also importantly, dressed as a woman. And I think on the one hand, this is meant to show what happens when the Luddites succeed. And we're going to hear more about what they do to factories. As you said, Anthony, there's a factory burning in the background. And that's not something that was uncommon after a Luddite attack on such establishments. And I think in terms of the criticism of the Luddite movement, this is meant to suggest that the world order, this idea of early 19th century progress, of industrialisation, of the wealth of nations, you know, this idea of sort of building up national wealth, it's all tied to ideas of Manhood, Right. These are. Although factories themselves are not exclusively male spaces, women and children famously put to work in these spaces as well. But these are very much sort of patriarchal spaces. There are no allowances made for maternity leave or child safety, and they are run almost exclusively by men, and the profits go almost exclusively to men. So I think there's a sense of, like, if you attack this system that is emerging that is tied to British manhood, British success, British imperial might, that you are turning the world on its head. And the order has been dismantled. Now, I will say the Luddites themselves embraced this idea of cross dressing. And some people would appear during these attacks dressed as this version of Ned Ludd in female clothing. So I think it harkens back to this tradition, certainly in rural communities in the medieval times of mumming, right, the mummers plays this idea of dressing up in costume, often in what we would now call drag, blurring the boundaries of hierarchy, of identity in order to cause mischief. Right. And often this was done certainly through the medieval and early modern period on special saints days or days of celebration when the local landlord or person in power might allow it, they might be challenged in some way. You know, we talked about this a lot in the episodes that we did on folk culture around the British Isles. This idea of kind of disrupting the community, performing your grievances, your desires, your problems. And I think that's what's happening here, this very old tradition being brought in to speak to a very modern problem. Foreign.
- [17:24]
Anthony
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- [20:38]
Anthony Delaney
So you've mentioned already, Matty, that this is happening in Nottinghamshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire. So I want to look at a specific case now, and that is the Yorkshire Luddites. So we're going to be looking at this as a kind of a case study of how these actions come about. So set the scene of what's happening in this particular case. So we're in, I believe the first half of 1812. We're in Huddersfield, around Halifax, around Leeds, we're looking at wool manufacturing and this disturbance that you're talking about in relation to that picture, this is something we're about to encounter Here, Right, okay.
- [21:12]
Maddy Pelling
Yes. So we're in Yorkshire, as you say, there are sort of centres of industry in places like Halifax, Leeds, Huddersfield. The heroes, if you like, from this particular story are called, are croppers. Now, what is a cropper, I hear you ask. When you weave woolen cloth, there's a kind of fuzzy woolen surface called a nap that comes across it, right? You can. Even if you've got like a woolen blanket at home, like, if it gets kind of worn, you know, you get like bits coming off it and it's all a bit fuzzy. Now, the croppers, this was a really important job, would cut off that top layer of fluff and would make it smooth and therefore more salable. It was much more valuable if it was kind of, you know, soft and smooth and delicate. I love this fact. This is an interesting fact. So when they were doing this work by hand, by the way, crucially, for what we're about to talk about, they would wield 50 pound shears, that's 22 kilograms, you know, essentially sort of giant scissors. And they were famous as a group for having really massive forearms, which I just think is so fascinating. You often think about in archaeology, you know, people can. Can often sort of tell if someone was like an archer or carrying a pike in a medieval army, because, like, one side of your body would be really built up and you can see on the bones where the muscles had kind of make the surface of the bone ridged, don't they? They become sort of wavy because there needs to be more surface area for more muscle to attach to. And I imagine it would have been the same for these people, right? They had such big forearms and they're so strong. And it talks as well to the sort of the physicality of early industrialization and the cost on the human body. Actually, you know, this took its toll. Not only do people have terrible accidents in factories, you know, limbs getting ripped off, fingers getting lost, there were all kinds of terrible punishments enacted on children, all of that kind of physical violence going on. But you've got this alteration of the body. The body has kind of changed in this way. So, you know, this is something that takes over your life in a lot of ways.
