Captain Swing Riots

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.