After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Dark History of the Luddites

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

Would you have joined the OG Luddites? In 1811 and 1812 across the midlands and north of England which were the Silicon Valley of the day, Luddites smashed machines. They would not stop, not even at murder, in order to fight technology that was tearing down their way of life. Maddy tells Anthony the story this week.Edited by Tomos Delargy, produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.Please vote for us for Listeners' Choice at the British Podcast Awards! Follow this link, and don’t forget to confirm the email. Thank you!You can now watch After Dark on Youtube! www.youtube.com/@afterdarkhistoryhitSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast.

Hello everyone, it's us, your hosts Maddie Pelling and Anthony Delaney. But before we begin the show, we want to ask for a few seconds of your time. If you're enjoying After Dark and we love you if you are, we would love you just a little bit more if you could vote for us in the Listener's Choice category at the British Podcast Awards. So go to the show notes now, click the link and just then search for After Dark. Fill in your name and your email and don't forget to confirm. They will send you an email. You need to confirm. The whole process probably takes about 30 seconds. If you've already voted, we are so, so grateful. If you haven't, stop what you are doing

right now. Vote for us before you enjoy this show. Welcome to After Dark, the podcast that explores the darker side of the past. Today, it's the true story of the Luddites and their war against the machines. So let's set the scene. They emerge out of the Yorkshire dark, from the fields that they know as well as they know each other. They are of this land, and they have come to settle their score. Some have blackened faces, others wear masks like highwaymen, lords of misrule, they sing songs as they light their torches. The hulking shape of the mill is in front of them. A smash of glass now and a crash and they are inside confronting their enemies. A row of dark forms, made of metal and wood and powered by infernal steam.

Machines that can transform rough cloth to smooth as though by magic. Machines that can conjure wealth for some, and for others vanish away jobs. The shadows of men and machines dance against the walls in the torchlight. Then, herculean hammers, impossibly large, are heaved up. They crash down in a terrible blow, iron groaning and wood shattering beneath them, over and over and over. Then, they are done. The men politely wish the shocked factory managers good night and melt back into the lanes that they know so well. As they go, one name rings out. Ned Ludd. Today, as you might have guessed from that, we are going to talk about the Luddites. And

if you've ever felt depressed about AI, and we're going to talk about all this, or if you've ever sworn at your computer, which I have this week, then maybe this one is for you. Or if, like my mother, you're absolutely paranoid that all forms of technology are listening to you. Well, actually, she probably has a point there because sometimes. They certainly are. Yeah, they definitely are. So we're going to start by talking about the context and who the Luddites were, their mythical leader, Ned Ludd, that Maddie's just been talking about there. Then we're going to go on a deep dive into the Luddites of Yorkshire,

their fight against the machines and the mill owners that ended in murder. But before we do we need to look at some early 19th century context. We're focusing here on 1811 and 1812. Maddie, what's going on in the world? Oh, this is my favourite time period. As I've said so many times before anything from 1790 to about 1837. Yum. Love it. Okay, so George III is on the throne, but his son, George IV, as he will become, is currently the Prince Regent. The regency has begun. The prime minister at the time is Spencer Percival. Hold that name in your mind, Spencer Percival, because we are going to come back to him and let's just say he ain't going to

be prime minister for that long. It's the height of the Napoleonic Wars at this moment, which of course end in 1815 with the Battle of Waterloo. In Britain, there's a kind of pervasive feeling of fear and panic. The French Revolution that began in 1789 has spilled over into what is now the rise of Napoleon and this expansion of the French Empire under this new emperor, essentially, there's a fear that there'll be an invasion by the French of Britain. There has been unrest in Ireland and an alliance in 1798, I think, between the Irish and the French against the British. So there's enemies on all sides, there's huge tension and in the North in particular, not exclusively but certainly in the North, there have been bread riots. Food prices are rising because of the war and the lack of travel and trade on the continent

and there are famines, there's a shortage of food production and of course all this is going on in the shadow of the industrial revolution. What's interesting about this period compared to the later Victorian period is you've got regions that make specific things still. So to a certain extent, you still have the little cottage industries and then bigger factories building up. So the industrial revolution is happening, but it's not exactly as you would imagine it in the Victorian era.

