This was the Tuesday morning on which a soldier in Yorkshire was due to receive 300 lashes for refusing to shoot Luddites. That sounds like someone worth remembering – even though we don’t know his name.
The Luddites are certainly the most misunderstood and misrepresented British rebels of all, having become a byword for anyone who opposes progress. But the original, early 19th century followers of the mythical figure, Ned Ludd (sometimes King Lud or General Ludd), weren’t enemies of the future, ignorant wreckers trying to delay the inevitable. They weren’t against the new technology which was turning independent craftspeople into impoverished factory workers – they were in favour of keeping their livelihoods and status.
Their machine-breaking was confined to employers who refused to negotiate about the introduction of technology in a way likely to be “hurtful to commonality.” The Luddites weren’t luddites: they knew full well that the tide couldn’t be turned, that the new methods were here to stay, but they weren’t prepared to be ruined in the process. Their argument was with owners who used machinery in a “fraudulent and deceitful manner,” with the specific aim of lowering wage rates.
The other thing Luddites are famous for today is cross-dressing.
There were female Luddites, but for the most part this work was done by men – quite often, though, they were men wearing dresses and bonnets, like pantomime dames. Dressing as the opposite sex is something that crops up quite a lot in British rebel history, as it does in British culture more generally. Let’s not wonder why today, let’s just enjoy the spectacle of “Ned Ludd’s wives” (complete with petticoats and bushy beards) leading protest marches and sabotage.
Huge monetary awards were put up by employers and leading figures for information concerning the identity of General Ludd, which is comforting evidence that, although our rulers today seem as if they must be the most stupid who ever lived, in fact their predecessors were no brighter.
As always, throughout our history, the government of the day was keen to portray organic outbursts of anger and fear as part of a national or international conspiracy, directed by shadowy men of evil intent. Historians in the 20th and 21st centuries have argued over how much of what we “know” about the inner workings of Luddism comes from reliable sources, and how much was invented by ambitious informers and corrupt officials.
When I was a member of the Eddie Grundy Fan Club in the 1980s I once encountered the legendary disc-spinner John Peel in a corridor of Broadcasting House, and greeted him with the EGFC secret salute, while crying “Badger!” After a moment’s startled hesitation, Peel – who didn’t know me from Adam – returned the salute and replied, correctly, “Fat!” We walked on, in our respective directions, strangers in the fluorescent night.
We were amateurs compared to the alleged greeting rituals of the Luddites. Whether true or false, one report of the time described what sounds like the over engineered equivalent of a Masonic handshake:
“You must raise your right Hand over your right Eye – if there be another Luddite in Company he will raise his left Hand over his left Eye – then you must raise the forefinger of your right Hand to the right Side of your Mouth – the other will raise the little finger of his left Hand to the left Side of his Mouth & will say, What are you? The answer, Determined. He will say, What for? Your answer, Free Liberty.”
Given that Luddism was probably organised on a very local, even street-by-street basis, it seems more likely that the greeting would have been along the lines of “Didn’t I see you at the Luddite meeting the other night?” “Ah, that’s right – let’s go and smash some steam-driven looms, eh?” and the Austin Powers finger gestures would have been superfluous as well as embarrassing.
New recruits to General Ludd’s army certainly swore oaths, though, as part of their “twisting-in.” These dealt, not least, with promising to murder informers and “traters,” a reasonable precaution given that exposure as a Ludd could lead to the death penalty.
The state responded to Luddism with ferocious violence, both military and judicial. Luddites (and, of course, suspected Luddites, along with troublesome thinkers of all kinds who could be conveniently labelled as Luddites) were executed, deported, jailed, or gunned down by soldiers.
The Battle of Rawfolds Mill, near Dewsbury in Yorkshire, in April 1812, is one of the best-remembered of the whole Luddite period, partly because it was used in a later novel by a local vicar’s daughter, Charlotte Brontë.
The mill, owned by a particularly hated employer, William Cartwight, was well-defended against the attack which he knew must come eventually. He’d even arranged for a small number of soldiers to sleep at the premises every night. The ensuing battle was a catastrophic defeat for the Luddites, with two of them being killed by gunshots and the rest routed. The mill survived.
But during the fighting, Cartwight had seen a soldier deliberately missing his shots. Several more rebels could have been exterminated, Cartwright clearly felt, if only this wretched man had done his proper duty. He reported the soldier – about whom we now know nothing but the bare fact of his existence – to his superiors, and he was court-martialled. He admitted his refusal to fire on his “fellow citizens,” said he was glad that he had disobeyed, and was sentenced to 300 lashes, in public, in front of the mill where his offence had taken place.
If he’d received all 300 strokes, the soldier would surely have died – but after 25 lashes, William Cartwright lost his nerve and intervened to stop the punishment. The mill owner was already the most despised man in the district, scarcely daring to leave his own home for fear of being murdered; if he allowed this local hero to die, in front of a huge crowd of angry citizens, what future would he have? His gesture was too little and it came too late; Cartwright was lucky to survive an assassination attempt.
The last word belongs to John Booth, one of the Luddites fatally wounded in the attack on Rawfolds Mill. On his deathbed he was approached by a vicar who hoped to get from the dying man the names of his comrades, so they could be hanged. “Can tha’ keep a secret?” Booth asked. The priest assured him that he could. “Aye, so can I,” said Booth, and died.
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Sources:
www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-really-fought-against-264412/
http://ludditebicentenary.blogspot.com/2012/03/test.html
https://wessyman137.wordpress.com/2016/03/27/the-luddite-march-on-rawfolds-mill/
https://womenshistorynetwork.org/luddite-women/
https://womenshistorynetwork.org/luddite-women/#more-1200
The making of the English working class by E.P. Thompson (Penguin, 1980)
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/why-did-the-luddites-protest/
https://historicalbritain.org/tag/rawfolds-mill/
www.facebook.com/redhouseyorkshire/photos/a.129473055326295/348140590126206/?type=3&locale=ms_MY
www.spenvalleycivicsociety.org.uk/spen-fame-trail/the-star-inn-and-john-booth