Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello and Welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. A few years ago, we
Speaker 1: did an episode on the Rebecca Riots, which started in
Speaker 1: Wales in eighteen thirty nine, and at the time I
Speaker 1: had been looking for something that had some parallels to
Speaker 1: the Ludite uprising that started in central England a couple
Speaker 1: of decades before that. That was because the idea of
Speaker 1: workers smashing the machines that were replacing their jobs and
Speaker 1: cranking out inferior product that just felt like it had
Speaker 1: some relevance in the moment that we were living in.
Speaker 1: We had already covered the Luodites, though, all the way
Speaker 1: back in twenty thirteen, so I couldn't just do that again.
Speaker 1: I was looking for something else, and the Rebecca Riots
Speaker 1: were not quite the same thing, but they did grow
Speaker 1: out of some of the same context. There were some
Speaker 1: similar themes there, including difficult economic conditions these things were
Speaker 1: growing out of, and also smashing stuff. The smashing stuff
Speaker 1: I particularly enjoy. The Rebecca Riots are most remembered for
Speaker 1: attacks on tollgates, where people had to pay money to
Speaker 1: use the roads, while the Luddite Uprising became infamous because
Speaker 1: people were smashing the stocking frames that were being used
Speaker 1: in the textile industry. Of course, that is only a
Speaker 1: small part of each of those things. So another uprising
Speaker 1: came up while I was researching the Rebecca Riots, and
Speaker 1: that was the Swing Riots that took place primarily in
Speaker 1: eastern and southern England in the years in between the
Speaker 1: Luddite Uprising and the Rebecca Riots. One of the hallmarks
Speaker 1: of the Swing Riots was the destruction of threshing machines,
Speaker 1: but again that is just one part of the story.
Speaker 1: When I discovered the mention of the Swing Riots, it
Speaker 1: was too late to change topic, so I decided to
Speaker 1: put that on the list for later. In the eighteen
Speaker 1: twenties and thirties, farmers in rural England were struggling for
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons. One was enclosure. Historically, much of
Speaker 1: the arable land in England was considered to be common land.
Speaker 1: A person's crop was theirs, but outside of growing season,
Speaker 1: other people could access and use that same land, including
Speaker 1: as grazing land for their animals. Livestock were also fed
Speaker 1: hey that grew in communal meadows. The process of enclosing
Speaker 1: land with fences and hedges and putting it under private
Speaker 1: control started in the twelfth century and went through a
Speaker 1: couple of major waves. One of those waves started around
Speaker 1: seventeen fifty and continued through the mid nineteenth century. About
Speaker 1: six million acres of common land in England were enclosed
Speaker 1: between seventeen seventy and eighteen thirty, and by the end
Speaker 1: of the nineteen century almost all of the arable land
Speaker 1: was enclosed. During this process, some people who lost access
Speaker 1: to land moved to cities and towns to look for work,
Speaker 1: but other people just lost their livelihoods and they got
Speaker 1: no compensation. They really didn't have any other options other
Speaker 1: than trying to find a job working for somebody who
Speaker 1: was now in control of that land. So in addition
Speaker 1: to losing their livelihoods, people became a lot more dependent
Speaker 1: upon landowner's goodwill or the lack of it. Also, during
Speaker 1: the Napoleonic Wars, which stretched from eighteen oh three to
Speaker 1: eighteen fifteen, agricultural workers had been able to earn higher
Speaker 1: wages because so many men were away at war. Once
Speaker 1: the war was over and surviving soldiers and sailors returned home,
Speaker 1: there was an over supply of workers and wages dropped.
Speaker 1: The end of the war also led to fears of
Speaker 1: a collapse in green prices as trade was real established
Speaker 1: across Europe. In eighteen fifteen, Parliament passed a corn Law
Speaker 1: to regulate corn imports and try to protect landowners and
Speaker 1: farmers from falling prices, but ordinary workers saw this as
Speaker 1: making grain more expensive for them to buy, especially since
Speaker 1: eighteen sixteen was the year without a summer, which we
Speaker 1: have talked about on the show before. Protests and riots
Speaker 1: against the corn laws overlapped with the swing riots and
Speaker 1: continued until those laws were repealed in eighteen forty six.