Right. So you have like in the East Midlands, for example, they're mostly stocking knitters. In West Yorkshire, you have wool workers. In South East Lancashire, you've got cotton workers. This isn't exclusively the case, but these areas are famous for these different things. The food shortages that we get in this period are really important because people have been moving more and more from the countryside into towns and cities to begin working in factories, their little cottage industries where they were literally making cloth in their cottages at home in the countryside is disappearing. They're having to go to these

centres for work and now this workforce isn't getting fed very well. So there's a lot of unrest, there's a lot of resentment. The other thing that's happening, which is very relevant to what we're going to be talking about today is that steam engines are coming in, along with other kinds of machinery. By the end of the 18th century, there are more than 2000 steam engines in use across Britain. These are in ironworks, in coal mines, and of course, in factories as well. So there's new technology coming in that's changing how people work, where they live, what their lives look like, the hours that they work, the kind of work that's available to them. And that is very much the context of what's happening.

So this is a word, the word Luddite, that people will have heard of. And there's probably a few misconceptions that are because this is actually a really fascinating movement, I think. And the really special thing about it is I think we can relate to this in a really fascinating movement, I think. And the really special thing about it is I think we can relate to this in a really personal and immediate way in our own time. So before we get into the kind of nitty gritty of this history, talk to me about what exactly a Luddite is and why, or do they, hate machines so much? Okay, so there's a lot of myth, I suppose, surrounding what a Luddite is. And I remember even growing up – maybe this was a northern thing – the word Luddite being used to describe

someone who didn't have much cultural knowledge, who was a bit of a thug maybe, someone who didn't understand the delicacies of life and would go smashing through things. And I think that's kind of interesting. There is a lot of myth and we'll get into some of that. The historian Adrian Randall doesall, he says, the single defining feature of ludism is a common resistance to labor saving technology. These new machines that are coming in, it's important to say that there isn't really a singular movement of luddites. These are movements that spring up simultaneously and certainly they are connected to the same issues that we've just set out. This idea of machines taking people's jobs, of poverty creeping

in in urban areas where people have been pushed together for the first time, and the perceived destruction of their quality of life through the new factories. These pockets come about separately. I think it says so much about how widespread these issues were, particularly in the Midlands and the north of England. Of course, there were industrial areas in the south of England as well, particularly in the west country. I'm thinking about places like Bristol and the surrounding towns there. The Luddite movement really takes place between 1811, 1812 and into the start of 1813. That's kind of the height of it. There's this myth or this idea, I suppose, that they hate technology, that they will not tolerate any kind of machinery and they want to go back to a simpler time when people are hand making things. That's

not necessarily the case. There's a little bit more nuance than that. Luddites essentially start to target specific machinery that threaten to destroy artisanal livelihoods, right? So people who do very, very skilled work that's now being replaced. And you know, I can absolutely see why maybe in this episode, we're going to make comparisons to modern day technology and its kind of destruction or devaluing of skilled creative work, for example, that people do today. So you can see why this would piss people off now and why it pissed people off then. GWEN – Right. And so you've kind of set up this geographical map where these advancements

are happening. So does that mean that Luddism is connected to specific geographical places too or is it just widespread? KS – So it begins in Nottinghamshire. And this is a relatively small incident where a large crowd destroys 50 stocking frames, not considered an unimportant event in that region, but this is going to become far more widespread. Throughout 1811, then we get attacks that spread through Nottinghamshire in 1811 and it spreads throughout that county in that year. But then it starts to spread in 1812, first Lancashire and also to Yorkshire, which has a vast industrial complex, essentially, that's already been set up. And what's

interesting, and I think what unites all of these issues, is that one name in particular begins to emerge. People start to sign letters with this name, they start to shout it and sing it when they are breaking machines. And that is the name Ned Ludd. I mean, it makes total sense, but I didn't necessarily realize that there was an actual person, well, or is there, called Ned Ludd. I didn't realize there was a name associated with it, put it that way. I thought it was just a movement. I wasn't quite sure where this word had come from. And then I was like, oh, Ned Ludd, who is this person? Tell me a little bit more about him as much as you can. Okay. So he both exists and doesn't exist.

Yeah. So there was a real Ned Ludd in Leicestershire in the 1770s. So two generations, at least one generation before we're talking about this period. He did break a stocking machine though, in his own lifetime, but he's sort of irrelevant to what's happening in 1811. Other than the fact that his name kind of springs up. Now, it does become mythologised. He starts to be called General Ludd as though he's the leader of this army, this invisible army of industrial workers. And he becomes a kind of folk figure, right? So we're not necessarily talking about