- [23:06]
Anthony Delaney
So we have met our protagonists, the Luddites. But who exactly are our villains? Because it says here that they're shearing frames. I guess it's, you know, it's technology taking over these jobs. So what exactly is happening with the introduction of these shearing frames? I'm presuming people are losing their jobs.
- [23:24]
Maddy Pelling
I mean, yes, you've absolutely nailed it. There's nothing more to say. Yes. So yeah, the shearing frames basically allowed you to cut off the top of the fuzzy bits on the wall without the croppers. So you didn't need a human being to do it. You could just go ring across the top and it was all done. And so you get this tension building, I suppose, between the workers themselves who, you know, have an artisanal craft. They've been doing this for maybe centuries to this point, you know, on a smaller scale. And now suddenly mill owners are coming in, removing them from the process, building these factories in these people's communities and therefore putting them out of work. And suddenly huge amounts of the population in rural areas, but also in these towns where indust visualization has drawn people in. These people are now redundant. They have no work to do because of the machines. And of course people are going to vent their frustration first of all on the machines themselves.
- [24:22]
Anthony Delaney
Tale as old as time to a certain extent, isn't it? Like we're very, very familiar with this ourselves. And we'll talk about our kind of modern day interpretation of this more towards the end of this conversation, just as a way of summing up, but it's interesting also to note that we're not even at the pinnacle of this yet. We are in the early 19th century. We are not talk about the huge factories that become iconic to the middle and later parts of the 19th century that really takes over the landscape in many ways. These are not yet those large mills, but yet we already have this discomfort at what technology is doing and the ways in which it's impacting these trades and these jobs. First of all, before they go to attack the people that are involved in these things, they're attacking the machine. So how does this start manifesting itself?
- [25:08]
Maddy Pelling
So the attacks begin in February 1812 and they start by targeting smaller workshops before they move on to the bigger factories that are being built.
- [25:15]
Anthony Delaney
And these are a series of attacks, right? It's not just one thing.
- [25:18]
Maddy Pelling
Yes, yes, these are organised attacks, but they escalate and they become more and more now crowds of at least 100 to begin with, attack. They blacken their faces so that they are not, I suppose, identifiable at night. And they take with them hammers and they have one particularly huge hammer, this group in Yorkshire, which they use to destroy the machines. And they call it Enoch, they name it. The attacks happen and the machines are. The machines are broken. But what I think is so interesting, and we'll discuss why this is interesting in a Minute is that often before the attacks take place, they will send a letter to that respective factory owner.
- [25:55]
Anthony Delaney
So this is a pattern of behavior.
- [25:57]
Maddy Pelling
Essentially, it's a pattern of behavior. And they will threaten to break the machines. They will tell them this is coming maybe next week. So they give them warning and they say, you must give us your jobs. You must get rid of the machines. If not, we will come by and break them. And we have one of these letters. This is from March 1812. So already a month into these attacks. And this is to a specific factory owner. And Anthony, I just want you to read this because I think it's fascinating, not least in terms of how it is signed off.
- [26:25]
Anthony Delaney
Okay. So it says to Mr. Smith, shearing frame holder at Hill End, Yorkshire. Sir, information has just been given to me that you are the holder of these detestable shearing frames. And I was desired by my men to write to you and give you fair warning to pull them down. You will take notice that if they are not taken down by the end of next week, I will detach one of my lieutenants. Interesting. With at least 300 men mined to destroy them. And furthermore, take notice that if you give us the trouble of coming so far, we will increase your misfortune by burning your buildings down to ashes. Signed by the general of the army of Redressers. Ah, that's why they're dressing like that. Ned Ludd Clark. Interesting.
- [27:16]
Maddy Pelling
Redressing the balance.
- [27:18]
Anthony Delaney
Redressing the identity.
