Captain Swing Riots

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’.