a real person anymore. Now the Luddites, as I said, they sign letters with his name, they sing songs about him, and they all cite him no matter where they are geographically as their leader, which is so fascinating because these groups aren't necessarily organizing in relation to other groups in other geographical regions. And it's this folk figure that seems to be the uniting banner. We do have an image for you to look at, Anthony. And what I think is so interesting about this is that it's not only is it a fascinating image, but it's, I believe, the only image of a depiction of Ned Ludd from this period that we have that survives. It really is fascinating. I'm going to start unusually maybe with what's happening in the background. So in the background we have hills, mountains probably, we have sky with some

clouds coming in. And we have a group of men, either side of this image who are fighting, who are very kind of rowdy, there are sticks in the air, there's hats in the air, they're shouting, they're gesticulating. In the center to the back we have burning, I'm guessing factories, but certainly buildings. There's flames, there's smoke coming out from them. Then right back in the center, standing on a kind of a dirt track, which is relevant, surrounded by a little bit of grass, we have who is, I presume, the leader of the Luddites, Ned Ludd, as it says underneath. And Ned is depicted as a man wearing very ragged female clothing.

He's wearing a woman's hat with a feather and a ribbon around it. He's wearing, think, very Jane Austen clothing. That's kind of what he's wearing. He's got a neckerchief around his neck. But this is all very worn. This is all very old looking. There's holes in it. Then on his feet, he has kind of, sorry, not on his feet, very old looking, there's holes in it. Then on his feet he has

kind of, sorry not on his feet, on his legs he's wearing basically rags and he has only one shoe and one foot. So what we're faced with is this kind of man who is not quite comfortable in his masculinity and as a result the whole world is turned upside down. There is chaos. Men are fighting amongst themselves. Buildings are burning. And this whole idea of British industrialism and the greatness that is British industrialism, apparently at this time, is being eroded because of this silly looking man, I suppose. So it's very much not a pro- Luddite image, I would imagine. LH Yes, it's very much an anti-Luddite image, isn't it? Designed to mock this great folk hero.

This is absolutely an image that is satirical. It's meant to poke fun at the Luddites. However, so we have this version of Ned Luddite, who is obviously impoverished, but also has no sort of fixed identity, right? He's sort's confused in terms of his manhood, in terms of his identity. He's presenting as a pauper, as a beggar, but also importantly dressed as a woman. I think on the one hand, this is meant to show what happens when the Luddites succeed. We're going to hear more about what they do to factories. As you said, Anthony, there's a factory burning in the background and that's not something that was uncommon after a Luddite attack on such establishments. I think in terms of the criticism

of the Luddite movement, this is meant to suggest that the world order, this idea of early 19th century progress of industrialization of the wealth of nations, this idea of building up national wealth, it's all tied to ideas of manhood. Although factories themselves are not exclusively male spaces, women and children famously put to work in these spaces as well, but these are very much patriarchal spaces. There are no allowances made for maternity leave or child safety and they are run almost exclusively by men and the profits go almost exclusively to men. So I think there's a sense of like, if you attack this system that is emerging, that is tied to British manhood, British success, British imperial might, that you are turning the

world on its head and the order has been dismantled. Now I will say the Luddites themselves embraced this idea of cross dressing and some people would appear during these attacks dressed as this version of Ned Ludd in female clothing. So I think it harkens back to this tradition, certainly in rural communities in the medieval times of mumming, right, the mummers place, this idea of dressing up in costume, often in what we would now call drag, blurring the boundaries of hierarchy of identity in order to cause mischief, right. And often this was done, certainly through the medieval and early modern period, on special saints days or days of celebration, when the local landlord or person in power might allow it, they might be challenged

in some way. We talked about this a lot in the episodes that we did on folk culture around the British Isles, this idea of kind of disrupting the community, performing your grievances, your desires, your problems. And I think that's what's happening here, this very old tradition being brought in to speak to a very modern problem. I'll have to keep my voice down because right now I'm between the actual bedsheets of some of history's most famous figures. Want to know more about what Hitler might have been like in the sack, or Julius Caesar, or our very own Billy Shakespeare? You wouldn't believe the details I'm able to uncover here on Betwixt the Sheets, a podcast by

History Hit. Because sexuality explored through a historical lens can reveal a surprising amount about the human experience. What's and all, if you'll excuse the pun. And we don't just stop at sex. Expect outrageous scandals throughout the centuries, as well as probing into everyday issues, the nitty gritty of human life that really connects us to all people throughout history. Join me, Kate Lister, every Tuesday and Friday on Betwixt the Sheets to find out more. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Right, time to slide out here and avoid the bedpan. So you've mentioned already, Maddy, that this is happening in Nottinghamshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire.

