The Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textile workers who opposed the use of certain types of automated machinery due to concerns relating to worker pay and output quality. They often destroyed the machines in organised raids. [1] [2] Members of the group referred to themselves as Luddites, self-described followers of "Ned Ludd", a legendary weaver whose name was used as a pseudonym in threatening letters to mill owners and government officials. [3]
The Luddite movement began in Nottingham, England, and spread to the North West and Yorkshire between 1811 and 1816. [4] Mill and factory owners took to shooting protesters and eventually the movement was suppressed by legal and military force, which included execution and penal transportation of accused and convicted Luddites. [5]
Over time, the term has been used to refer to those opposed to the introduction of new technologies. [6]
The name Luddite ( /ˈlʌdaɪt/ ) occurs in the movement's writings as early as 1811. [3] The movement utilised the eponym of Ned Ludd, an apocryphal apprentice who allegedly smashed two stocking frames in 1779 after being criticized and instructed to change his method. The name often appears as captain, General, or King Ludd. Different versions of the legends place his residence in Anstey, near Leicester, or Sherwood Forest like Robin Hood. [7]
The machine-breaking of the Luddites followed from previous outbreaks of sabotage in the English textile industry, especially in the hosiery and woolen trades. Organized action by stockingers had occurred at various times since 1675. [8] [9] [10] In Lancashire, new cotton spinning technologies were met with violent resistance in 1768 and 1779. These new inventions produced textiles faster and cheaper because they could be operated by less-skilled, low-wage labourers. [11] These struggles sometimes resulted in government suppression, via Parliamentary acts such as the Protection of Stocking Frames, etc. Act 1788.
Periodic uprisings relating to asset prices also occurred in other contexts in the century before Luddism. Irregular rises in food prices provoked the Keelmen to riot in the port of Tyne in 1710 [12] and tin miners to steal from granaries at Falmouth in 1727. [a] There was a rebellion in Northumberland and Durham in 1740, and an assault on Quaker corn dealers in 1756.
Malcolm L. Thomas argued in his 1970 history The Luddites that machine-breaking was one of the very few tactics that workers could use to increase pressure on employers, undermine lower-paid competing workers, and create solidarity among workers. "These attacks on machines did not imply any necessary hostility to machinery as such; machinery was just a conveniently exposed target against which an attack could be made." [10] Historian Eric Hobsbawm has called their machine wrecking "collective bargaining by riot", which had been a tactic used in Britain since the Restoration because manufactories were scattered throughout the country, and that made it impractical to hold large-scale strikes. [13] [14] An agricultural variant of Luddism occurred during the widespread Swing Riots of 1830 in southern and eastern England, centring on breaking threshing machines. [15]
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. Luddites objected primarily to the rising popularity of automated textile equipment, threatening the jobs and livelihoods of skilled workers as this technology allowed them to be replaced by cheaper and less skilled workers. [1] [ failed verification ] The movement began in Arnold, Nottinghamshire, on 11 March 1811 and spread rapidly throughout England over the following two years. [16] [1] The British economy suffered greatly in 1810 to 1812, especially in terms of high unemployment and inflation. The causes included the high cost of the wars with Napoleon, Napoleon's Continental System of economic warfare, and escalating conflict with the United States. The crisis led to widespread protest and violence, but the middle classes and upper classes strongly supported the government, which used the army to suppress all working-class unrest, especially the Luddite movement. [17] [18]
The Luddites met at night on the moors surrounding industrial towns to practice military-like drills and manoeuvres. Their main areas of operation began in Nottinghamshire in November 1811, followed by the West Riding of Yorkshire in early 1812, and then Lancashire by March 1813. They wrecked specific types of machinery that posed a threat to the particular industrial interests in each region. In the Midlands, these were the "wide" knitting frames used to make cheap and inferior lace articles. [19] In the North West, weavers sought to eliminate the steam-powered looms threatening wages in the cotton trade. In Yorkshire, workers opposed the use of shearing frames and gig mills to finish woolen cloth. [20]
Many Luddite groups were highly organized and pursued machine-breaking as one of several tools for achieving specific political ends. In addition to the raids, Luddites coordinated public demonstrations and the mailing of letters to local industrialists and government officials. [21] These letters explained their reasons for destroying the machinery and threatened further action if the use of "obnoxious" machines continued. [22] The writings of Midlands Luddites often justified their demands through the legitimacy of the Company of Framework Knitters, a recognized public body that already openly negotiated with masters through named representatives. In North West England, textile workers lacked these long-standing trade institutions and their letters composed an attempt to achieve recognition as a united body of tradespeople. As such, they were more likely to include petitions for governmental reforms, such as increased minimum wages and the cessation of child labor. Northwestern Luddites were also more likely to use radical language linking their movement to that of American and French revolutionaries. In Yorkshire, the letter-writing campaign shifted to more violent threats against local authorities viewed as complicit in the use of offensive machinery to exert greater commercial control over the labor market.
