Urban Workers in the Early Industrial Revolution by Robert Glen

Author:Robert Glen [Glen, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: History, General, Europe, Great Britain, Modern, 18th Century, 19th Century
ISBN: 9781000628449
Google: Wq4hEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-08-13T01:37:15+00:00

shows the relationship between weavers and the Committee of Trades, and between at least one member of the Committee and nocturnal arms raids. Whitaker, a weaver himself, should also be taken into account. Like Sherwin, he was on the Weavers' Committee and was probably on the Committee of Trades. He was an oath giver, knew the names of other oath givers, and knew some of the leaders Of the arms raids. In other words, Whitaker's list and his own career seem to confirm what has already been suggested, that the Luddite organisation in Stockport was predominantly a handloom weavers' organisation. Lloyd was not far wrong when he sent a copy of the Luddite oath to the Home Office under the title 'Oath or Engagement of the Weavers'. One certainly can not accept E.P. Thompson's assertion that this was 'an incipient secret trades council' consisting of officially deputed members of 'many' trades.53

The two main types of public disorders discussed thus far (factory attacks and rural levies) often had links to men from the town of Stockport or its suburbs. A third type of disorder, food riots, found less support in the urban core of the district. Most of the activity occurred in the district's north-eastern townships. On 21 April a crowd collected in the forenoon at Denton and moved to Hyde, where it attacked the mill of John Ashton and distributed flour-first at reduced rates, then free of charge.54 Meanwhile, a crowd rose up at nearby Gee Cross and attacked various provision shops in that village. A local minister witnessed some of the events.

I saw a large mob attacking a shop opposite our garden gate, and I saw the meal and flour brought out and distributed to the people, chiefly women, who received it into their aprons, handkerchiefs, caps, old stockings, or anything else in which they could carry it away. One man named Walker, for a frolic, had put a paper round his hat with General Ludd written on it, but it cost him dear, for he was transported as a ringleader, and died at the hulks.55

Walker, a collier, and others from Gee Cross then joined the main Denton crowd on its march through Butterhouse Green to Harden Mill, Bredbury. There the distribution of food was interrupted by John Lloyd leading a contingent of cavalry. Six men were taken into custody and the rest were dispersed by gunfire.

At least one contemporary account regarded the food riots of 1812 as 'unconnected' with other types of public disorders.56 In one sense this is correct. While weavers played prominent roles in the factory attacks and rural levies, hatters played the leading part in the food riots at Hyde, Gee Cross and Bredbury. The hatting industry had been depressed for a number of years. A defender of machinery blamed it on hatters' backwardness in adopting improved technology and stated that they 'have already in part, lost, and are intirely [sic] losing, the Trade to Foreign Countries'.57 Also aggravating the hatters' situation was the flood

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