Speaker 1: Attitudes about the poor were also changing in the UK
Speaker 1: in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The costs
Speaker 1: of relief for poor people had really surged during the
Speaker 1: Napoleonic Wars, and politicians and political economists started really focusing
Speaker 1: on how to bring those costs down, and one tool
Speaker 1: to try to do that was the workhouse. Although the
Speaker 1: idea of workhouses dates back to at least the mid
Speaker 1: seven teenth century. In England, the Act to Amend the
Speaker 1: Law for the Relief of the Poor passed in eighteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: provided for the expansion of workhouses and the building of
Speaker 1: new ones. It also empowered and required the select Vestries,
Speaker 1: or the people who managed each parish, to quote, inquire into,
Speaker 1: and determine upon the proper objects of relief and the
Speaker 1: nature and amount of the relief to be given, and
Speaker 1: in each case to take into consideration the character and
Speaker 1: conduct of the poor person to be relieved. The select
Speaker 1: Vestries were also quote at liberty to distinguish in the
Speaker 1: relief to be granted between the deserving and the idle,
Speaker 1: extravagant or profligate poor. So by eighteen thirty most parishes
Speaker 1: in England had at least one workhouse, and a deserving
Speaker 1: poor person could often get cash relief, while someone deemed
Speaker 1: undeserving would be sent to the workhouse. This was also
Speaker 1: connected to the tithe. People were expected to donate ten
Speaker 1: percent of their income to their local parish, and that
Speaker 1: could be done with an inkind donation of produce or
Speaker 1: of some other good that they grew or farmed or made.
Speaker 1: A lot of people could not afford the tithe. In
Speaker 1: light of everything that we've just talked about, and beyond that,
Speaker 1: this whole practice was starting to seem out of date
Speaker 1: to people, considering the way English society and the English
Speaker 1: economy were changing. Working people protested against the tithe and
Speaker 1: against efforts to reform the tithe in a way that
Speaker 1: would make it more expensive for them. One of these
Speaker 1: proposed reforms was a change to cash payments that could
Speaker 1: be made in lieu of tithing part of the dairy production,
Speaker 1: since fresh milk couldn't be stored in the way that
Speaker 1: some other agricultural products could. The amount of these payments
Speaker 1: hadn't changed in centuries, and the Church wanted to bring
Speaker 1: them in line with their current value. But farmers, of course,
Speaker 1: did not want to pay more on top of all
Speaker 1: of that which was already a lot. The harvest was
Speaker 1: particularly poor in eighteen twenty nine and eighteen thirty. English
Speaker 1: agricultural laborers also faced increased competition for jobs as workers
Speaker 1: moved to England from Ireland, and the thing that became
Speaker 1: emblematic of the swing riots human threshers were being replaced
Speaker 1: by machines. So threshing is the process of separating the
Speaker 1: edible part of a grain from its stock and husk.
Speaker 1: This was a late fall in winter activity after the
Speaker 1: grain had been harvested and allowed to dry. Before the
Speaker 1: development of threshing machines. This was an intensely manual process. Laborers,
Speaker 1: mostly men, would beat bundles of grain with a flail
Speaker 1: to separate the grain. Manual threshing was hard work, but
Speaker 1: it could provide up to fifty percent of a farm
Speaker 1: laborer's winter income, and of course in the winter there
Speaker 1: were not many other ways for a farmer to make
Speaker 1: more money. The first threshing machines were developed in the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century. Michael Menzies of Edinburgh invented a machine for
Speaker 1: threshing grain in seventeen thirty two and patented it in
Speaker 1: seventeen thirty four. In seventeen seventy eight, Andrew Meekil of
Speaker 1: Scotland invented a machine that might have been based on
Speaker 1: that earlier design. These initial attempts to make threshing machines
Speaker 1: did not work all that well, but threshing machines driven
Speaker 1: by water or horses started to become more reliable and
Speaker 1: more cost effective in the eighteen teens. These machines were
Speaker 1: vastly more efficient than human threshers, so as more landowners
Speaker 1: started buying them, people were just out of a job.
Speaker 1: It did not take long for people to start making
Speaker 1: threats over threshing machines. In seventeen ninety one, a farmer
Speaker 1: in Wimbledon named Patterson was threatened with arson after installing
Speaker 1: a threshing machine. Although it isn't fully clear whether the
Speaker 1: threat was against the machine or against the farmer. We
Speaker 1: will talk about how threats against threshing machines really started
Speaker 1: to grow after a sponsor break. Machine breaking as a
Speaker 1: form of protest in Britain stretches back to at least
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century. Some of the earliest examples were in
Speaker 1: the textile industry. For example, in sixteen seventy five, there
Speaker 1: was a four day long uprising in the Spittlefields area
Speaker 1: of London in which weavers broke apart newly developed looms
Speaker 1: that were described as being able to do the work
Speaker 1: of twenty men. In seventeen seventy nine, three hundred knitting
Speaker 1: frames belonging to Samuel Nead were destroyed after he gave
Speaker 1: evidence against knitters who were petitioning Parliament for better working conditions.
