WEBVTT - Swing Riots 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:14.320 of iHeartRadio. Hello and Welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.759 Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. A few years ago, we 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:21.080 did an episode on the Rebecca Riots, which started in 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:24.319 Wales in eighteen thirty nine, and at the time I 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:27.319 had been looking for something that had some parallels to 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:31.120 the Ludite uprising that started in central England a couple 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:35.360 of decades before that. That was because the idea of 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:40.319 workers smashing the machines that were replacing their jobs and 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:43.720 cranking out inferior product that just felt like it had 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:46.640 some relevance in the moment that we were living in. 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:49.479 We had already covered the Luodites, though, all the way 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.080 back in twenty thirteen, so I couldn't just do that again. 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:54.680 I was looking for something else, and the Rebecca Riots 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:57.360 were not quite the same thing, but they did grow 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:00.480 out of some of the same context. There were some 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:05.280 similar themes there, including difficult economic conditions these things were 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.720 growing out of, and also smashing stuff. The smashing stuff 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:13.840 I particularly enjoy. The Rebecca Riots are most remembered for 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:17.319 attacks on tollgates, where people had to pay money to 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.800 use the roads, while the Luddite Uprising became infamous because 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.679 people were smashing the stocking frames that were being used 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.880 in the textile industry. Of course, that is only a 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:33.919 small part of each of those things. So another uprising 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:36.680 came up while I was researching the Rebecca Riots, and 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:39.840 that was the Swing Riots that took place primarily in 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:43.880 eastern and southern England in the years in between the 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:47.960 Luddite Uprising and the Rebecca Riots. One of the hallmarks 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:52.120 of the Swing Riots was the destruction of threshing machines, 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.120 but again that is just one part of the story. 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.560 When I discovered the mention of the Swing Riots, it 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.040 was too late to change topic, so I decided to 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:04.760 put that on the list for later. In the eighteen 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:09.000 twenties and thirties, farmers in rural England were struggling for 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:14.760 a lot of reasons. One was enclosure. Historically, much of 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:18.160 the arable land in England was considered to be common land. 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:22.120 A person's crop was theirs, but outside of growing season, 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:26.840 other people could access and use that same land, including 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:31.440 as grazing land for their animals. Livestock were also fed 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:35.959 hey that grew in communal meadows. The process of enclosing 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:39.079 land with fences and hedges and putting it under private 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.880 control started in the twelfth century and went through a 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:46.800 couple of major waves. One of those waves started around 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:51.600 seventeen fifty and continued through the mid nineteenth century. About 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:55.440 six million acres of common land in England were enclosed 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:59.320 between seventeen seventy and eighteen thirty, and by the end 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:02.760 of the nineteen century almost all of the arable land 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:07.639 was enclosed. During this process, some people who lost access 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.880 to land moved to cities and towns to look for work, 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.280 but other people just lost their livelihoods and they got 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:18.160 no compensation. They really didn't have any other options other 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.679 than trying to find a job working for somebody who 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:25.560 was now in control of that land. So in addition 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:29.400 to losing their livelihoods, people became a lot more dependent 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:34.360 upon landowner's goodwill or the lack of it. Also, during 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:37.320 the Napoleonic Wars, which stretched from eighteen oh three to 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:41.720 eighteen fifteen, agricultural workers had been able to earn higher 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:46.240 wages because so many men were away at war. Once 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:50.200 the war was over and surviving soldiers and sailors returned home, 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.800 there was an over supply of workers and wages dropped. 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.240 The end of the war also led to fears of 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.520 a collapse in green prices as trade was real established 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:05.320 across Europe. In eighteen fifteen, Parliament passed a corn Law 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:09.200 to regulate corn imports and try to protect landowners and 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:14.040 farmers from falling prices, but ordinary workers saw this as 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.680 making grain more expensive for them to buy, especially since 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:21.159 eighteen sixteen was the year without a summer, which we 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:25.080 have talked about on the show before. Protests and riots 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:28.520 against the corn laws overlapped with the swing riots and 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:32.359 continued until those laws were repealed in eighteen forty six. 