- [27:19]
Maddy Pelling
Interesting. Nice little play on words. Yeah, I think it's. So it makes them appear very ordered. Right. Even though Nedlud, the general of the army of Redresses, does not exist.
- [27:28]
Anthony Delaney
Yes. There are no lieutenants in this context.
- [27:30]
Maddy Pelling
Yeah, lieutenants. But anyway.
- [27:32]
Anthony Delaney
Sorry, yes, yes, yes, we've had this.
- [27:33]
Maddy Pelling
Argument before, but no, look, I think that it's so interesting that there's a kind of playfulness there. Right. As well. Like, thinking back to this idea of, like, mumming and this performance of, like.
- [27:44]
Anthony Delaney
There is a playfulness. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, it's quite.
- [27:47]
Maddy Pelling
Yeah, it totally is. And we see it throughout the 18th century. Actually, in the centuries before. I've talked about this on the podcast before, and I talk about it in my book Writing on the wall, but in 1780, there are the Gordon riots in London, which is when Britain is brought to its knees over the course of a week. And it's the closest that we come to revolution. And it starts off as a peaceful protest and it turns into rioting. And soon, like, half the city's burning the bank of England. Is attacked. Etc. Etc. 600 plus citizens are shot by the British army on the streets of the city. And in that context, the crowds start to organise themselves, the rioters, and supposedly they begin to call themselves His Majesty King Mob and they sign that in graffiti. They paint those words on the side of Newgate Prison, for example. I think from memory. Read my book if you want the specifics, but you should read your book.
- [28:39]
Anthony Delaney
If you want the specifics.
- [28:40]
Maddy Pelling
I should, yeah, clearly. But, you know, it's the same thing here. Like the general of the army of Redresses, it's this kind of playful threateningness, I suppose, you know, this kind of like we have organised ourselves and we are using the guise of the hierarchies and institutions that you understand, in this case the military, we're dressing up in this way and using a language that you will be able to compute. But we are behind the scenes. This is chaos and we will bring chaos to you in this mask, I suppose.
- [29:11]
Anthony Delaney
Do you know what the most fascinating thing about this is? That they actually have some success because by April, all the frames in the small workshops, now we're talking about the small ones, they have been removed. And I'm actually quite shocked by this because I would imagine that people would just, as they kind of do now, just double down and just be like, well, sorry, these are here now, you're gonna have to get used to it. Like upskill or skill in a different way, I suppose.
- [29:33]
Maddy Pelling
You know, you've got to think, what's the protection in these early days? Like, what's the insurance like?
- [29:38]
Anthony Delaney
Much to lose.
- [29:39]
Maddy Pelling
Yeah, yeah. Like, certainly insurance existed in this period and you would have been maybe a local militia who could help recently. Oh, my God, I'm really plucking my own books today. But, you know, recently I finished writing my second book and in that there's a big fire in a factory and the local militia come in to put the fire out. So, you know, there were examples of like sort of local forces who could help. But ultimately there's not a huge amount of protection. And often the reactions, the moves to protect property happen after a disaster has happened. So, you know, you would be thinking, I've got to take these frames down because I don't want the Luddites coming around to my small factory that is my livelihood and destroying everything, if you're a factory owner.
- [30:18]
Anthony Delaney
But because they've had that success, they then start to target the bigger factories.