Speaker 1: The Ludite Uprising of the eighteen teens was, of course
Speaker 1: another examp of this machine braking a big driver. In
Speaker 1: a lot of these protests was people being put out
Speaker 1: of work by more efficient machinery or skilled workers being
Speaker 1: replaced by machine operators who didn't need the same level
Speaker 1: of training and expertise. There was often an argument that
Speaker 1: in the long term these innovations would increase productivity and
Speaker 1: bring down prices, which would make the goods more affordable,
Speaker 1: which would increase demand, which would lead to more jobs.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that was more or less true, but that didn't
Speaker 1: really help people in the short term. Sometimes the quality
Speaker 1: of machine made goods was also an issue. This is
Speaker 1: also something to put in the context of a country
Speaker 1: that has worked on a guild system for all labor
Speaker 1: for a long time. People either perceived that the quality
Speaker 1: of these machine made goods was worse or that was
Speaker 1: definitively true, but that drop in quality was one of
Speaker 1: the issues in the Luddite uprising. There were also pro
Speaker 1: tests in agricultural communities in response to mechanization. In eighteen sixteen,
Speaker 1: in part because of the unusually cold, wet weather and
Speaker 1: its effects on agriculture, there were multiple disconnected protests targeting
Speaker 1: agricultural equipment. Threshing tackle was destroyed near Colchester and in
Speaker 1: South Suffolk people broke threshing machines and mole plows, which
Speaker 1: were used to dig underground drainage channels through fields with
Speaker 1: a lot less effort than you could do them by hand.
Speaker 1: This happened alongside food riots in more urban areas, and
Speaker 1: sometimes this is all known as the bread or Blood
Speaker 1: protests for a banner that was carried by some of
Speaker 1: the demonstrators. The Swing riots started in eighteen thirty. Farmers
Speaker 1: in Kent had petitioned for a postponement of attacks on
Speaker 1: hops in eighteen twenty nine and they had been denied.
Speaker 1: There were also political changes going on at a national
Speaker 1: and international level. King George the Fourth died in June
Speaker 1: of eighteen thirty and he was followed by William the
Speaker 1: Fourth in July of eighteen thirty. A revolution in France
Speaker 1: led to the overthrow of Charles the tenth, which helped
Speaker 1: inspire revolutionary ideals among artisans and workers in England. The
Speaker 1: first documented attack on a threshing machine took place at
Speaker 1: Wingmore in the Elam Valley area of East Kent a
Speaker 1: month later. So for some time leading up to this,
Speaker 1: workers and artisans in the area had been warning local
Speaker 1: landowners that if they did not stop using threshing machines,
Speaker 1: those machines would be destroyed. On August twenty fourth, the
Speaker 1: group of about twenty men started destroying all the threshing
Speaker 1: machines that were still in use. This went on for weeks,
Speaker 1: with more people joining the mob, and that mob moved
Speaker 1: all over Kent. In October, two people near Dover received
Speaker 1: a letter that read quote, you are to notice that
Speaker 1: if you don't put away your threshing against Monday next
Speaker 1: you shall have a swing. Swing meant that they would
Speaker 1: swing from the gallows or be hanged. The letters were
Speaker 1: signed Swing, which took on multiple layers of meaning, the
Speaker 1: threat of hanging, the swing of a flail in threshing,
Speaker 1: and Captain Swing. Unlike the Luddite Uprising, in which ned
Speaker 1: Lud became something of a mythical leader of the demonstrators,
Speaker 1: Captain Swing wasn't really the persona of a leader, just
Speaker 1: the author of menacing notes and documents demanding the end
Speaker 1: of threshing machines or other concessions. Another thing that happened
Speaker 1: in October was that journalist and political commentator William Cobbitt
Speaker 1: took a lecture tour through Kent and Sussex, and Cobbitt's
Speaker 1: story as a whole saga, he could definitely be his
Speaker 1: own episode. I just kept finding more things about him
Speaker 1: that kind of needed to go in here, or that
Speaker 1: I wanted to put in here but didn't really fit.
Speaker 1: So we are just giving enough sense of like why
Speaker 1: he became such a big part of this whole thing.