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:36.440 Attitudes about the poor were also changing in the UK 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:40.520 in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The costs 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.719 of relief for poor people had really surged during the 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:48.920 Napoleonic Wars, and politicians and political economists started really focusing 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:52.760 on how to bring those costs down, and one tool 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.320 to try to do that was the workhouse. Although the 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.640 idea of workhouses dates back to at least the mid 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:03.440 seven teenth century. In England, the Act to Amend the 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:06.680 Law for the Relief of the Poor passed in eighteen nineteen, 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.640 provided for the expansion of workhouses and the building of 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:15.320 new ones. It also empowered and required the select Vestries, 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:20.000 or the people who managed each parish, to quote, inquire into, 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:23.520 and determine upon the proper objects of relief and the 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:26.440 nature and amount of the relief to be given, and 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:30.159 in each case to take into consideration the character and 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:34.520 conduct of the poor person to be relieved. The select 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:38.479 Vestries were also quote at liberty to distinguish in the 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.960 relief to be granted between the deserving and the idle, 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:47.479 extravagant or profligate poor. So by eighteen thirty most parishes 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:51.599 in England had at least one workhouse, and a deserving 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:55.920 poor person could often get cash relief, while someone deemed 0:05:56.080 --> 0:06:00.120 undeserving would be sent to the workhouse. This was also 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:04.000 connected to the tithe. People were expected to donate ten 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:07.280 percent of their income to their local parish, and that 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:10.400 could be done with an inkind donation of produce or 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:14.000 of some other good that they grew or farmed or made. 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.000 A lot of people could not afford the tithe. In 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:20.800 light of everything that we've just talked about, and beyond that, 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:24.000 this whole practice was starting to seem out of date 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:27.680 to people, considering the way English society and the English 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:32.520 economy were changing. Working people protested against the tithe and 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.520 against efforts to reform the tithe in a way that 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.760 would make it more expensive for them. One of these 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.800 proposed reforms was a change to cash payments that could 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:45.160 be made in lieu of tithing part of the dairy production, 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.000 since fresh milk couldn't be stored in the way that 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:52.320 some other agricultural products could. The amount of these payments 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:55.159 hadn't changed in centuries, and the Church wanted to bring 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:59.000 them in line with their current value. But farmers, of course, 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:02.200 did not want to pay more on top of all 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:05.560 of that which was already a lot. The harvest was 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:09.600 particularly poor in eighteen twenty nine and eighteen thirty. English 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:14.680 agricultural laborers also faced increased competition for jobs as workers 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:18.679 moved to England from Ireland, and the thing that became 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:23.160 emblematic of the swing riots human threshers were being replaced 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:27.600 by machines. So threshing is the process of separating the 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:31.040 edible part of a grain from its stock and husk. 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:34.520 This was a late fall in winter activity after the 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:38.440 grain had been harvested and allowed to dry. Before the 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:43.720 development of threshing machines. This was an intensely manual process. Laborers, 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.800 mostly men, would beat bundles of grain with a flail 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:50.880 to separate the grain. Manual threshing was hard work, but 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:53.760 it could provide up to fifty percent of a farm 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:57.360 laborer's winter income, and of course in the winter there 0:07:57.360 --> 0:07:59.800 were not many other ways for a farmer to make 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:03.640 more money. The first threshing machines were developed in the 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:08.000 eighteenth century. Michael Menzies of Edinburgh invented a machine for 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:11.680 threshing grain in seventeen thirty two and patented it in 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:15.760 seventeen thirty four. In seventeen seventy eight, Andrew Meekil of 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.920 Scotland invented a machine that might have been based on 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:24.120 that earlier design. These initial attempts to make threshing machines 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.080 did not work all that well, but threshing machines driven 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:31.480 by water or horses started to become more reliable and 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:35.560 more cost effective in the eighteen teens. These machines were 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:40.439 vastly more efficient than human threshers, so as more landowners 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:43.000 started buying them, people were just out of a job. 