Swing Riots

c.1830-32

Was this the rural version of the Luddite Riots?

Was the government's reaction the same?

It wasn't just rich farmers that were attacked....this workhouse in Hampshire was also a target of the anger in 1830.

Link to page about the

Selborne and Headley Workhouse Riots

Click to enlarge this notice issued by authorities in Berkshire

Swing Rioters set fire to a landlord's hayrick.

The worst-off of the population were most definitely the farm workers at this time. Wages were lower than even the factory workers, and were often seasonal and dependent on the harvests, and therefore the weather.

Their employers usually owned their homes, and therefore farm labourers lived very uncertain and insecure lives. Much of the common land, which was used by the rural population for grazing for centuries, was taken by the rich for their own gain, backed by the Enclosure Acts passed by the government.

The winter work of threshing cereal by hand was now under threat by the purchase of threshing machines by the employers.

In 1828 and 1829 harvests were poor - meaning a rise in food prices and a cut in wages.

In the autumn of 1830 violence broke out across southern and eastern England (see map, left) Threshing machines were attacked and hayricks were torched - over 700 incidents during 1830 and 1831. Like the Luddites two decades earlier, mysterious letters, this time from 'Captain Swing' were sent to greedy landowners.

The state's response was just as severe. 19 people were executed, including a 12 year old boy. Over a thousand were transported or jailed. In some cases though farmers were forced to keep wages at a fair level, and some delayed the introduction of machines, but again, like the Luddites, technology would soon win.

Timeline Industrial

External Links

Rural Unrest

Page on the PeelWeb Site

Captain Swing in Dorset

A page by Cyril Coffin

Swing Riots in Burbage, Wilts

A detailed history

Swing Rioters to Tasmania

Interesting page about the rioters transported south

Berkshire Swing Riots

From the Berks Family History Society

How have these changed? Crime, Protest, Punishment and Policing.

What happened in?

Early-Modern

c.1500-1750

Kett's Rebellion, Pilgrimage of Grace, Gunpowder Plot, Vagabonds, Poaching, Smuggling, Highwaymen, Witchcraft, Corporal Punishment, Bloody Code........more

Industrial Britain

c.1750-1900

Theft and robbery, Poverty, Police, Transportation, Prisons, Luddites, Swing Riots, Chartism, Prison Reformers, Dock Strike........more

Twentieth Century

c.1900-2000

Suffrage Movement, Conscientious Objectors, General Strike, Hanging, Youth Detention, Fingerprinting, DNA, Surveillance, Drug Crime, Hooliganism, Community Service, Race Crime.........more

Who were?

Robert Aske, Matthew Hopkins, Jonathan Wild, Dick Turpin, John Howard, Elizabeth Fry, Derek Bentley........more

Click to enlarge this detailed map showing

the number of Swing Riots in

 Britain during this era