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, centering on the breaking of threshing machines, occurred during the widespread Swing
Riots of 1830 in southern and eastern England. 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 organised 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 movement began in Nottingham on 11 March 1811 and spread
rapidly throughout England over the following two years. Handloom weavers burned mills and
pieces of factory machinery. History
Luddite acts 1811–1813 The Luddites met at night on the moors surrounding
industrial towns, where they would practise 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.
Isolated incidents post 1814 Activists smashed Heathcote's lacemaking machine
in Loughborough in 1816. He and other industrialists had secret chambers constructed in their buildings
that could be used as hiding places during an attack.
In 1817, an unemployed Nottingham stockinger and probable ex-Luddite named Jeremiah Brandreth
led the Pentrich Rising, which was a general uprising unrelated to machinery, but which
could be viewed 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 were fighting 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, following the attack
on Cartwrights mill at Rawfolds near Cleckheaton. The government charged over sixty men, including
Mellor and his companions, with various crimes in connection with Luddite activities. While
some of those charged were actual Luddites, many had no connection to the movement. These
trials were not legitimate judicial reckonings of each defendant's guilt, but show trials
intended to deter other Luddites from continuing their activities. By meting out harsh consequences,
including, in many cases, execution and penal transportation, the trials quickly ended the
movement. Parliament subsequently made "machine breaking"
a capital crime with the Frame Breaking Act and the Malicious Damage Act. Lord Byron opposed
this legislation, becoming one of the few prominent defenders of the Luddites after
the treatment of the defendants at the York trials.
In contemporary thought The title Luddite developed a secondary meaning:
a "Luddite" is a term describing those opposed to, or slow to adopt or incorporate into their
lifestyle, industrialisation, automation, computerisation or new technologies in general.
In 1956, there is a parliamentary speech that said 'Organised workers were by no means wedded
to a Luddite Philosophy'. Economists use the term Luddite fallacy to
explain that: The notion of technological unemployment leading to structural unemployment.
If a technological innovation results in a reduction of necessary labour inputs, then
the industry-wide cost of production falls, which lowers the competitive price and increases
the equilibrium supply point, which will require an increase in aggregate labour inputs to
reach, theoretically. See also
Development criticism Neo-Luddism
Simple living Technophobia
Turner Controversy – return to pre-industrial methods of production
Notes
References
Further reading Archer, John E.. "Chapter 4: Industrial Protest".
Social unrest and popular protest in England, 1780–1840. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-57656-7.
Bailey, Brian J. The Luddite Rebellion. NYU Press. ISBN 0-8147-1335-1.
Binfield, Kevin. Writings of the Luddites. JHU Press. ISBN 0-8018-7612-5.
Fox, Nicols. Against the Machine: The Hidden Luddite History in Literature, Art, and Individual
Lives. Island Press. ISBN 1-55963-860-5. Grint, Keith & Woolgar, Steve. "The Luddites:
Diablo ex Machina". The machine at work: technology, work, and organization. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-7456-0924-9.
Jones, Steven E.. Against technology: from the Luddites
to Neo-Luddism. CRC Press. ISBN 978-0-415-97868-2. Randall, Adrian. Before the Luddites: Custom,
Community and Machinery in the English Woollen Industry, 1776–1809. Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 978-0-521-89334-3. Rude, George. "Chapter 5, Luddism". The crowd
in History, 1730-1848. Serif. ISBN 978-1-897959-47-3. Sale, Kirkpatrick. Rebels against the future:
the Luddites and their war on the Industrial Revolution : lessons for the computer age.
Basic Books. ISBN 0-201-40718-3. Thompson, E. P.. The Making of the English
Working Class. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-013603-6. External links
The Luddite Link - Comprehensive historical resources for the original West Yorkshire
Luddites, University of Huddersfield. The Uprising Series, a series of creative
events marking the bicentenary of the Luddites' uprisings in West Yorkshire, led by the Lawrence
Batley Theatre, Huddersfield Is it O.K. to be a Luddite? by Thomas Pynchon
Luddism and the Neo-Luddite Reaction by Martin Ryder, University of Colorado at Denver School
of Education The Luddites and the Combination Acts from
the Marxists Internet Archive