Luddites. Machine-breakers, so called after a mythical leader, General Ludd. In 1811–16 textile workers in the east midlands, south Lancashire, and west Yorkshire met secretly in public houses or on the moors, took oaths, and smashed the machinery of mill-owners who refused their demands. The attacks were for specific industrial objectives: the destruction of shearing frames and gig mills (Yorkshire), power looms (Lancashire), and resistance to the breakdown of custom in the midlands framework-knitting industry. These were economic grievances which sprang from structural and technical changes in the industry, aggravated by trade depression, unemployment, and high prices. At a time when trade unions were illegal, Luddism may be interpreted as collective bargaining by riot: frame-breaking in the east midlands was an attempt to coerce employers rather than hostility to machines as such. Some Luddites may have harboured revolutionary intentions: the organization was so shrouded in secrecy, and so difficult to penetrate, as to support fears of an underground movement aiming at armed insurrection. Despite the deployment of spies and informers and 12,000 troops in the north and midlands, the government experienced great difficulty in dealing with the Luddites who, after their nightly attacks, disappeared into sympathetic local communities. Eventually the Luddite bands were tracked down and the reputed leaders executed or transported. The background to Luddism in Yorkshire is vividly described in Charlotte Brontë's novel Shirley.

John F. C. Harrison