So I want to look at a specific case now, and that is the Yorkshire Luddites. So we're going to be looking at this as a kind of a case study of how these actions come about. So set the scene of what's happening in this particular case. So we're in, I believe, the first half of 1812. We're in Huddersfield around Halifax, we're in Leeds, we're looking at wool manufacturing. And this disturbance that you're talking about in relation to that picture, this is something we're about to encounter here, right? Okay, yes. So we're in Yorkshire, as you say, there are sort of centres of industry in places like Halifax, Leeds, Huddersfield. The heroes, if you like, from this particular story are

called our croppers. Now, what is a cropper, here you ask? When you weave woolen cloth, there's a kind of fuzzy woolen surface called a nap that comes across it. If you've got like a woollen blanket at home, like if it gets kind of worn, you get like bits coming off it and it's all a bit fuzzy. Now the croppers, this was a really important job, would cut off that top layer of fluff and would make it smooth and therefore more saleable. It was much more valuable if it was kind of soft and smooth and delicate. I love this fact. This is an interesting fact. So when they were doing this work, by hand, by the way, crucially, for what we're about to talk about, they would wield 50 pound shears, that's 22 kilograms, essentially giant scissors. They were famous as a group for having really

massive forearms, which I just think is so fascinating. You often think about in archaeology, people can often tell if someone was an archer or carrying a pike in a medieval army because one side of your body would be really built up and you can see on the bones where the muscles had kind of make the surface of the bone ridged, don't they? They become sort of wavy because there needs to be more surface area for more muscle to attach to. I imagine it would have been the same for these people, right? They had such big forearms and they're so strong. It talks as well to the physicality of early industrialization and the cost on the human body, actually. This took its toll. Not only do people have terrible accidents in factories, limbs getting ripped off, fingers getting lost, there were all kinds of

terrible punishments enacted on children, all of that kind of physical violence going on. But you've got this alteration of the body. The body is kind of changed in this way. So, you know, this is something that takes over your life in a lot of ways. Will Barron So we have met our protagonists, the Luddites, but who exactly are our villains? Because it says here that they're shearing frames. I guess it's technology taking over these jobs. So what exactly is happening with the introduction of these shearing frames? I'm presuming people are losing their jobs. I mean, yes, you've absolutely nailed it. There's nothing more to say. Yes. So yes,

the shearing frames basically allowed you to cut off the top of the fuzzy bits on the wall without the croppers. You didn't need a human being to do it. You could just go ring across the top and it was all done. You get this tension building, I suppose, between the workers themselves who have an artisanal craft. They've been doing this for maybe centuries to this point on a smaller scale. Now suddenly, mill owners are coming in, removing them from the process, building these factories in these people's communities, and therefore putting them out of work. And suddenly, huge amounts of the population in rural areas, but also in these towns where industrialization has drawn people in, these people are now redundant, they have no work to do because of the machines. And of course, people are going to vent their frustration, first of all, on the machines themselves.

Will Barron Tale as old as time, to a certain extent, isn't it? Like, we're very, very familiar with this ourselves. And we'll talk about our kind of modern day interpretation of this more towards the end of this conversation just as a way of summing up. But it's interesting also to note that we're not even at the pinnacle of this yet. We are in the early 19th century. We are not talking about the huge factories that become iconic to the middle and later parts of the 19th century that really takes over the landscape in many ways. These are not yet those large mills, but yet we already have this discomfort at what technology is doing and the ways in which it's impacting these trades and these jobs. First of all, before they go to attack

the people that are involved in these things, they're attacking the machines. How does this start manifesting itself? The attacks begin in February 1812 and they start by targeting smaller workshops before they move on to the bigger factories that are being built. These are a series of attacks, right? It's not just one thing. Yes. These are organised attacks, but they escalate and they become more and more. Now, crowds of at least 100, to begin with, attack. They blacken their faces so that they are not, I suppose, identifiable at night. They take with them hammers. I have one particularly huge hammer, this group in Yorkshire, which they use to

destroy the machines. They call it Enoch. They name it. The attacks happen and the machines are broken. But what I think is so interesting, and we'll discuss why this is interesting in a minute, is that often before the attacks take place, they will send a letter to that respective factory owner. So this is a pattern of behavior, essentially. It's a pattern of behavior, and they will threaten to break the machines. They will tell them this is coming, maybe next week. So they give them warning, and they say, you must give us your jobs. You must get rid of the machines. If not, we will come by and break them. And we have one of these letters. This is from March 1812. So already a month into these attacks. And this is to a specific factory owner. And Anthony, I just want you

