Luddite



The Luddites were 19th-century English textile artisans who protested against newly developed labour-saving machinery from 1811 to 1817. The stocking frames, spinning frames and power looms introduced during the Industrial Revolution threatened to replace the artisans with less-skilled, low-wage labourers, leaving them without work.

Although the origin of the name Luddite is uncertain, a popular theory is that the movement was named after Ned Ludd, a youth who allegedly smashed two stocking frames in 1779, and whose name had become emblematic of machine destroyers. The name evolved into the imaginary General Ludd or King Ludd, a figure who, like Robin Hood, was reputed to live in Sherwood Forest.

Background
The movement can be seen as part of a rising tide of English working-class discontent in the early 19th century. An agricultural variant of Luddism, centring on the breaking of threshing machines, occurred during the widespread Swing Riots of 1830 in southern and eastern England. Research by Kevin Binfield places the Luddite movement in this context: as organised action by stockingers had occurred at various times since 1675, the movements of the early 19th century must be viewed in the context of the hardships suffered by the working class during the Napoleonic Wars rather than an absolute aversion to machinery.

Spasmodic rises in food prices provoked Keelmen in the port of Tyne to riot in 1710 and tin miners to plunder granaries at Falmouth in 1727. There was a rebellion in Northumberland and Durham in 1740, and manhandling of Quaker corn dealers in 1756. More peaceably, skilled artisans in the cloth, building, shipbuilding, printing and cutlery trades organized friendly societies to insure themselves against unemployment and sickness and sometimes, similar to guilds, against intrusion of 'foreign' labour into their trades.

The Luddite movement emerged during the harsh economic climate of the Napoleonic Wars, which saw a rise in difficult working conditions in the new textile factories. The principal objection of the Luddites was the introduction of new wide-framed automated looms that could be operated by cheaper, relatively low-to-unskilled labour, resulting in unemployment among skilled textile workers. The movement began in Nottingham in 1811 and spread rapidly throughout England over the following two years. Handloom weavers burned mills and pieces of factory machinery. Many wool and cotton mills were destroyed before the British government suppressed the movement.

Luddite acts
The Luddites met at night on the moors surrounding industrial towns, where they would practice drills and manoeuvres. Their main areas of operation were Nottinghamshire in November 1811, followed by the West Riding of Yorkshire in early 1812 and Lancashire by March 1813. Luddites battled the British Army at Burton's Mill in Middleton and at Westhoughton Mill, both in Lancashire. Rumours abounded at the time that local magistrates employed agents provocateur to instigate the attacks. Using the pseudonym King Ludd, the Luddites and their supporters anonymously sent death threats to–and even attacked–magistrates and food merchants. Activists smashed Heathcote's lacemaking machine in Loughborough in 1816. He and other industrialists had secret chambers constructed in their buildings which could be used as hiding places during an attack. In 1817, an unemployed Nottigham stockinger and probable ex-Luddite named Jeremiah Brandreth led the Pentrich Rising, which was a general uprising unrelated to machinery but could be seen as the last major Luddite act.

Government response
The British Army clashed with the Luddites on several occasions. At one time, more British soldiers were fighting the Luddites than Napoleon on the Iberian Peninsula. Three Luddites, led by George Mellor, ambushed and assassinated a mill owner named William Horsfall from Ottiwells Mill at Crosland Moor in Marsden, West Yorkshire. Horsfall had remarked that he would, "Ride up to his saddle in Luddite blood". Mellor fired the fatal shot to Horsfall's groin, and all three men were arrested.

The British government sought to suppress the Luddite movement with a mass trial at York in January 1813. The government charged over sixty men, including Mellor and his companions, with various crimes in connection with Luddite activities. While some were actual Luddites, many had no connection to the movement. Rather than legitimate judicial reckonings of each defendant's guilt, these were show trials intended as a deterrent to other Luddites from continuing their activities. Through effective displays of harsh consequences, including many executions and penal transportations, the trials quickly ended the movement.

Parliament subsequently made "machine breaking" (i.e. industrial sabotage) a capital crime with the Frame Breaking Act and the Malicious Damage Act. Lord Byron, becoming one of the few prominent defenders of the Luddites after the treatment of the defendants at the York trials, opposed this legislation.

In retrospect
The permanent condition of the times was still that of underemployment.

Employment which arose out of the growth of trade and shipping in ports — the dramatic 'growth' industries of these years — were notorious then, as later, for occupations with precarious employment prospects. But, also in 'domestic' manufacturers, there was a desire for more available labour than normally employed as an insurance against labour shortages in boom times.

Moreover, the organization of manufacture by merchant-capitalists, still the predominant textile industry form, was inherently unstable. Whilst the financier's capital was still largely in the form of raw material, it was easy to increase commitment where trade was good; but, it was almost as easy to cut back when times were bad. Merchant-capitalists lacked the incentive of later factory owners, whose capital was invested in building and plants, to maintain a steady rate of production and return on fixed capital. Combined with seasonal variations in wage rates and violent short-term fluctuations springing from harvests and war, periodic outbreaks of violence are more easily-understood.

In contemporary thought
In modern usage, "Luddite" is a term describing those opposed to industrialisation, automation, computerisation or new technologies in general.