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:46.360 It did not take long for people to start making 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:50.880 threats over threshing machines. In seventeen ninety one, a farmer 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:55.160 in Wimbledon named Patterson was threatened with arson after installing 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:58.720 a threshing machine. Although it isn't fully clear whether the 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:02.680 threat was against the machine or against the farmer. We 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:06.400 will talk about how threats against threshing machines really started 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:19.320 to grow after a sponsor break. Machine breaking as a 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.320 form of protest in Britain stretches back to at least 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.920 the seventeenth century. Some of the earliest examples were in 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:30.079 the textile industry. For example, in sixteen seventy five, there 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:33.560 was a four day long uprising in the Spittlefields area 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:38.600 of London in which weavers broke apart newly developed looms 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:40.680 that were described as being able to do the work 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:46.120 of twenty men. In seventeen seventy nine, three hundred knitting 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:50.240 frames belonging to Samuel Nead were destroyed after he gave 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:55.119 evidence against knitters who were petitioning Parliament for better working conditions. 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.040 The Ludite Uprising of the eighteen teens was, of course 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:03.480 another examp of this machine braking a big driver. In 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:05.920 a lot of these protests was people being put out 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:10.040 of work by more efficient machinery or skilled workers being 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:13.720 replaced by machine operators who didn't need the same level 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:17.400 of training and expertise. There was often an argument that 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.760 in the long term these innovations would increase productivity and 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:25.000 bring down prices, which would make the goods more affordable, 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:28.600 which would increase demand, which would lead to more jobs. 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.240 Sometimes that was more or less true, but that didn't 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:36.319 really help people in the short term. Sometimes the quality 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:40.920 of machine made goods was also an issue. This is 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.480 also something to put in the context of a country 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:46.360 that has worked on a guild system for all labor 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.680 for a long time. People either perceived that the quality 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.120 of these machine made goods was worse or that was 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.439 definitively true, but that drop in quality was one of 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:59.880 the issues in the Luddite uprising. There were also pro 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:05.480 tests in agricultural communities in response to mechanization. In eighteen sixteen, 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:08.760 in part because of the unusually cold, wet weather and 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:13.880 its effects on agriculture, there were multiple disconnected protests targeting 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:19.080 agricultural equipment. Threshing tackle was destroyed near Colchester and in 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:23.760 South Suffolk people broke threshing machines and mole plows, which 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:28.240 were used to dig underground drainage channels through fields with 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:30.920 a lot less effort than you could do them by hand. 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:35.240 This happened alongside food riots in more urban areas, and 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.040 sometimes this is all known as the bread or Blood 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:40.839 protests for a banner that was carried by some of 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:46.559 the demonstrators. The Swing riots started in eighteen thirty. Farmers 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:50.199 in Kent had petitioned for a postponement of attacks on 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.520 hops in eighteen twenty nine and they had been denied. 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:57.760 There were also political changes going on at a national 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:02.280 and international level. King George the Fourth died in June 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:04.840 of eighteen thirty and he was followed by William the 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:08.720 Fourth in July of eighteen thirty. A revolution in France 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.720 led to the overthrow of Charles the tenth, which helped 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:16.960 inspire revolutionary ideals among artisans and workers in England. The 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:21.200 first documented attack on a threshing machine took place at 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:24.520 Wingmore in the Elam Valley area of East Kent a 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:28.360 month later. So for some time leading up to this, 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:32.080 workers and artisans in the area had been warning local 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:36.600 landowners that if they did not stop using threshing machines, 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.040 those machines would be destroyed. On August twenty fourth, the 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:43.640 group of about twenty men