to read this because I think it's fascinating, not least in terms of how it is signed off. Okay. So it says to Mr. Smith, shearing frame holder at Hill End Yorkshire. Sir, information has just been given to me that you are the holder of these detestable shearing frames and I was desired by my men to write to you and give you fair warning to pull them down. You will take notice that if they are not taken down by the end of next week I will detach one of my lieutenants, lieutenants, interesting, with at least 300 men mined to destroy them and furthermore take notice that if you give us the trouble of coming so far, we will increase your misfortune by burning your buildings down to ashes, signed

by the general of the army of redressers. Ah, that's why they're dressing like that. Ned Ludd Clark. Interesting. Redressing the balance. Interesting. Yeah, I think it's so it makes them appear very ordered, right? Even though Ned Ludd, the general of the army of redressers does not exist. There are no lieutenants in this context. Yeah, lieutenants. But anyway, we've had this argument before. But no, look, I think that it's so interesting that there's a kind of playfulness there, right, as well, like thinking back to this idea of like mumming, and this performance of like, there is a playfulness. Absolutely. Yeah, it's quite camp.

Yeah, it totally is. And we see it throughout the 18th century, actually, in the centuries before. And I've talked about this on the podcast before, and I talk about it in my book Rotting on the Wall, but in 1780, there are the Gordon Riots in London, which is when Britain is brought to its knees over the course of a week, and it's the closest that we come to revolution. And it starts off as a peaceful protest, and it turns into rioting and soon like half the city's burning, the Bank of England is attacked, etc., etc. 600 plus citizens are shot by the British army on the streets of the city. In that context, the crowds start to organize themselves, the rioters, and supposedly they

begin to call themselves His Majesty King Mob. They sign that in graffiti. They paint those words on the side of Newgate Prison, for example, I think from memory. Read my book if you want the specifics. But You should read your book if you want the specifics. Yeah, I should. Yeah, clearly. But you know, that it's the same thing here, like the general of the army of redressers is this kind of playful, threateningness, I suppose, you know, this kind

of like we have organized ourselves, and we are using the guise of the hierarchies and institutions that you understand, in this case, the military, we're dressing up in this way, and using a language that you will be able to compute. But we are behind the scenes, this is chaos, and we will bring chaos to you in this mask, I suppose. Do you know what the most fascinating thing about this is? That they actually have some success because by April, all the frames in the small workshops now we're talking about the small ones, they have been removed. And I'm actually quite shocked by this, because I would imagine that people would just as they kind of do now, just double down and just be like, well, sorry, these are here now, you're gonna have to get used to it

like, skill or skill in a different way. I suppose, you know, you've got to think what's the protection in these early days? Like, what's the insurance like? Too much to lose. Yeah, like certainly insurance existed in this period. And you know, there would have been maybe a local militia who could help recently. Oh my god, I'm really plucking my own books today. But you know, recently, I finished writing my second book. And in that, there's a big fire in a factory and the local militia come in to put the fire out. So, you know, there were examples of

like sort of local forces who could help, but ultimately there's not a huge amount of protection. And often the reactions, the moves to protect property happen after a disaster has happened. So, you know, you would be thinking I've got to take these frames down because I don't want the Luddites coming around to my small factory that is my livelihood and destroying everything if you're a factory owner. But because they've had that success, they then start to target the bigger factories. Yeah, they move on to the big ones. So one of the big factories or mills that they attack is called Foster's Mill. And this is the one that we heard about in the opening narrative. They break in, they attack the shearing frames. They also interestingly destroy by fire the record books

for the factory. This is a slight escalation and it's a destruction not only of the machines that have taken away people's livelihoods and employment, but also of the system of capitalism itself. These record books presumably record things going in and out of the factory. Ultimately, they're concerned with recording the profit that the factory owners are making. I think this is a really canny escalating move actually, but they get too big for their boots and they move on to another mill called Rawfolds Mill. This is a situation where the escalation has gone too far and things do start to go wrong. By this point, we're in April, the 12th of April, 1812, and at this stage, the Luddites have grown to be in their

hundreds. They converge on this mill in the evening after, interestingly, they've already gathered at a pub called the Shearers Inn, which is nearby to this. They've blackened their faces as they had done previously. A lot of them have obviously taken drink in this pub. I think it's interesting that pubs, again, we're not talking about the 19th century pub where you will sit around a piano and have a good laugh, have a good sing song. These are very much still 18th century inns, coaching inns, drinking for some of the lowest rural workers and factory workers available. They're a little bit drunk, some of them. They blacken their faces and they go to this mill. Now the mill's owner is a man called William Cartwright. Because of

