In the early nineteenth century there was extreme poverty in the land of England. The best quality land in East Anglia and the South East had been enclosed. This meant that wealthy landlords could improve their land and employ the latest agricultural techniques at a penalty. That penalty was rural poverty.  Between 1824 and 1830, rural crimes such as poaching and food theft increased by 30%. Farming no longer needed as many workers, those that were employed were hired hands on low wages, and country folk had lost their right to graze on the common land.  At the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 300,000 servicemen were thrown into the labour market. Then, came an era of falling grain prices.

Destitute, unemployed or ill labourers could turn to parish relief.  This system by which the landowners and tenants in each parish contributed to a relief fund had been established in Tudor times. By the 1820s it was under funded, labourers received pitiful payments and landowners resented their contributions. In 1795, at Speenhamland in Berkshire, magistrates allowed workers to claim relief to supplement poor wages, but this only exacerbated conditions.  Landowners justified low wages by arguing that the workers could top up their earnings from the parish fund.  At the same time they argued that the rate should be reduced to discourage malingerers. Between 1815 and 1820 the Poor Law expenditure was 12/10d per capita; by 1830 it was 9/9d.

The Enclosure Acts imposed a further burden upon the poor.  The Church Tithe required those who worked the land to pay ten per cent of the value of certain types of agricultural produce to the Parson of the parish.  The workers had to pay the tithe, in cash, yet the landowners were free to sell the produce.

Poor conditions were accompanied by an increasing use of horse-powered threshing machines.  These could do the work of many men and threatened to increase the burden of rural unemployment. William Cobbett reckoned that one machine could do the work of ten labourers.

Wheat prices recovered in the mid 1820s. Then came a series of terrible harvests. In 1828 the weather was fair but the harvest poor. In 1829 the harvest was both late and poor, then there was snow in October. There was another poor harvest in 1830.

Discontent among the cold, hungry and under employed rural workers coincided with a restless political scene. A general election was imminent due to the death of George IV. In July/August there was revolution in France. Charles X was replaced by Louis Philippe, the ‘Citizen King’. Talk of political reform was in the air.  In November the Whigs were returned as the government under the premiership of Earl Grey under the slogan of ‘peace, retrenchment and reform’.

In June 1830 the first riots broke out in Kent, near Orpington. These grew in intensity as the season wore on. In June arsonists torching ricks, barns and houses.  By late August the labourers began to sabotage the hated threshing machines. When October came they turned to wage meetings and political agitation.  By November there was the full gamut: fires, tithe riots, machine breaking, wage meetings and agitation. The machines were broken on Saturday nights, after the inns had closed, by gangs of between twenty and fifty breakers.

In the meantime, the riots spread rapidly through the Home Counties, Hampshire, Dorset and East Anglia. Ripples spread as far as Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Nottingham.

Remarkably the pattern of rioting was very similar across the country. Threatening letters, often signed by the mysterious Captain Swing, were sent to Magistrates, Parsons, wealthy farmers or Poor Law Guardians in an area. The letters called for a rise in wages, a cut in the Tithe payments and a destruction of machinery, otherwise people would take matters into their own hands. If the warnings were not heeded local farm workers would gather, often in groups of 200 – 400, repeat the ultimatum and resort to violence if necessary.

The riots were characterised by arson, the destruction of threshing machines and a remarkable discipline. There was just one loss of life. A troop of Yeomanry was ambushed in a deep cutting near Tisbury. Hand to hand fighting ensued until the Yeomanry were able to draw weapons. A man was killed in the melee.

By November, the riots died a natural death. However, modern historians think that the country might have been close to a civil war. There was a divided opinion among local magistrates who would have had responsibility for restoring order. Many landowners even approved of the rebellion against the Tithe. Some farmers even destroyed their own machines.

The loyalty of the magistrates is shown by the number of man acquitted. There were 1,976 trials, 252 death sentences (of which 233 were commuted to life transportation), 505 transportations, 644 imprisonments and 800 cases resulting in acquittal.

In July 1831 a jury failed to convict the politician and radical writer, William Cobbett, who might have been a ringleader in the uprising.

The identity of Captain Swing remains a mystery. His signature was placed on many of the threatening letters and on a series of letters that were sent to the Times. He probably never existed and was a fiction to hide the identity of the true ringleaders. The name was chosen as a pun for the fate the ringleaders could expect on the gallows. One thought is that the letters to the Times were written by schoolboys at Eton who sought the destruction of their own Thrashing Machine, the headmaster.