The Swing Riots were a widespread uprising by the rural workers of the arable south and east of England in 1830. The rioters, largely impoverished and landless agricultural labourers, sought to halt reductions in their wages and to put a stop to the introduction of the new threshing machines that threatened their livelihoods. They reinforced their demands not only with riots in which objects of perceived oppression such as workhouses and tithe barns were destroyed, but also with more surreptitious rick-burning, the destruction of threshing machines and cattle-maiming. The movement parallelled its urban-industrial counterpart, the Luddite disturbances. The first threshing machine was destroyed on Saturday night, August 28th, 1830. By the third week of October, over one hundred threshing machines had been destroyed in East Kent. In geography, arable land is a form of agricultural land use, meaning land that can be (and is) used for growing crops. ... Motto (French) God and my right Anthem God Save the King (Queen) England() – on the European continent() – in the United Kingdom() Capital (and largest city) London (de facto) Official languages English (de facto) Government Constitutional monarchy  -  Queen Queen Elizabeth II  -  Prime Minister Tony Blair MP Unification  -  by Athelstan 967  Area... Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix commemorates the July Revolution 1830 (MDCCCXXX) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... The thrashing machine, or, in modern spelling, threshing machine (or simply thresher), was a machine first invented by Scottish mechanical engineer Andrew Meikle for use in agriculture. ... Rick may refer to: A shortened version of a given name such as Richard, Eric, Frederick, Derrick, Ulrich or Patrick. It may also be formal or full name on its own. ... The thrashing machine, or, in modern spelling, threshing machine (or simply thresher), was a machine first invented by Scottish mechanical engineer Andrew Meikle for use in agriculture. ... Binomial name Bos taurus Linnaeus, 1758 Cattle (often called cows in vernacular and contemporary usage, or kye as the Scots plural of cou) are domesticated ungulates, a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. ... The Luddites were a social movement of English textile artisans in the early nineteenth century who protested — often by destroying textile machines — against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt threatened their livelihood. ...

Mystery surrounds the nominal leader of the riots, Captain Swing, whose name is appended to several of the threatening letters sent to farmers, magistrates, parsons and others. The "Swing letters" were first mentioned by The Times on the 21 October. Captain Swing has never been identified, and many people believe that he never existed, having been created by the workers as a fictional figurehead who could function as a safe target for their opponents. Captain Swing was the name appended to some (but not many) of the threatening letters during the agricultural riots of 1830. ... The Times is a national newspaper published daily in the United Kingdom since 1785, and under its current name since 1788. ... October 21 is the 294th day of the year (295th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 71 days remaining. ...

The Swing Riots had many immediate causes, but were overwhelmingly the result of the progressive impoverishment and dispossession of the English agricultural workforce over the previous fifty years, leading up to 1830. The anger of the rioters was directed at three targets that were seen as the prime source of their misery: The Tithe system, the Poor law guardians, and the rich tenant farmers who had been progressively lowering wages while introducing agricultural machinery. A tithe (from Old English teogoþa tenth) is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a (usually) voluntary contribution or as a tax or levy, usually to support a Jewish or Christian religious organization. ... Former workhouse at Nantwich, dating from 1780 The Poor Law was the system for the provision of social security in operation in England and the rest of the United Kingdom from the 16th century until the establishment of the Welfare State in the 20th century. ...

Background to the uprisings

Early nineteenth century England was virtually unique among major nations in having no class of landed smallholding peasantry. The parliamentary enclosure movement of the previous century had eradicated the last rights of poorer countryfolk to graze their livestock, be it cattle, sheep, chicken or geese, on what had formerly been "Common" Land. The common grazing of older times was divided up among the large local land-owners, leaving the landless farmworkers solely dependent upon offering their labour to their richer neighbours for a cash wage. Whilst this may have offered a tolerable living during the boom years of the Napoleonic wars, when labour had been in short supply and corn prices had been high, the coming of peace in 1815 brought with it plummeting grain prices and an oversupply of labour. In a detail of Brueghels Land of Cockaigne (1567) a soft-boiled egg has little feet to rush to the luxuriating peasant who catches drops of honey on his tongue, while roast pigs roam wild: in fact, hunger and harsh winters were realities for the average European in the... For other uses of the term see Enclosure (disambiguation) Enclosure (also inclosure) is the process of conversion of common land to private ownership. ... Combatants Allies: Austrian Empire[1] Kingdom of Portugal Kingdom of Prussia[1] Russian Empire[2] Kingdom of Spain[3] Kingdom of Sweden United Kingdom[4] Ottoman Empire[5] French Empire Kingdom of Holland Kingdom of Italy Kingdom of Naples Duchy of Warsaw Kingdom of Bavaria[6] Kingdom of Saxony[7... April 5-12: Mount Tambora explodes, changing climate. ...

The social status of agricultural workers had also declined. In the 1780s workers would be taken on at annual Hiring Fairs, to serve for a whole year. In this period the worker would receive payment in kind and in cash from his or her employer, would often work at his side, and would commonly share meals at the employer's table. As time went by the gulf between farmer and employee widened. Workers were hired on stricter cash-only contracts, which ran for shorter and shorter periods. At first monthly terms became the norm, later contracts were offered for as little as a week at a time. Farm labourers were thrown on to parish relief the moment that their services were no longer profitable. This casualisation and growing insecurity of rural labour lent much to the anger of the 1830 riots.