Speaker 1: He was the son of a farmer and a publican
Speaker 1: meeting His father ran a pub, and when he was
Speaker 1: young he worked as a gardener and a plowboy. He
Speaker 1: joined the army and then after being discharged, he wrote
Speaker 1: a pamphlet called The Soldier's Friend about the harsh conditions
Speaker 1: that soldiers were subjected to. He also tried to have
Speaker 1: some of the officers who helped create those conditions court martialed,
Speaker 1: and in seventeen ninety two, when it became clear that
Speaker 1: this was not going to go Cobbot's way, he and
Speaker 1: his wife Nancy Ann, fled to France and then to
Speaker 1: the United States, where he taught English to French emigrants.
Speaker 1: Cobbott's opinions at this point probably don't line up with
Speaker 1: what you might expect based on what Tracy just said
Speaker 1: he was fiercely against the French Revolution, and he wrote
Speaker 1: a lot about that. He called the political philosopher Thomas Payne,
Speaker 1: author of Common Sense and the Right of Man, sometimes
Speaker 1: also called the father of the American Revolution quote, a
Speaker 1: man famous for nothing but his blasphemy and his hatred
Speaker 1: of England. Cobbot was generally anti revolution, anti republican, and
Speaker 1: anti democratic reforms in England. He had to go back
Speaker 1: to England in eighteen hundred after doctor Benjamin Rush successfully
Speaker 1: sued him for libel for things that he had printed
Speaker 1: in his newspaper Porcupine's Gazette. Back in England, Cobbat continued
Speaker 1: to write articles against democratic reforms and for things like
Speaker 1: the enclosure of common lands. But Cobbitt's attitude started to
Speaker 1: change after he bought a farm in Hampshire in eighteen
Speaker 1: oh five and he toured the area and he saw
Speaker 1: how many farm workers were living in just desperate poverty.
Speaker 1: He wrote a book about what he witnessed across southern England,
Speaker 1: called Rural Rides, and described himself as deceived in his
Speaker 1: earlier view us. He became a really outspoken advocate for
Speaker 1: parliamentary reform, which is what he thought was necessary to
Speaker 1: address these issues. He faced a seditious libel charge for
Speaker 1: his writing on these subjects in eighteen o nine, and
Speaker 1: after representing himself in court, he was convicted. He was
Speaker 1: sentenced to two years in Newgate Prison, and he went bankrupt.
Speaker 1: Cobbit's advocacy could be a mixed bag, not just on
Speaker 1: these issues, but on a range of others. Some of
Speaker 1: his writing is racist and antisemitic, although some of these
Speaker 1: views did evolve over time. He was also motivated by
Speaker 1: the thought of returning to a romanticized idea of England,
Speaker 1: more like what he nostalgically remembered from his childhood. He
Speaker 1: had an idyllic picture in his mind of how things
Speaker 1: used to be an authentically English countryside of the past,
Speaker 1: but that was something that it just never really existed.
Speaker 1: He also didn't always have the same perspective on other
Speaker 1: workers who also faced hardship outside that world of agriculture
Speaker 1: and rural life. In his eighteen sixteen letter to the Luddites,
Speaker 1: he made a very strident defense of machinery, saying quote,
Speaker 1: I think then that it is quite clear that the
Speaker 1: existence of machinery to its present extent cannot possibly do
Speaker 1: the Journeyman any harm, but on the contrary that he
Speaker 1: must be injured by the destruction of machinery. After Cobbett
Speaker 1: was released from prison and got his finances back in order,
Speaker 1: he was able to buy another farm, and later a
Speaker 1: much bigger one. In eighteen sixteen, he established a periodical
Speaker 1: called The Political Register, in which he advocated for parliamentary reform.
Speaker 1: Not long after that he had to flee the country
Speaker 1: again under the threat of arrest for some of the
Speaker 1: things he had written, but he was able to return
Speaker 1: in eighteen nineteen. He brought with him the remains of
Speaker 1: Thomas Payne. He had become I'm an admirer of Paine's work,
Speaker 1: much different from his earlier thoughts on the man, and
Speaker 1: after learning that Pain had been buried in a plain
Speaker 1: field on his farm, Cobbitt wanted to give him a
Speaker 1: hero's burial back in England. That ever, actually happened, though,
Speaker 1: and Pain's remains were scattered. It's not clear where many
Speaker 1: of them wound up. This brings us back to the
Speaker 1: Swing Riots. In eighteen twenty eight, Cobbitt had started writing
Speaker 1: that an agricultural uprising was on the way if things
Speaker 1: did not change, and his October eighteen thirty. Lecture tour
Speaker 1: was seen as inflaming tensions in rural England as authorities
Speaker 1: started arresting and prosecuting demonstrators. They also focused on Cobbot
Speaker 1: and whether his speeches could be classified as libel or sedition.