In Yorkshire, the croppers (who were highly skilled and highly paid) faced mass unemployment due to the introduction of cropping machines by Enoch Taylor of Marsden. [23] This sparked the Luddite movement among the croppers of Yorkshire, who used a power hammer dubbed "Enoch" to break the frames of the cropping machines. They called it Enoch to mock Enoch Taylor, and when they broke the frames they purportedly shouted "Enoch made them, and Enoch shall break them." [24]
Luddites clashed with government troops at Burton's Mill in Middleton and at Westhoughton Mill, both in Lancashire. [25] The Luddites and their supporters anonymously sent death threats to, and possibly attacked, magistrates and food merchants. Activists smashed Heathcote's lace making machine in Loughborough in 1816. [26] He and other industrialists had secret chambers constructed in their buildings that could be used as hiding places during an attack. [27]
In 1817 Jeremiah Brandreth, an unemployed Nottingham stockinger and probable ex-Luddite, led the Pentrich Rising. While this was a general uprising unrelated to machinery, it can be viewed as the last major Luddite act. [28]
12,000 government troops, most of them belonging to militia or yeomanry units, were involved in suppression of Luddite activity, which historian Eric Hobsbawm claimed was a larger number than the British army which the Duke of Wellington led during the Peninsular War. [29] [b] Four Luddites, led by a man named George Mellor, ambushed and assassinated mill owner William Horsfall of Ottiwells Mill in Marsden, West Yorkshire, at Crosland Moor in Huddersfield. Horsfall had remarked that he would "Ride up to his saddle in Luddite blood". [30] Mellor fired the fatal shot to Horsfall's groin, and all four men were arrested. One of the men, Benjamin Walker, turned informant, and the other three were hanged. [31] [32] [33] Lord Byron denounced what he considered to be the plight of the working class, the government's inane policies and ruthless repression in the House of Lords on 27 February 1812: "I have been in some of the most oppressed provinces of Turkey; but never, under the most despotic of infidel governments, did I behold such squalid wretchedness as I have seen since my return, in the very heart of a Christian country". [34]
Government officials 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 60 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. Although the proceedings were legitimate jury trials, many were abandoned due to lack of evidence and 30 men were acquitted. These trials were certainly intended to act as show trials to deter other Luddites from continuing their activities. The harsh sentences of those found guilty, which included execution and penal transportation, quickly ended the movement. [5] [35] Parliament made "machine breaking" (i.e. industrial sabotage) a capital crime with the Frame Breaking Act of 1812. [36] 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. [37]
The Luddites (specifically the croppers, those who operated cropping machinery) are memorialized in the Yorkshire-area folk song "The Cropper Lads," which has been recorded by artists such as Lou Killen and Maddy Prior. [38] The croppers were very highly skilled and highly paid before the introduction of cropping machinery, and thus had more to lose and more reason to rebel against the factory owners' use of machinery. Another traditional song which celebrates the Luddites is the song "The Triumph of General Ludd," which was recorded by Chumbawamba for their 1988 album English Rebel Songs. [39]
In the 19th century, occupations that arose from the growth of trade and shipping in ports, also as "domestic" manufacturers, were notorious for precarious employment prospects. Underemployment was chronic during this period, [40] and it was common practice to retain a larger workforce than was typically necessary for insurance against labour shortages in boom times. [40]
Moreover, the organization of manufacture by merchant capitalists in the textile industry was inherently unstable. While the financiers' capital was still largely invested in raw materials, it was easy to increase commitment when trade was good and almost as easy to cut back when times were bad. Merchant capitalists lacked the incentive of later factory owners, whose capital was invested in buildings and plants, to maintain a steady rate of production and return on fixed capital. The combination of seasonal variations in wage rates and violent short-term fluctuations springing from harvests and war produced periodic outbreaks of violence. [40]