what's been happening in the area, he has taken things into his own hands and he has fortified the mill. He's barricaded the windows. He's got soldiers stationed in there overnight and where the windows are barricaded, there are gaps from them to stick their rifles out. This is turning into a whole other thing. This is a very different thing. Now the Luddites arrive. Whether they know about the soldiers or not, I'm not sure, but I think word would certainly have been going around at this point, but they're fortified by their drink and what they believe is a righteous cause and so they begin to sledgehammer the door. Cartwright gives the order and the soldiers open fire. What I think is so interesting is that later on the soldiers who are involved in this incident

talk about how they've never seen anyone fire and reload as quickly as Cartwright himself. You can understand he's the owner of a mill. He wants to protect his property and his profit, but there's something so eager in that violence and so devaluing of let's not forget he's looking out at his workforce. These are the people that he knows that he employs. Two of the Luddites are hit. They're badly injured. Their names are John Booth and Samuel Hartley and they do die the next day. They live long enough that the word gets around. They've been injured and this is going to be a catalyst for what comes next. Anger is kind of spreading and hardening and you know how I love a bit of graffiti

on the doors and walls of the factory the next day. Some of the Luddites come back and they chalk vengeance for the blood of the innocent. We have got one soldier in this melee who actually refuses to fire. That's right, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. And these soldiers, as we said, it's the time of the Napoleonic War and a lot of people are drafted into local militia, which are I believe separate from the regular army and they're not quite like the dad's army home guard of the Second World War, but they're tasked with protecting their particular regions should the French invade essentially.

And so they are drawn from the community. And a lot of them are drawn from the working classes, actually, we see that a lot, especially given that employment rates in factories, you know, for people who have skills who are being replaced by machines, they're out of work, the army, the militia is going to pay a reasonable wage, it's going to give you clothes on your back, it's going to give you interestingly a weapon, which is significant, but are you going to be prepared to turn that weapon on your brother, on your next door neighbor, on your father, on your son? Not necessarily. There's a really interesting incident of one soldier who does refuse to fire on the Luddite crowd at the mill and he is in the aftermath taken back to the mill and he's sentenced to 300 lashes to be carried out in public. Now 300 lashes is extreme.

The likelihood of you surviving that seems quite low. I mean 30 lashes is extreme. To give you a sense of just how extreme that is, he's given 20 lashes and at that point he is bleeding extremely heavily. And don't forget, you know, this isn't just cutting open your skin, this is like ripping your flesh away from your rib cage and things like this is brutal. What's so interesting is that William Cartwright, the factory owner who was so keen to fire on the Luddites, does actually intervene and he stops the flogging at that point. And I think that's an interesting turning point, isn't it? Yeah, that really is. That's so interesting because what it says is, and I love this,

what it says is there is defense and then there is barbarity and it has crossed over now into barbarity and that, well, I mean, you could argue that the shooting of the two men was barbarous as well. You could totally, I think, argue that successfully. But now we're into something else. And even when the factory owner is saying, no, this is too much, then you know, you know, it's gone. So who's behind that then? Who's enacting that? that then? Who's enacting that? The flogging? Yeah. Oh, it would be someone in the militia. He's refused to follow orders. So it would be a military issue. So it would be a militia officer. The order would come from a militia officer, it would probably be like a sergeant or something who would carry out the flogging. But yeah, I think it's interesting. It sort of talks as well, like these attacks happen in the dark,

the Luddites blacken their faces, so they're not visible. They can't be recognised and identified in the community the next day. They're trying to protect their identities. And then, you know, they're sort of, they're all nerd Ludd, right? They can all stand up, I'm Spartacus, I'm Spartacus, like, nobody's recognizable. Literally, yeah. Yeah. But in the cold light of day, when faced with this, you know, albeit a different kind of violence, this lashing of the soldier, nobody really has the stomach for it. Yeah. But I think as well, you could read it

as, two Luddites have been shot and by the next day are dead. Anger is rising. And now there's this performance of violence by the other side. Is it a case that William Cartwright doesn't want the soldiers punished because he wants to keep them onside? Is it simply that he thinks this isn't very politic to punish the soldiers? Let's overlook this. Let's keep them onside. We need their protection. Things are about to get worse. The Luddites have gone away with two dead bodies and they are raging now. Do we really need to do a performance of literally weakening our own side? I'll have to keep my voice down because right now I'm between the actual bedsheets of some of history's most famous figures. Want to know more about what Hitler