Speaker 1: One man who was later convicted of arson, was reprieved
Speaker 1: after saying that he had been motivated by a speech
Speaker 1: Cobbitt gave in the town of Battle on October sixteenth.
Speaker 1: The diets continued to spread through October and November of
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty. Demonstrators broke threshing machines, they set fire to haystacks,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they slaughtered livestock. Often this was not a
Speaker 1: matter of just showing up, smashing things and setting fires
Speaker 1: and then moving on. Demonstrators would try to negotiate with
Speaker 1: landowners or clergy or other authority figures. First, Some farmers
Speaker 1: destroyed their own threshing machines with the hope that the
Speaker 1: demonstrators would leave them alone, or they would make concessions
Speaker 1: to the mob, like they would offer aid to the
Speaker 1: poor or promise better wages, or say they would get
Speaker 1: the clergy to return everyone's tithes. Sometimes these promises worked,
Speaker 1: but sometimes this did not work out, and then also
Speaker 1: sometimes after one mob had left, another one arrived and
Speaker 1: everything just started over. In some parts of England, mobs
Speaker 1: attacked businesses, demanded food or money from landowners, or demanded
Speaker 1: that the church return their ties, but without doing any
Speaker 1: machine breaking. There were also strikes, food riots, and demonstrations
Speaker 1: at churches and other places that offered relief to the poor.
Speaker 1: In some places, people attacked and threatened Irish farm workers
Speaker 1: and tried to drive them out of the area. All
Speaker 1: of this is considered part of the Swing riots, even
Speaker 1: if nobody broke any threshing machines or made any reference
Speaker 1: to captain Swing. Meanwhile, landowners and business owners contacted the
Speaker 1: Home Office and other authorities for help, and the administration
Speaker 1: of Prime Minister Charles Gray took steps to both put
Speaker 1: down the uprising and investigate Cobbet's involvement. Yeoman cavalry units
Speaker 1: were dispashed to try to deal with the unrest. On
Speaker 1: November twenty fifth, what was probably the most violent incident
Speaker 1: of the riots took place at the estate of John Bennett,
Speaker 1: known as Pit House. Bennett was an MP and a magistrate,
Speaker 1: and he had previously given evidence against the workers of
Speaker 1: the parish before the Poor Law Committee. Bennett had two
Speaker 1: threshing machines, which the mob destroyed after arming themselves with
Speaker 1: tools that they got at a nearby blacksmith. They also
Speaker 1: threw stones at Bennett and his steward. The Yeomanry was
Speaker 1: dispatched to try to restore order, leading to a skirmish
Speaker 1: in which one demonstrator, John Harding, was killed and many
Speaker 1: others were injured. At least twenty five were arrested. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about how the riots came to an end after
Speaker 1: a sponsor break. In addition to his lecture tour, William
Speaker 1: Cobbett wrote about the issues that were affecting rural workers
Speaker 1: and the Swing riots in his periodical two Penny Trash,
Speaker 1: which was a smaller, cheaper version of the Political Register.
Speaker 1: In November of eighteen thirty he published to the Working
Speaker 1: People of England, in which he described the ongoing destruction
Speaker 1: and arson as things that reasonable people would see as
Speaker 1: an abominable crime, But he went on to say that
Speaker 1: the question had to be asked of what would lead
Speaker 1: hundreds of people to carry out such crimes. He wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: I know this cause, or rather these causes. I know
Speaker 1: also that there is an effectual remedy of this great
Speaker 1: and melancholy evil, and I need not say that it
Speaker 1: is my duty to state them both with perfect frankness,
Speaker 1: a duty which I shall perform as briefly and with
Speaker 1: as much clearness as I am able. The great and
Speaker 1: general cause is the extreme poverty of the working people, or,
Speaker 1: in other words, the starving state in which they are.