started destroying all the threshing 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:47.000 machines that were still in use. This went on for weeks, 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.000 with more people joining the mob, and that mob moved 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:55.199 all over Kent. In October, two people near Dover received 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.120 a letter that read quote, you are to notice that 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:02.200 if you don't put away your threshing against Monday next 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:07.000 you shall have a swing. Swing meant that they would 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.640 swing from the gallows or be hanged. The letters were 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.480 signed Swing, which took on multiple layers of meaning, the 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.960 threat of hanging, the swing of a flail in threshing, 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:23.120 and Captain Swing. Unlike the Luddite Uprising, in which ned 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:26.320 Lud became something of a mythical leader of the demonstrators, 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:30.680 Captain Swing wasn't really the persona of a leader, just 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.120 the author of menacing notes and documents demanding the end 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:39.240 of threshing machines or other concessions. Another thing that happened 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:43.840 in October was that journalist and political commentator William Cobbitt 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:48.080 took a lecture tour through Kent and Sussex, and Cobbitt's 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:51.080 story as a whole saga, he could definitely be his 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:55.080 own episode. I just kept finding more things about him 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.120 that kind of needed to go in here, or that 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.440 I wanted to put in here but didn't really fit. 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:03.120 So we are just giving enough sense of like why 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:05.199 he became such a big part of this whole thing. 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:08.800 He was the son of a farmer and a publican 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:12.000 meeting His father ran a pub, and when he was 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.320 young he worked as a gardener and a plowboy. He 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.240 joined the army and then after being discharged, he wrote 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.920 a pamphlet called The Soldier's Friend about the harsh conditions 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:26.080 that soldiers were subjected to. He also tried to have 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:30.240 some of the officers who helped create those conditions court martialed, 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:33.280 and in seventeen ninety two, when it became clear that 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.720 this was not going to go Cobbot's way, he and 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:40.080 his wife Nancy Ann, fled to France and then to 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:43.360 the United States, where he taught English to French emigrants. 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:47.760 Cobbott's opinions at this point probably don't line up with 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:50.480 what you might expect based on what Tracy just said 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:54.360 he was fiercely against the French Revolution, and he wrote 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:58.120 a lot about that. He called the political philosopher Thomas Payne, 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.680 author of Common Sense and the Right of Man, sometimes 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:04.720 also called the father of the American Revolution quote, a 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:08.480 man famous for nothing but his blasphemy and his hatred 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:14.360 of England. Cobbot was generally anti revolution, anti republican, and 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:18.800 anti democratic reforms in England. He had to go back 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:23.040 to England in eighteen hundred after doctor Benjamin Rush successfully 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:25.720 sued him for libel for things that he had printed 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:31.520 in his newspaper Porcupine's Gazette. Back in England, Cobbat continued 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.560 to write articles against democratic reforms and for things like 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:40.920 the enclosure of common lands. But Cobbitt's attitude started to 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:43.960 change after he bought a farm in Hampshire in eighteen 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:47.120 oh five and he toured the area and he saw 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.760 how many farm workers were living in just desperate poverty. 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.600 He wrote a book about what he witnessed across southern England, 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:59.040 called Rural Rides, and described himself as deceived in his 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:03.160 earlier view us. He became a really outspoken advocate for 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:06.680 parliamentary reform, which is what he thought was necessary to 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:11.520 address these issues. He faced a seditious libel charge for 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.480 his writing on these subjects in eighteen o nine, and 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:19.560 after representing himself in court, he was convicted. He was 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:22.880 sentenced to two years in Newgate Prison, and he went bankrupt. 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.720 Cobbit's advocacy could be a mixed bag, not just on 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:30.000 these issues, but on a range of others. Some of 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:33.680 his writing is racist and antisemitic, although some of these 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:37.760 views did evolve over time. He was also motivated by 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:41.560 the thought of returning to a romanticized idea of England, 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:46.120 more like what he nostalgically remembered from his childhood. He 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.200 had an idyllic picture in his mind of how things 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:53.560 used to be an authentically English countryside of the past, 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:56.560 but that was something that it just never really existed. 