might have been like in the sack? Or Julius Caesar? Or our very own Billy Shakespeare? You wouldn't believe the details I'm able to uncover here on Betwixt the Sheets, a podcast by history hit. Because sexuality explored through a historical lens can reveal a surprising amount about the human experience. What's in all, if you'll excuse the pun. And we don't just stop at sex. Expect outrageous scandals throughout the centuries, as well as probing into everyday issues, the nitty gritty of human life

that really connects us to all people throughout history. Join me, Kate Lister, every Tuesday and Friday on Betwixt the Sheets to find out more. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Right, time to slide out of here and avoid the bedpan. So we've had an attack on the smaller mills. We have attacks then on the larger mills. None of these, well, the smaller mills proved successful. The bigger mills less so because they've got more of a system behind them, I suppose, of protection. Where are we going

to next? What's the next movement in this Luddite movement? Okay, so by this time period, there are some really large mills that are already in existence and they seem like the natural next target, right? But as William Carr right has proven, those buildings can be fortified by the local militia and the factory owners themselves. So therefore they are not really viable targets. The Luddites are just going to lose more people. They don't have military training. They're bringing their maybe one or two big hammers with them. Maybe they're carrying other weapons, homemade things, things that have been grabbed from the pub or whatever, but they are not

a trained military force and they are facing a trained military force. They decide to switch tactics and this is where I think you can start to lose faith with them a little bit. They start to attack the factory owners themselves. They see them as the enemies. These are the men who have called in the militia, who have brought the machinery in in the first place, who've put these people out of work and these individuals are seen as the problem. So the Luddites in Yorkshire then target a man called William Horsfall. He's the owner of Millneard Huddersfield. And he is someone who is very, very vocal in his contempt for the Luddites, and in particular for these croppers who cut the fuzz top off the wall. I mean, he's really violent

in his rhetoric against them. He says that he would ride up to his saddle girths in Luddite blood. He's making himself a bit of a target initially. We're not saying he deserves what comes next, but he's so keen for a fight, essentially, that he puts cannon on the roof of his mill. Like that's how serious he is about the Luddites. And you know, that's how seriously he's taking the threat. It goes to show as well how these factory owners view their factories. They are almost castle-like to them. And their workers.

This is their empire. And their workers, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Without a shadow of a doubt. So Horsefall is a particularly notorious factory owner. Yeah, and absolutely views this kind of kingdom that he's made for himself as his rightful property. He has already attacked a Luddite and a cropper called George Mellor. George Mellor approaches him to confront him about a woman whose infant has starved because of being put out of work and because of these conditions. And he strikes the Luddite across his face with a riding whip. So he's pretty... Yeah. He's kind of like an arch villain, isn't he? Sort of pantomimically

terrible. So George Mellor, therefore, on the 28th of April, 1812, he, along with three other Luddites, waits for Horsfall on the moor between Huddersfield and his mill. And it's so cinematic, you can imagine Horsfall riding across the moor on his way to work. Now he's ambushed after leaving a pub, interestingly. Did he stop there for a drink on the way to work? Is he changing horses there? Unclear. They shoot him off his horse and he is within sight of his own mill when he falls. Now they drag him all the way back to the pub called Warren House Inn and he dies there. I'm going to say he deserved that. He hit somebody across the face with a horse whip.

Yeah. I mean, it's not great, is it? Nah. Interestingly, in another pub nearby that night, there are allegedly large groups of Luddites who are celebrating and singing about this victory. And you can get such a flavour of the atmosphere in this moment, this sort of visceral hatred on both sides, and that this is seen as a great victory. There's just so much violence. It's so visceral. There's so much violence on both sides. And now there's this-

Good people on both sides, Maddie. There's good people on both sides. I mean, I know who's side I'm on on this, but yeah, it is a moment in which this tips over into being something else, right? Like there's protest, there's violent protest and the destruction of private property. And then there's murdering someone riding across a mall. But who did whip them across the face. Yeah. I'm not saying he didn't deserve some form of punishment. This feels like a spilling over. It's become, this is no longer the sort of playful, semi organized Lodiak movement,

right? This is just personal revenge. And we're also not targeting, and like, let's come back to this because actually, and it's probably a good way to end this, because it's like, let's come back to the destroying of the sock frames or whatever. This is where we started. Who is the enemy here? Yeah, exactly. The sock frame is one thing. The other thing I will say though, just because we talked about it at the beginning, you know, we talk about AI, we talk about all of these kind of things and in our own time or social media, whatever it is that, you know, unsettles

us or even automatic checkouts or whatever they're called at supermarkets, you know, things where there's nobody. Please remove the item from the bagging area. Oh, God. Yeah. The worst are Sainsbury's. Sainsbury's get your shit together with your self checkouts because it's absolutely horrendous. And the little camera where it is humbling and you think I can never go out in public ever again. It's weird, isn't it? Because time and tide or whatever that's saying is waits for no man or woman. It is like, this is just the nature of humanity. We move and we move quickly. And, you know, there's so many conversations happening around AI at the moment.