Speaker 1: That Bible, which they have been taught to read as
Speaker 1: the means of saving their souls, tells them, from one
Speaker 1: end to the other that their bodies are also not
Speaker 1: to be left to perish for want, while the land
Speaker 1: abounds with plenty, and that plenty arising too from their
Speaker 1: own labor. It tells them, and they know it, that
Speaker 1: the laborer is worthy of his hire, and they know
Speaker 1: that that higher means a sufficiency not only for the
Speaker 1: man who works, but for his wife and children, and
Speaker 1: of clothes and fuel, and lodging too, as well as
Speaker 1: of victuals and drink. Can God, who commanded that even
Speaker 1: the ox should not be muzzled as he trod out
Speaker 1: the corn, be pleased to see men who have tilled
Speaker 1: the land, sowed the corn, and reaped it and housed it,
Speaker 1: forbidden to touch the flower, and condemned to eat roots
Speaker 1: or herbage not sufficient to keep a pig in good plight.
Speaker 1: Every line of holy writ tells them that this cannot
Speaker 1: be the will of God, while tradition, while all the
Speaker 1: sayings of their forefathers tell them that such a state
Speaker 1: of things is contrary also to the laws and customs
Speaker 1: of their native country. He went on to say that
Speaker 1: everyone in the country used to brew and drink their
Speaker 1: own beer, but now almost no one did, other than
Speaker 1: the one or two people who were given the malt
Speaker 1: to do it. And he said that people used to
Speaker 1: eat a variety of food, including meat, and now everyone
Speaker 1: was reduced to just subsisting mostly on potatoes. He described
Speaker 1: tax paying workers of the country as half starved, while
Speaker 1: the people who lived on those taxes were quote wallowing
Speaker 1: in luxury and splendor. From there, he went on at
Speaker 1: length about how many people in Britain had lucrative sinecures
Speaker 1: where they were paid lots of money to do little
Speaker 1: to know work. Many of those people paid pensions to
Speaker 1: their daughters and sisters from that money, which Cobbat thought
Speaker 1: was lucky for those women. But quote, what justice is
Speaker 1: there in taking away our bread and giving it to
Speaker 1: his daughters while we are reduced to grains and potatoes.
Speaker 1: He named a lot of names, multiple men who were
Speaker 1: getting big payments and their female relatives who were getting
Speaker 1: a few hundred pounds a year. Cobbatt listed a series
Speaker 1: of remedies, including the abolition of laws and taxes that
Speaker 1: he thought were penalizing rural workers, until Parliament could be reformed.
Speaker 1: In December of eighteen thirty, Hobbitt published a piece in
Speaker 1: the Political Register under the heading of Rural War. That
Speaker 1: was a phrase that he used a lot in his
Speaker 1: writing about these issues. This piece included two letters quote
Speaker 1: on the state of England in a warning to France.
Speaker 1: They were addressed to the editor of La Revolucion in Paris.
Speaker 1: He wrote, quote, as the working people have gone on
Speaker 1: getting poorer and poorer, they have become more and more immoral.
Speaker 1: And indeed, it has been proved by witnesses before the
Speaker 1: Committee of the House of Commons that in innumerable instances
Speaker 1: men have committed crimes for the purposes of getting into jail,
Speaker 1: because the felons in the jails are better fed and
Speaker 1: better clad than the honest working people. As the working
Speaker 1: people have become poor, the laws relating to them have
Speaker 1: been made more and more severe. And the poor law,
Speaker 1: that famous law of Elizabeth, which was the greatest glory
Speaker 1: of England for ages, has by degrees been so much
Speaker 1: mutilated and nullified, that at last it is so far
Speaker 1: from being a protection to the working people, that it has,
Speaker 1: by its perversions, been made the means of reducing them
Speaker 1: to a state of wretchedness not to be described. It
Speaker 1: is probably unsurprising that once again William Cobbett faced charges
Speaker 1: for all of this. He was accused of seditious libel
Speaker 1: and put on trial for inciting violence and disorder and
Speaker 1: quote the burning and destruction of corn grain machines and
Speaker 1: other property, as he had done back in eighteen nineteen.
Speaker 1: He represented himself, but this time the case ended in
Speaker 1: a hung jury, so he didn't wind up going back
Speaker 1: to prison or having to flee the country. Some of
Speaker 1: the first demonstrators who faced charges during the Swing riots
Speaker 1: got relatively light sentences. They spent just a few days
Speaker 1: in jail. But as this popular uprising grew and spread,
Speaker 1: authorities became a lot more concerned about putting it down.
Speaker 1: Among other things. The July Revolution in France raised a
Speaker 1: lot of fears that something similar might happen in England. Typically,
Speaker 1: cases would have been heard based on when all of
Speaker 1: this happened at the Lent Assizes in March of eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty one, but authorities did not want to wait that long.