Nowadays, the term "Luddite" often is used to describe someone who is opposed or resistant to new technologies. [41]
In 1956, during a British Parliamentary debate, a Labour spokesman said that "organised workers were by no means wedded to a 'Luddite Philosophy'." [42] By 2006, the term neo-Luddism had emerged to describe opposition to many forms of technology. [43] According to a manifesto drawn up by the Second Luddite Congress (April 1996; Barnesville, Ohio), neo-Luddism is "a leaderless movement of passive resistance to consumerism and the increasingly bizarre and frightening technologies of the Computer Age". [44]
The term "Luddite fallacy" is used by economists about the fear that technological unemployment inevitably generates structural unemployment and is consequently macroeconomically injurious. If a technological innovation reduces necessary labour inputs in a given sector, then the industry-wide cost of production falls, which lowers the competitive price and increases the equilibrium supply point that, theoretically, will require an increase in aggregate labour inputs. [45] During the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century, the dominant view among economists has been that belief in long-term technological unemployment was indeed a fallacy. More recently,[ when? ] there has been increased support for the view that the benefits of automation are not equally distributed. [46] [47] [48]
The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a period of global transition of the human economy towards more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes that succeeded the Agricultural Revolution. Beginning in Great Britain, the Industrial Revolution spread to continental Europe and the United States, from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines; new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes; the increasing use of water power and steam power; the development of machine tools; and the rise of the mechanised factory system. Output greatly increased, and the result was an unprecedented rise in population and the rate of population growth. The textile industry was the first to use modern production methods, and textiles became the dominant industry in terms of employment, value of output, and capital invested.
Ned Ludd is the legendary person to whom the Luddites attributed the name of their movement.
Marsden is a large village in the Colne Valley, in the metropolitan borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England. It is in the South Pennines close to the Peak District which lies to the south. The village is 7 miles (11 km) west of Huddersfield at the confluence of the River Colne and Wessenden Brook. It was an important centre for the production of woollen cloth. In 2020, the village had an estimated population of 3,768.
Technophobia, also known as technofear, is the fear or dislike of, or discomfort with, advanced technology or complex devices, especially personal computers, smartphones, and tablet computers. Although there are numerous interpretations of technophobia, they become more complex as technology continues to evolve. The term is generally used in the sense of an irrational fear, but others contend fears are justified. It is the opposite of technophilia.
A cotton mill is a building that houses spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system.
The Swing Riots were a widespread uprising in 1830 by agricultural workers in southern and eastern England in protest of agricultural mechanisation and harsh working conditions. The riots began with the destruction of threshing machines in the Elham Valley area of East Kent in the summer of 1830 and by early December had spread through the whole of southern England and East Anglia. It was to be the largest movement of social unrest in 19th-century England.
Neo-Luddism or new Luddism is a philosophy opposing many forms of modern technology. The term Luddite is generally used as a pejorative applied to people showing technophobic leanings. The name is based on the historical legacy of the English Luddites, who were active between 1811 and 1817. While the original Luddites were mostly concerned with the economic implications of improving technology in regard to industrialization, neo-Luddites tend to have a broader and more holistic distrust of technological improvement.