- [30:23]
Maddy Pelling
Yeah, they move on to the big ones. So one of the big factories or mills that they attack is called Foster's Mill. And this is the one that we heard about in the opening narrative. And they break in, they attack the shearing frames. They also, interestingly, destroy by fire the record books for the factories. So this is a sort of. This is a slight escalation in that it's a destruction not only of the machines that have taken away people's livelihoods and employment, but also of the system of capitalism itself. Right. Like these record books presumably record things going in and out of the factory. Ultimately, they're concerned with recording the profit that the factory owners are making. And I think this is a really canny, escalating move, actually. But they get too big for their boots and they move on to another mill called Rawfold's Mill. And this is a situation where the escalation has gone too far and things do start to go wrong. So this is, by this point, we're in April, 12th April 1812, and at this stage the Luddites have grown to be in their hundreds and they converge on this mill in the evening after, interestingly, they've already gathered at a pub called the Shearers Inn, which is nearby to this. They've blackened their faces as they had done previously. A lot of them have obviously taken drink in this pub. And I think it's interesting that sort of pubs, you know, again, we're not talking about the sort of 19th century pub where you all sit around a piano and have a good laugh, have a good sing song. Like, these are very much still kind of 18th century inns, like kind of coaching inns drinking for, you know, some of like, the lowest rural workers and factory workers available. So they're a little bit drunk, some of them, they blacken their faces and they go to this mill. Now, the mill's owner is a man called William Cartwright. And because of what's been happening in the area, he has taken things into his own hands and he has fortified the mill, he's barricaded the windows, he's got soldiers stationed in there overnight. And where the windows are barricaded, there are gaps from them to stick their rifles out. So this is turning into a whole other thing. This is a very different thing. Now the Luddites arrive. Whether they know about the soldiers or not, I'm not sure, but I think word would certainly have been going round at this point. But they're fortified by their drink and what they believe is a righteous cause. And so they begin to sledgehammer the door. Cartwright gives the order and the soldiers open fire. And what I think is so interesting is that later on, the soldiers who are involved in this incident talk about how they've never seen anyone fire and reload as quickly as Cartwright himself. And you can understand, he's the owner of a mill, he wants to protect his property and his profit. But there's something so eager in that violence and so devaluing of, you know, let's not forget he's looking out at his workforce. These are the people that he knows that he employs. Two of the Luddites are hit, they're badly injured. Their names are John Booth and Samuel Hartley and they do die the next day. They live long enough that the word gets around they've been injured and this is going to be a catalyst for what comes next. Anger is kind of spreading and hardening and you know how I love a bit of graffiti on the doors and walls of the factory. The next day, some of the Luddites come back and they chalk vengeance for the blood of the innocent.
- [33:43]
Anthony Delaney
We have got one soldier in this melee who actually refuses to fire. That's right, isn't it?
- [33:49]
Maddy Pelling
Yeah, exactly. And these soldiers, you know, this is, as we said, it's the time of the Napoleonic War and a lot of people are drafted into local militia, which are kind of, I believe, separate from the regular army. And they're kind of not quite like the sort of the Dad's Army Home Guard of the Second World War, but they're tasked with protecting their particular regions should the French invade, essentially. And so they are drawn from the community and a lot of them are drawn from the working classes. Actually, we see that a lot, especially given that employment rates in factories, you know, for people who have skills who are being replaced by machines, they're out of work. The army, the militia is going to pay a reasonable wage. It's going to give you clothes on your back, it's going to give you, interestingly, a weapon which is, you know, significant. But are you going to be prepared to turn that weapon on your brother, on your next door neighbour, on your father, on your son? Not necessarily. So there's a really interesting incident of one soldier who does refuse to fire on the Luddite crowd at the mill and. And he is, in the aftermath, taken back to the mill and he's sentenced to 300 lashes to be carried out in public. Now, 300 lashes is extreme. The likelihood of you surviving that seems quite low. I mean, 30 lashes is extreme. To give you a sense of just how extreme that is, he's given 20 lashes and at that point he is bleeding extremely heavily. And don't forget, you know, this isn't just cutting open your skin. This is like ripping your flesh away from your ribcage. And things like this is brutal. What's so interesting is that William Cartwright, the factory owner who was so keen to fire on the Luddites, does actually intervene, and he stops the flogging at that point. And I think that's an interesting turning point, isn't it?
- [35:35]
Anthony Delaney
Yeah, that really is. That's so interesting, because what it says is. And I love this, what it says is there is defense and then there is barbarity. And it has crossed over now into barbarity. And that. Well, I mean, you could argue that the shooting of the two men was barbarous as well. Totally. I think, argue that successfully. But now we're into something else. And even when the factory owner is saying, no, this is too much, then, you know, it's gone. So who's behind that, then? Who's enacting that?