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:00.840 He also didn't always have the same perspective on other 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:05.720 workers who also faced hardship outside that world of agriculture 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:10.440 and rural life. In his eighteen sixteen letter to the Luddites, 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:15.080 he made a very strident defense of machinery, saying quote, 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:17.600 I think then that it is quite clear that the 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:21.359 existence of machinery to its present extent cannot possibly do 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:25.520 the Journeyman any harm, but on the contrary that he 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:30.520 must be injured by the destruction of machinery. After Cobbett 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:33.680 was released from prison and got his finances back in order, 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:36.919 he was able to buy another farm, and later a 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:41.119 much bigger one. In eighteen sixteen, he established a periodical 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:46.360 called The Political Register, in which he advocated for parliamentary reform. 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:49.240 Not long after that he had to flee the country 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:51.840 again under the threat of arrest for some of the 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:54.520 things he had written, but he was able to return 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:58.119 in eighteen nineteen. He brought with him the remains of 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.760 Thomas Payne. He had become I'm an admirer of Paine's work, 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:04.719 much different from his earlier thoughts on the man, and 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:07.560 after learning that Pain had been buried in a plain 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:10.760 field on his farm, Cobbitt wanted to give him a 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:15.679 hero's burial back in England. That ever, actually happened, though, 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.800 and Pain's remains were scattered. It's not clear where many 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:23.080 of them wound up. This brings us back to the 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:27.119 Swing Riots. In eighteen twenty eight, Cobbitt had started writing 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:30.320 that an agricultural uprising was on the way if things 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:34.200 did not change, and his October eighteen thirty. Lecture tour 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:39.240 was seen as inflaming tensions in rural England as authorities 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:43.800 started arresting and prosecuting demonstrators. They also focused on Cobbot 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.640 and whether his speeches could be classified as libel or sedition. 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:51.920 One man who was later convicted of arson, was reprieved 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:54.879 after saying that he had been motivated by a speech 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.520 Cobbitt gave in the town of Battle on October sixteenth. 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:03.119 The diets continued to spread through October and November of 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:08.920 eighteen thirty. Demonstrators broke threshing machines, they set fire to haystacks, 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:13.040 and sometimes they slaughtered livestock. Often this was not a 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.680 matter of just showing up, smashing things and setting fires 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:20.240 and then moving on. Demonstrators would try to negotiate with 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:25.119 landowners or clergy or other authority figures. First, Some farmers 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:28.439 destroyed their own threshing machines with the hope that the 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:32.080 demonstrators would leave them alone, or they would make concessions 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:34.000 to the mob, like they would offer aid to the 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:37.640 poor or promise better wages, or say they would get 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:42.760 the clergy to return everyone's tithes. Sometimes these promises worked, 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.560 but sometimes this did not work out, and then also 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:50.000 sometimes after one mob had left, another one arrived and 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:54.119 everything just started over. In some parts of England, mobs 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:58.800 attacked businesses, demanded food or money from landowners, or demanded 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:02.399 that the church return their ties, but without doing any 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:07.280 machine breaking. There were also strikes, food riots, and demonstrations 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:10.679 at churches and other places that offered relief to the poor. 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:15.520 In some places, people attacked and threatened Irish farm workers 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:19.160 and tried to drive them out of the area. All 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.200 of this is considered part of the Swing riots, even 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:25.960 if nobody broke any threshing machines or made any reference 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:31.679 to captain Swing. Meanwhile, landowners and business owners contacted the 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:35.440 Home Office and other authorities for help, and the administration 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:38.560 of Prime Minister Charles Gray took steps to both put 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:44.280 down the uprising and investigate Cobbet's involvement. Yeoman cavalry units 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:47.320 were dispashed to try to deal with the unrest. On 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.920 November twenty fifth, what was probably the most violent incident 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:54.280 of the riots took place at the estate of John Bennett, 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:58.560 known as Pit House. Bennett was an MP and a magistrate, 