And I think the most useful ones are about regulation rather than stopping because we ain't stopping this. So we need to regulate in order to kind of harness this. And I suppose that seems like part of the conversation that's slightly missing in when we're talking about the Luddites. But actually at one side of this, there is absolute people who do not know what to do with themselves now. It's like when the factories closed or when the mines closed in the 80s, people are just devastated, communities are devastated and that's the real tragedy. The double tragedy is you never go back. Yes, those small mills took those sock frames out of us, but did it make a difference in the end? No, because technology continues and

we just have to keep up, that's our thing. I think what we have to remember about the Luddites is that they are not one unified movement. It really is different depending on the region, depending on the factory they're attacking. And as we see in the story of Horsefall, it's a way of settling local personal debts as well. So I don't think there's one thing that unites it other than the idea of Ned Ludd as this folk hero under whose banner they can identify what is happening is it's led by desperation. These are, I suppose, begun under this kind of playful guise of creating mischief, expressing a frustration. But in so many instances, we see it tip over into something else. Now, what is so interesting,

and I think this in a way kind of proves that there aren't people pulling the strings, is that this never really amounts to anything beyond the murder of Halsfall. This is the pinnacle of the Luddite movement, if you can call it a movement, and then it peters out. There is in that moment when he is murdered, a real panic that this is going to be some kind of revolution. Don't forget the French Revolution in 1789 is not that far away. it's just a generation ago. There's already fear of invasion, now there's fear of revolution at home. 12,000 troops are sent to the north of England to quell this. Toby So serious, really serious amount of troops.

Sarah Yeah, 12,000, serious amount of troops. There's probably not that many Luddites rising up, so that's a really significant amount that's risen to meet this. The other thing that happens in 1812 in May of that year is that the Prime Minister Spencer Percival is assassinated. He's shot by a man called John Bellingham. We should do an episode on that. It's a fascinating assassination. And so that in combination with the Luddites, there's a suggestion that the Luddites have done that, that they've been involved in the assassination. And there's a fear that this is going to take over the country and of course grind industry

to a halt because while these factories are getting attacked, they're not making stuff. The profit isn't churning out, the products aren't churning out. This is the industrial heart of a vast British empire that's been threatened and resized and reshaped by global conflict with the French. You need those factories to be working. A lot of the products, the cotton especially, where's that coming from? It's coming from the plantations in the Caribbean. This is a whole system that needs to keep moving, that needs to keep grinding. These people aren't just threatening a local factory owner

or settling a score. They are bringing potentially the British Empire to its knees. It's taken that seriously, but it does peter out. George Mellor, along with 13 others, are executed and the rest of the Luddites that are arrested that can be identified are transported to the colonies. They do get their comeuppance, but it seems like a little blip in what could have been a bigger moment and a bigger revolution. I wonder, we think about the Victorian factory that follows this and the terrible working conditions. As you say, Anthony, the complete lack of regulation in that moment. I just wonder, had the Luddite movement been more effective? Had it gone on for longer? Had it had more impact? Would it have brought in that regulation earlier on?

I think let's end on the question. I think it's a really thought-provoking subject, this. I really enjoy it. I love, love, love when history is messy. I think history is at its absolute best and most rewarding when it is messy and it's complex and there's blood and there's tears and there's all kinds of things. It's also interesting just in terms of this kind of revolutionary movements, which I actually don't necessarily think this is part of, but at the same time comes in the wake of and therefore there's fear that this is what that is, as you're describing there at the end about all of these. I mean, 12,000 troops is a huge, you would feel that presence very, very plainly if you were in the north of England

at the time. But it's so, so interesting. And I just think there's so many questions that come out of this. So thank you for listening with us today. This has been a really interesting one. I've enjoyed this episode. If you would like to go back and listen to our back catalog, then you'll find other things there from this time period. We've got the Thames torso murders. We have got the final days of George the Third, and we've also recently just recorded an episode on Frankenstein. So you've got more coming. And go back and listen to those. Leave us a five star review wherever you get your podcasts. It helps other people to discover us. I'm going to go away and think about the Luddites for the rest

of the day. I'm actually going to do a bit of extra reading around them too, I think. This is a fascinating topic. I want to know more. And thanks for listening and we'll see you again soon.