- [36:09]
Maddy Pelling
The flogging?
- [36:10]
Anthony Delaney
Yeah.
- [36:10]
Maddy Pelling
Oh, it would be someone in the militia. He's refused to follow orders, so it would be a military issue. So it'll be a militia officer?
- [36:16]
Anthony Delaney
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [36:17]
Maddy Pelling
The order would come from a militia officer. It probably be, like a sergeant or something who would carry out the flogging. But, yeah, I think it's interesting. You know, it sort of talks as well. Like, these attacks happen in the dark. The Luddites blacken their faces so they're not visible. They can't be recognized and identified in the community the next day. They're trying to protect their identities. And, you know, they're sort of. They're all Nedlud. Right? They can all stand up. I'm Spartacus. I'm Spartacus. Like, nobody's recognizable, literally. Yeah, yeah. But in the cold light of day, when faced with this, you know, albeit a different kind of violence, this lashing of the soldier, nobody really has the stomach for it. But I think as well, you could read it as two Luddites have been shot and by the next day are dead. Anger is rising, and now there's this performance of violence by the other side. Is it a case that William Cartwright doesn't want the soldiers punished because he wants to keep them on side? Is it simply that he thinks this isn't very politic to punish the soldiers? Let's overlook this. Let's keep them on side. We need their protection. Things are about to get worse. The Luddites have gone away with two dead bodies, and they are raging now. Do we really need to do a performance of literally weakening our own side.
- [37:39]
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- [39:20]
Anthony Delaney
So we've had an attack on the smaller mills. We have attacks then on the larger mills. None of these, well, the smaller mills proved successful. The bigger mills less so because they've got more of a system behind them, I suppose, of protection. Where are we going to next? What's the next movement in this Luddite movement?
- [39:40]
Maddy Pelling
Okay, so by this time period there are some really large mills that are already in existence and they seem like the natural next target. Right? But as William Cartwright has proven, those buildings can be fortified by the local militia and the factory owners themselves. So therefore they are not really viable targets. The Luddites are just going to lose more people. Like they don't have military training. You know, they're bringing their maybe one or two big hammers with them, maybe they're carrying other weapons, homemade things, things that have been grabbed from the pub or whatever. But they are not a trained military force and they are facing a trained military force. So they decide to switch tactics. And this is where I think you can start to lose faith with them a little bit. They start to attack the factory owners themselves. They see them as the enemies. These are the men who have called in the militia, who have brought the machinery in in the first place, who've put these people out of work. And these individuals are seen as the problem. So the Luddites in Yorkshire then target a man called William Horsfor. He's the owner of Milne Huddersfield, and he is someone who is very, very vocal in his contempt for the Luddites and in particular for these croppers who cut the fuzz top off the wall. I mean, he's really violent in his rhetoric against them. He says that he would ride up to his saddle girdle in Luddite blood. So he's making himself a bit of a target initially. We're not saying he deserves what comes next, but he's so keen for a fight, essentially, that he puts cannon on the roof of his mill. Like, that's how serious he is about the Luddites and, you know, that's how seriously he's taking the threat.
- [41:20]
Anthony Delaney
It goes to show as well how these factory owners view their factories. They are almost. Almost castle like, to them and their empire and their workers. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah. Without a shadow of a doubt.