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.639 and he had previously given evidence against the workers of 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:06.000 the parish before the Poor Law Committee. Bennett had two 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:09.639 threshing machines, which the mob destroyed after arming themselves with 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:13.760 tools that they got at a nearby blacksmith. They also 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:17.960 threw stones at Bennett and his steward. The Yeomanry was 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:21.159 dispatched to try to restore order, leading to a skirmish 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:25.320 in which one demonstrator, John Harding, was killed and many 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:29.720 others were injured. At least twenty five were arrested. We'll 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:32.240 talk about how the riots came to an end after 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:45.640 a sponsor break. In addition to his lecture tour, William 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:49.200 Cobbett wrote about the issues that were affecting rural workers 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:52.800 and the Swing riots in his periodical two Penny Trash, 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:56.080 which was a smaller, cheaper version of the Political Register. 0:21:57.080 --> 0:21:59.879 In November of eighteen thirty he published to the Working 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:03.480 People of England, in which he described the ongoing destruction 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:07.479 and arson as things that reasonable people would see as 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:10.760 an abominable crime, But he went on to say that 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:13.800 the question had to be asked of what would lead 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:18.320 hundreds of people to carry out such crimes. He wrote, quote, 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:22.399 I know this cause, or rather these causes. I know 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:25.399 also that there is an effectual remedy of this great 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:28.959 and melancholy evil, and I need not say that it 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:31.959 is my duty to state them both with perfect frankness, 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:35.439 a duty which I shall perform as briefly and with 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:39.000 as much clearness as I am able. The great and 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:43.720 general cause is the extreme poverty of the working people, or, 0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:46.400 in other words, the starving state in which they are. 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:50.000 That Bible, which they have been taught to read as 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:53.240 the means of saving their souls, tells them, from one 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:56.000 end to the other that their bodies are also not 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:58.879 to be left to perish for want, while the land 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:02.360 abounds with plenty, and that plenty arising too from their 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:06.000 own labor. It tells them, and they know it, that 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:09.280 the laborer is worthy of his hire, and they know 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:12.159 that that higher means a sufficiency not only for the 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:15.399 man who works, but for his wife and children, and 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:18.600 of clothes and fuel, and lodging too, as well as 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:22.879 of victuals and drink. Can God, who commanded that even 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:25.480 the ox should not be muzzled as he trod out 0:23:25.520 --> 0:23:28.639 the corn, be pleased to see men who have tilled 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:31.880 the land, sowed the corn, and reaped it and housed it, 0:23:32.320 --> 0:23:35.840 forbidden to touch the flower, and condemned to eat roots 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:39.439 or herbage not sufficient to keep a pig in good plight. 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:43.440 Every line of holy writ tells them that this cannot 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:46.639 be the will of God, while tradition, while all the 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:49.720 sayings of their forefathers tell them that such a state 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:53.280 of things is contrary also to the laws and customs 0:23:53.320 --> 0:23:56.199 of their native country. He went on to say that 0:23:56.280 --> 0:23:59.200 everyone in the country used to brew and drink their 0:23:59.200 --> 0:24:02.760 own beer, but now almost no one did, other than 0:24:02.800 --> 0:24:05.040 the one or two people who were given the malt 0:24:05.119 --> 0:24:07.439 to do it. And he said that people used to 0:24:07.440 --> 0:24:10.640 eat a variety of food, including meat, and now everyone 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:15.560 was reduced to just subsisting mostly on potatoes. He described 0:24:15.720 --> 0:24:19.360 tax paying workers of the country as half starved, while 0:24:19.400 --> 0:24:23.199 the people who lived on those taxes were quote wallowing 0:24:23.359 --> 0:24:27.600 in luxury and splendor. From there, he went on at 0:24:27.680 --> 0:24:31.280 length about how many people in Britain had lucrative sinecures 0:24:31.600 --> 0:24:34.119 where they were paid lots of money to do little 0:24:34.240 --> 0:24:37.840 to know work. Many of those people paid pensions to 0:24:37.880 --> 0:24:41.240 their daughters and sisters from that money, which Cobbat thought 0:24:41.280 --> 0:24:44.879 was lucky for those women. But quote, what justice is 0:24:44.920 --> 0:24:47.679 there in taking away our bread and giving it to 0:24:47.760 --> 0:24:51.160 his daughters while we are reduced to grains and potatoes. 0:24:52.040 --> 0:24:54.960 He named a lot of names, multiple men who were 0:24:55.000 --> 0:24:58.639 getting big payments and their female relatives who were getting 0:24:58.640 --> 0:25:02.600 a few hundred pounds a year. Cobbatt listed a series 0:25:02.640 --> 0:25:06.280 of remedies, including the abolition of laws and taxes that 0:25:06.359 --> 0:25:11.000 he thought were penalizing rural workers, until Parliament could be reformed. 0:25:11.880 --> 0:25:15.080 In December of eighteen thirty, Hobbitt published a piece in 0:25:15.119 --> 0:25:19.439 the Political Register under the heading of Rural War. That 0:25:19.520 --> 0:25:21.399 was a phrase that he used a lot in his 0:25:21.480 --> 0:25:25.760 writing about these issues. This piece included two letters quote 0:25:25.800 --> 0:25:28.440 on the state of England in a warning to France. 0:25:29.119 --> 0:25:32.680 They were addressed to the editor of La Revolucion in Paris. 0:25:33.280 --> 0:25:36.119