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Milestone

Swing Riots

Agricultural Revolutions and Transformations

A wave of uprisings by agricultural laborers across southern and eastern England in 1830, driven by the spread of the threshing machine and collapsing rural wages, and marked by machine-breaking, arson and threatening letters signed by the fictitious Captain Swing. Whether land enclosure or mechanized threshing was the true trigger is argued among historians. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Historians differ on the primary driver: Hobsbawm and Rude's tally found land enclosure directly implicated in only three of 1,475 recorded incidents, pointing instead to collapsing wages and the spread of threshing machines; a 2020 quantitative study confirmed a direct link between local threshing-machine presence and rioting.
Facts
Milestone Year
1830 1
When
Uprisings across 1830, concentrated in the autumn and winter of that year. 2
Location
Southern and Eastern England 1
Classification
Type/Classification
Agricultural Revolution or Transformation 1
Connections

Associated With

Threshing Machine, Implements and Machines
Source Swing Riots (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Swing Riots (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • Background section
    only three of a total of 1,475 incidents as being directly caused by enclosure
  • Lead section
    The Swing Riots were a widespread set of uprisings in 1830 by agricultural workers across Southern England and Eastern England in protest of agricultural mechanisation and harsh working conditions.
  • lead description (milestone-kind)
    A wave of uprisings by agricultural laborers across southern and eastern England in 1830, driven by the spread of the threshing machine and collapsing rural wages, and marked by machine-breaking, arson and threatening letters signed by the fictitious Captain Swing.
  • Associated With: Threshing Machine, Industrialisation section
    In the late 18th century, the threshing machine was invented and spread swiftly among the farming community, threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of farm-workers.
View the Source
2. What Caused the Swing Riots in the 1830s? (The National Archives, UK)
The National Archives (UK)Background section
Quote, Background section
Prompted by a decline in the prices of agricultural produce and wages, the introduction of threshing machines, and an influx of Irish labour, the rioters wished to restore their standard of living.
View the Source
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Description

Hobsbawm and Rude's tally of the riots found land enclosure directly implicated in only three of 1,475 recorded incidents, arguing that the collapse of wages and the spread of threshing machines, not enclosure, were the true drivers of the unrest.

A dissenting reading, from Eric Hobsbawm and George Rude (historians)Swing Riots (Wikipedia), Wikipedia
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