- [41:32]
Maddy Pelling
So Horsfall is a particularly notorious factory owner. Yeah. And absolutely views this kind of kingdom that he's made for himself as his rightful property. He has already attacked a Luddite and a Cropper called George Mellor. George Mellor approaches him to confront him about a woman whose infant has starved because of being put out of work. Right. And because of these conditions, and he strikes the Luddite across his face with a riding whip. So he's a pretty. Yeah, he's kind of like an arch villain, isn't he? He's sort of pantomimically terrible. So George mellor, therefore, on 28th April, 1812, he, along with three other Luddites, waits for Horsefall on the moor between Huddersfield and his mill. And it's so cinematic, you can imagine Horsefall riding across the moor on his way to work. Now he's ambushed after leaving a pub. Interestingly, did he stop there for a drink on the way to work? Is he changing horses there? Unclear. They shoot him off his horse and he is within sight of his own mill when he falls. Now they drag him all the way back to the pub called Warren House Inn and he dies there.
- [42:42]
Anthony Delaney
I'm gonna say he deserved that. He hit somebody across the face with a. With a horse whip.
- [42:46]
Maddy Pelling
Yeah. I mean, it's not great, is it? No. Interestingly, in another pub nearby that night, there are allegedly large groups of Luddites who are celebrating and singing about this victory. And you can get such a flavour of the atmosphere in this moment, this sort of visceral hatred on both sides and that this is seen as a great victory. There's just so much violence. It's so visceral. There's so much violence on both sides.
- [43:17]
Anthony Delaney
And now there's this good people on both sides.
- [43:20]
Maddy Pelling
Maddie, there's good people on both sides. I mean, I know whose side I'm on on this, but. Yeah, it is a moment in which this tips over into being something else. Right. Like, there's protest. There's violent protest and the destruction of private property, and then there's murdering someone riding across a moor.
- [43:36]
Anthony Delaney
But who did whip them across the face.
- [43:38]
Maddy Pelling
Yeah. I'm not saying he didn't deserve some form of punishment, but this feels like. Like a spilling over. It's become. This is no longer the sort of playful, semi organized Luddite movement, right. That this is just personal revenge.
- [43:54]
Anthony Delaney
And we're also not targeting. And like, let's come back to this because actually. And it's probably a good way to end this because it's like, let's come back to the destroying of the sock frames or whatever. This is where we start this.
- [44:06]
Maddy Pelling
Who is the enemy here?
- [44:07]
Anthony Delaney
Yeah, exactly. The sock frame is one thing. The other thing I will say, though, just because we talked about it at the beginning, you know, we talk about AI, we talk about all of these kind of things our own time, or social media, whatever it is that, you know, unsettles. Or even automatic checkouts or whatever they're called at supermarkets. You know, things where there's nobody.
- [44:25]
Maddy Pelling
Please remove the item from the bagging area.
- [44:27]
Anthony Delaney
Oh, God. Yeah. The worst are Sainsbury's. Sainsbury's. Get your shit together with your self checkouts. Because it's absolutely horrendous.
- [44:34]
Maddy Pelling
And the little camera where it is humbling. And you think, I can never go out in public ever again.
- [44:40]
Anthony Delaney
It's weird, isn't it? Because time and tide, or whatever that saying is, waits for no man or woman. It is like. Like this is just the nature of humanity. We. We move and we move quickly. And, you know, I. There's so many conversations happening around AI at the moment, and I think the most useful ones are about regulation rather than stopping, because we ain't stopping this. So we need to regulate in order to kind of harness this. And I suppose that seems like part of the conversation that's slightly missing in when we're talking about the Luddites. But actually at the. At the side. At one side of this, there is absolute people who are. Do not know what to do with themselves. Now it's like, you know, when the factories close or when the mines closed in the 80s, people are just devastated. Communities are devastated. And that's the real tragedy. The double tragedy is you never go back. Yes, okay, Those small mills took those sock frames out of it. But, like, did it make a difference in the end? No, because technology continues and we just have to keep up. That's our thing.