Speaker 1: On November twenty third Home Secretary William Lamb, second Viscount Melbourne,
Speaker 1: offered a reward for helping to arrest people who were
Speaker 1: involved in the Swing riots and give testimony against them.
Speaker 1: He also created special commissions to prosecute the accused. Between
Speaker 1: December eighteenth, eighteen thirty and January fourteenth, eighteen thirty one
Speaker 1: cases were tried before special commissions across southern and eastern
Speaker 1: arth England. During these proceedings, two hundred and fifty two
Speaker 1: people were condemned to death, although ultimately only nineteen of
Speaker 1: those were hanged. Either four hundred eighty one or five
Speaker 1: hundred and five people were transported to Australia both of
Speaker 1: those numbers appear in multiple places in the research, and
Speaker 1: almost six hundred and fifty people went to prison. The
Speaker 1: people who face trial weren't just farm workers. They also
Speaker 1: included blacksmiths, cobblers, carpenters, wheelwrights, and various other workers and artisans.
Speaker 1: Between the start of the Swing Riots in eighteen thirty
Speaker 1: and the end of these legal proceedings in eighteen thirty one,
Speaker 1: there were at least three thousand incidents. They took place
Speaker 1: across most of southern and eastern England and in parts
Speaker 1: of central England. This makes the Swing Riots one of
Speaker 1: the largest popular uprisings in England since the Peasant's Revolt
Speaker 1: of thirteen eighty one, which is also known as wat
Speaker 1: Tyler's Rebellion. We covered that rebellion on the show before,
Speaker 1: and these incidents did not immediately stop with the trials
Speaker 1: and convictions. There were more scattered incidents that continued, and
Speaker 1: Cobbitt kept writing about this rural war at least until
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty four. In terms of the Swing Riots impact,
Speaker 1: the day to day lives of farm workers really didn't
Speaker 1: change all that much. Some of the landowners who did
Speaker 1: promise to make changes didn't keep those promises. A new
Speaker 1: poor law passed in eighteen thirty four required that people
Speaker 1: who were sent to workhouses be clothed and fed, and
Speaker 1: for children in workhouses to be educated, but this law
Speaker 1: further expanded the use of workhouses, leading to the Victorian
Speaker 1: era workhouses that were depicted in the works of people
Speaker 1: like Charles Dickens. But the Swing Riots are seen as
Speaker 1: a factor in Parliament's passage of the Great Reform Act
Speaker 1: of eighteen thirty two. Correlation between the districts that saw
Speaker 1: uprisings and demonstrations during the riots and the districts that
Speaker 1: voted for pro reform members of parliament. This act got
Speaker 1: rid of a lot of the rotten boroughs, which were
Speaker 1: represented in Parliament but did not actually have many people
Speaker 1: living there. It also created new boroughs and it made
Speaker 1: more people eligible to vote. This included small landowners, tenant
Speaker 1: farmers and shopkeepers, as well as householders who paid a
Speaker 1: yearly rental of at least ten pounds, but under this
Speaker 1: Act only men had the right to vote, and a
Speaker 1: lot of the poorest farm workers still did not qualify.
Speaker 1: The creation of new districts allowed William Cobbett to become
Speaker 1: a member of Parliament. He was elected to represent Oldham,
Speaker 1: which was created under the Act, in the House of Commons.
Speaker 1: He strongly objected to the eighteen thirty four Poor Law,
Speaker 1: and after it passed, he openly called for a popular uprising,
Speaker 1: something he had explicitly denounced earlier in his life and
Speaker 1: only somewhat hinted at during the Swing riots. The parliamentary
Speaker 1: reform that passed in eighteen thirty two was more limited
Speaker 1: than what Cobbat had advocated for, but he was still
Speaker 1: devastated that a reformed parliament, which he had been so
Speaker 1: sure was needed to improve things in rural England, had
Speaker 1: instead voted to penalize poverty even further. His later writing
Speaker 1: included a number of books that explored the way the
Speaker 1: Crown had dispossessed poor people in England, and he was
Speaker 1: bankrupt when he died of influenza in eighteen thirty five.