The Swedish Anarcho-Syndicalist Youth Federation, is a youth-based group in Sweden that supports independent working class struggle.
Liversedge is an industrial town in the Kirklees district, in West Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Liversedge lies between Cleckheaton and Heckmondwike. The Kirklees ward is now called Liversedge and Gomersal with a population at the 2011 Census of 19,420. Liversedge forms part of the Heavy Woollen District and was historically part of the parish of Birstall.
A stocking frame was a mechanical knitting machine used in the textiles industry. It was invented by William Lee of Calverton near Nottingham in 1589. Its use, known traditionally as framework knitting, was the first major stage in the mechanisation of the textile industry, and played an important part in the early history of the Industrial Revolution. It was adapted to knit cotton and to do ribbing, and by 1800 had been adapted as a lace making machine.
Crosland Moor is a district of the town of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England.
Frank Vickerman was a man in the early 19th century who lived in the West Riding of Yorkshire, who owned a wool processing factory at Taylor Hill that was attacked by the Luddites on 15 March 1812. The factory was destroyed, and arson was attempted. Vickerman was targeted by this antitechnological growth organization partly because the machines in his factory were taking the jobs of actual people but also because he had been previously involved in an anti-Luddite committee.
Westhoughton Mill or Rowe and Dunscough's Mill, in Mill Street in Westhoughton, near Bolton in the historic English county of Lancashire, was the site of a Luddite arson attack in 1812. The mill was built in 1804 by Richard Johnson Lockett, a Macclesfield man who lived at Westhoughton Hall. He leased the mill to Thomas Rowe of Manchester in 1808.
Events from the year 1812 in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is still involved in the Napoleonic Wars with France and its attempts to stop French trade lead to the War of 1812 with the United States. Lord Wellington is active in the Peninsular War in Spain. This year also marks the only assassination of a British prime minister when Spencer Perceval is shot.
Bloody Men is the 20th studio album by British folk rock band Steeleye Span.
The Destruction of Stocking Frames, etc. Act 1812, also known as the Frame-Breaking Act and before passage as the Frame Work Bill, was an Act of Parliament passed by the British Government in 1812 aimed at increasing the penalties for Luddite behaviour in order to discourage it.
Taylor Hill is a semi rural/industrial urban village of the town of Huddersfield in the English county of West Yorkshire. It lies on a hill above the A616 road to Honley and Penistone and the eastern bank of the River Holme, in the Holme Valley, approximately 1.5 miles (2 km) to the south of Lockwood, west of Newsome and to the north of Berry Brow.
John Gravener Henson, was a workers' leader from Nottingham, England, and a historian of the framework knitters. E. P. Thompson saw him as one of three outstanding figures in the early English working-class movement.
Peter Atherton was a British inventor, entrepreneur, and cotton mill proprietor. Renowned for his pioneering work as a designer and manufacturer of textile machinery during the early Industrial Revolution, Atherton began his career by assisting Richard Arkwright and John Kay in developing the ground-breaking spinning frame in the late 1760s. Subsequently, Atherton developed methods to elongate cotton, wool, and silk fibres, resulting in stronger, smoother yarn and finer quality fabrics, representing a notable progression in textile manufacturing. His influence extended to mill construction nationwide, where his innovative designs and use of steam power marked significant advancements in industrial architecture. He engaged with policymakers and advocated for the interests of the British textile industry, notably participating in a delegation that met with Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger in 1788 to safeguard domestic production against the encroachments of the East India Company. Additionally, he established and invested in numerous enterprises within both the textile and clock and watchmaking industries. One of his companies, Atherton & Co., became a leading manufacturer of cotton spinners, with locations in Warrington, Manchester, and Liverpool.
Sir Joseph Radcliffe, 1st Baronet (1744–1819), name at birth Joseph Pickford, was an English landowner, and a magistrate noted for his repression of Luddites in northern England. He changed his surname, to his mother's maiden name, in 1795.