- [45:41]
Maddy Pelling
I think what we have to remember about the Luddites is that they are not one unified movement, that it really is different depending on the region, depending on the fact they're attacking. And as we see in the story of Horsefall, it's a way of settling local personal debts as well. Right. So I don't think there's one thing that unites it other than the idea of Ned Ludd as this kind of folk hero, you know, under whose banner they can identify what is happening is it's led by desperation. These are, I suppose, begun under this kind of playful guise of creating mischief, expressing a frustration, but in so many instances, we see it tip over into something else. Now. Now, what is so interesting, and I think this, in a way, kind of proves that there aren't people pulling the strings, is that this never really amounts to anything beyond the murder of Halsfell. This is the pinnacle of the Luddite movement, if you can call it a movement, and then it peters out. There is, in that moment when he is murdered, a real panic that this is going to be some kind of revolution. Right. Don't forget the French Revolution. 1789 is not that far away. It's just a generation ago. There's already fear of invasion. Now there's fear of revolution at home. 12,000 troops are sent to the north of England to quell this. Okay.
- [46:52]
Anthony Delaney
Which serious. Really serious amount of troops?
- [46:55]
Maddy Pelling
Yeah. 12. Yeah. Serious amount of troops. There's probably not that many Luddites rising up. So that's a really significant amount that's risen to meet this. The other thing that happens in 1812, in May of that year, is that the Prime Minister, Spencer Percival, is assassinated. He's shot by a man called John Bellingham. We should do an episode on that. It's a fascinating assassination. And so that in combination with. With the Luddites, there's a suggestion that the Luddites have done that, that they've been involved in the assassination. And there's a fear this is going to take over the country and of course, grind industry to a halt. Because while these factories are getting attacked, they're not making stuff. The profit isn't churning out, the products aren't churning out. This is the industrial heart of a vast British Empire that's been threatened and resized and reshaped by global conflict with the French. You need those factories to be working right. A lot of the products, the cotton especially. Where's that coming from? Is coming from the plantations in the Caribbean. So this is a whole system that needs to keep moving, that needs to keep grinding. So these people aren't just threatening a local factory owner or settling a score, they are bringing potentially the British Empire to its knees. So it's taken that seriously. But it does peter out. George mellor, along with 13 others, are executed and the rest of the Luddites that are arrested, that can be identified, are transported to the colonies. So they do get their comeuppance. But it seems like a little blip in what could have been a bigger moment and a bigger revolution. And I wonder, we think about the Victorian factory that follows this and the terrible working conditions and as you say, Anthony, the complete lack of regulation in that moment. And I just wonder, had the Luddite movement been more effective, had it gone on for longer, had it had more impact, would it have brought in that regulation earlier on?
- [48:39]
Anthony Delaney
I think let's end on the question. I think it's a really thought provoking subject, this. I really enjoy it. I love, love, love when history is messy. I think history is at its absolute best and most rewarding when it is messy and it's complex and there's blood and there's tears and there's all kinds of things. It's also interesting just in terms of this kind of revolutionary movements, which I actually don't necessarily think this is part of, but at the same time comes in the wake of. And therefore there's fear that this is what that is. As you're describing there at the end about all of these 12, I mean, 12,000 troops is a huge. You would feel that presence very, very plainly if you were in the north of England at the time. But it's so, so interesting and I just think there's so many questions that come out of this. So thank you for listening with us today. This has been a really interesting one. I've enjoyed this episode. If you would like to go back and listen to our back catalogue, then you'll find other things there from this time period. We've got the Thames Torso Murders, we have got the Final days of George iii and we've also recently just recorded an episode on Frankenstein. So you've got more coming. And go back and listen to those Leave us a five star review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it helps other people to discover us. I'm gonna go away and think about the Luddites for the rest of the day. I'm actually gonna do a bit of extra reading around them too. I think this is a fascinating topic. I want to know more. Thank you for listening and we'll see you again soon.
- [50:10]
Maddy Pelling
Packages by Expedia. You were made to be rechargeable. We were made to package flights, hotels and hammocks for less. Expedia made to travel. Not all meals are created equal. For instance, breakfast has the spicy egg McMuffin for a limited time and lunch doesn't.
- [50:36]
Anthony Delaney
McDonald's breakfast comes.