The "Old Poor Law" introduced in Tudor times began to break under the strain. The system charged a Parish Rate to landowners and tenants which was used to provide relief payments to settled residents of the parish who were ill or out of work. These payments were minimal, and at times degrading conditions were required for their receipt. As more and more people became dependent on parish relief, ratepayers rebelled ever more loudly against the costs, and a lower and lower level of relief was offered. Three and a half "one gallon" bread loaves were considered necessary for a man in Berkshire in 1795. However provision had fallen to just two similar-sized loaves being provided in 1817 Wiltshire. The way in which poor law funds were disbursed led to a further reduction in agricultural wages, since farmers would pay their workers as little as possible, knowing that the parish fund would top up wages to a basic subsistence level. The Poor Law Act 1601 also known as the Elizabethan Poor Law and Old Poor Law or 43rd Elizabeth formalised earlier practices of poor relief distribution in England and Wales. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Look up Rate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

To this incendiary mixture was added the burden of the Church Tithe. Originally this had been the Church's right to ten percent the parish harvest. However the earlier collection of goods in kind had been replaced by a cash levy that was payable to the Church of England Parson, and which went to pay his (often considerable) wages. The cash levy was generally rigorously enforced, whether the resident was a Church member or not, and the sum demanded was often far higher than a poor person could afford. Calls for a large reduction in the Tithe payment were prominent among the demands of the rioters.

The final straw was the introduction of horse-powered threshing machines, which could do the work of many men. They spread swiftly among the farming community, threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of farmworkers. Following the terrible harvests of 1828 and 1829, farm labourers faced the approaching winter of 1830 with dread.

The riots

Farm labourers finally snapped in the late summer of 1830. With fewer jobs, lower wages and no prospects of things improving for these workers, the "immoral" threshing machine seemed to be the object that was to place them on the brink of starvation. Starting in the south-eastern county of Kent, the Swing Rioters smashed the threshing machines and threatened farmers who had them. The riots spread rapidly through the southern counties of Surrey, Sussex, Middlesex and Hampshire, before spreading north into the Home Counties, the Midlands and East Anglia. Moving on as far as Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, the Swing Riots soon became the largest popular rural uprising since the Peasants Revolt of the thirteenth century. coat of Arms of Kent For other uses, see Kent (disambiguation). ... The phrase Home Counties is used to designate the group of English counties which border or surround London. ... Norfolk and Suffolk, the core area of East Anglia. ... See Peasants War for the German Peasants Revolt of 1524-1526 See also: 1907 Romanian Peasants Revolt The Peasants Revolt or Great Rising was a popular revolt in late medieval Europe in 1381 and is a major event in the history of England. ...

Horse-powered threshing machine

The pattern of the riots was remarkably similar. Threatening letters, often signed by Captain Swing, would be sent to Magistrates, Parsons, wealthy farmers or Poor Law Guardians in the area. The letters would call for a rise in wages, a cut in the Tithe payments and for the destruction of the hated threshing machines, otherwise people would take matters into their own hands. If the warnings were not heeded local farmworkers would gather, often in groups of 200 - 400, and would threaten the local oligarchs with dire consequences if their demands were not met. Threshing machines would be broken, workhouses, tithe barns and other hated buildings would be attacked and the rioters would disperse or move on to the next village. Despite the prevalence of the slogan "Bread or Blood", not one person is recorded as having been killed during the riots, whose main intent was to damage property. The burning of barns and hayricks took place in parallel to the riots. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1447x785, 785 KB) Source: cropped from http://www. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1447x785, 785 KB) Source: cropped from http://www. ...

The similar pattern of the disturbances, and their rapid spread across the country was often blamed on sinister agitators, or upon "agents" sent from France, where the revolution of July 1830 had broken out a month before the Swing Riots began in Kent. The campaign against the Tithes and threshing machines was met with considerable sympathy, even among many farmers and magistrates, who put up little resistance to the destruction of thousands of threshing machines across the country.

However the government, led by Home Secretary, Lord Melbourne, dealt with the riots harshly. Blaming local magistrates for being too lenient, a Special Commission of three judges was appointed to try rioters in the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire. Agreements made to raise wages or cut tithes were rarely honoured. Many arrests followed the riots. Across the country, nine of the rioters were hanged and a further 450 suffered transportation to Australia. Arms of Lord Melbourne William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, PC (15 March 1779–24 November 1848) was a British Whig statesman who served as Home Secretary (1830-1834) and Prime Minister (1834 and 1835-1841), and a mentor of Queen Victoria. ... // This page is about death by hanging. ...

These riots added to the strong social, political and agricultural unrest throughout Britain in the 1830s. The 'Swing' riots were a big influence on the Whig Government, leading to the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, which made life for the poor even harsher, ending "outdoor relief" in cash or kind, and setting up a chain of grim workhouses across the country, to which the poor had to go if they wanted help. The Whigs (with the Tories) are often described as one of two political parties in England and later the United Kingdom from the late 17th to the mid 19th centuries. ... The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 () was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the Whig government of Earl Grey that reformed the countrys poverty relief system. ... Former workhouse at Nantwich, dating from 1780 A workhouse was a place where people who were unable to support themselves could go to live and work. ...

Controversy has been persistent among historians about the diffusion of the Swing events and whether they indicated a larger incipient class consciousness.

References

Hobsbawm, Eric and George Rudé (1973) Captain Swing: A Social History of the Great English Agricultural Uprising of 1830. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Eric John Earnest Hobsbawm CH (born June 8, 1917 in Alexandria, Egypt) is a British Marxist historian and author. ... British Marxist historian (1910-1993) and member of the Communist Party Historians Group. ...

Bohstedt, John (1994) “The Dynamics of Riots: Escalation and Diffusion/Contagion.” In The Dynamics of Aggression, edited by Michael Potegal and John Knutson. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

External links

• Headley & Selborne workhouse riot of 1830