Speaker 1: I find him very interesting. He is interesting, kind of
Speaker 1: a pill. Yeah, he's a lot of things. There are layers.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that more on Friday. I'm sure I
Speaker 1: have some listener mail to wrap this up, and this
Speaker 1: is from Rachel. Rachel wrote, Hi, Tracy and Holly, very
Speaker 1: long time listener, fourth time writer, behind the scenes about
Speaker 1: the Bunker Hill monument and Elizabeth Blackwell struck a chord
Speaker 1: with me. I will be making my first visit to
Speaker 1: London this Fall to see the Bayeux Tapestry and whatever
Speaker 1: else I can manage to enjoy in two weeks. Yes,
Speaker 1: I already have tickets to see the tapestry. When Tracy
Speaker 1: told us about the Blackwell exhibit at Oxford, I looked
Speaker 1: it up and was disappointed that it will be over
Speaker 1: before my trip. The discussion about Bunker Hill and the
Speaker 1: steps brought back memories of taking my boys to at
Speaker 1: American History vacation in two thousand and doing the Freedom
Speaker 1: Trail in Boston. When we got to Bunker Hill, they
Speaker 1: still had enough energy to climb to the top. I
Speaker 1: had a knee problem that made stairs painful, so I
Speaker 1: took the time to rest. Now the problem is long gone.
Speaker 1: I guess I should try to go back and climb
Speaker 1: to the top of the monument. Back to my London trip,
Speaker 1: I have reserved a place for a tour of Big
Speaker 1: Ben and they tell you multiple times that you have
Speaker 1: to be able to walk up three hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: four steps, not all at once, as there are stops.
Speaker 1: They are also very careful to tell you that you
Speaker 1: must be able to tolerate the noise of the bells
Speaker 1: and walk through narrow passageways since I live in a
Speaker 1: three story town home, the steps are not a problem.
Speaker 1: I probably get that many done before noon. It's not
Speaker 1: a to hour many people take and I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to being one of them. No pet photos, but I
Speaker 1: did read this article in the New York Times and
Speaker 1: that made me think of you both. Thanks for keeping
Speaker 1: me company at the gym and the kitchen, Rachel. Thank
Speaker 1: you for this email, Rachel. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: things so number one, So many cool things to do
Speaker 1: in Oxford, even though that exhibit will not be there
Speaker 1: by the time of your trip, So if you have
Speaker 1: time to make it out to Oxford, there's a jillion
Speaker 1: great things to do. I'm also impressed by anybody who
Speaker 1: does the whole Freedom Trail, Yeah, because I think it's
Speaker 1: something like two point seven miles maybe, which does not
Speaker 1: sound that long to me because I go on like
Speaker 1: five to seven mile hikes with some regularity. But walking
Speaker 1: that long on city streets feels a little different and
Speaker 1: people often wind up. Wait, does it sound harder to
Speaker 1: you too? It sounds harder because it's not nice, soft
Speaker 1: giving ground. It's it's hard pavement under my feet, total opposite. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is fascinating. Well, because it's an Uh, it's inconsistent
Speaker 1: if you're out in nature and you know it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you know, I mean, city streets can also be inconsistent.
Speaker 1: They're gonna be paving problems, et cetera. But to me,
Speaker 1: that's sure. Like when I was running regularly, I would
Speaker 1: always rather run a sidewalk than on a trail. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people start the Freedom Trail
Speaker 1: and wind up kind of clocking out because they sort
Speaker 1: of realize this feels a lot farther than I thought
Speaker 1: it was going to based on it being two point
Speaker 1: seven miles or however exactly long it is. So the
Speaker 1: article that was sent is an article in the New
Speaker 1: York Times that is headlined your cat is being nice?
Speaker 1: Think again. A new study finds that sometimes cats groom
Speaker 1: each other specifically to be annoying. And this finding does
Speaker 1: not surprise me either, because I will for sure watch
Speaker 1: my cats, like start out with a nice little bath
Speaker 1: and it looks like they're being kind of cuddly, but
Speaker 1: one of them is slowly transitioning that into antagonizing her sister. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, when we had both of our Siamese, they
Speaker 1: engaged in what we called competitive grooming where it would
Speaker 1: just be like, no, I'm clicking you, and they would
Speaker 1: just back and forth with that. For a long time.
Speaker 1: I thought they were going to come away bald. Sometimes
Speaker 1: aw I can imagine exactly what that looks like. So
Speaker 1: thank you Rachel for this email and for sending that article.
Speaker 1: I had not seen that. If you would like to
Speaker 1: send us a note or a history podcast that iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: dot com. If you would like to see the show
Speaker 1: notes where we have all the research for our episodes,
Speaker 1: us at our website, which is missinhistory dot com, and
Speaker 1: you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app
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