Editing Swing Riots (section)

==Background==

=== Enclosure ===
Early 19th-century England was almost unique among major nations in having no class of landed [[smallholding]] [[peasant]]ry.<ref name="dorset">Coffin. The Dorset Page. "Captain Swing in Dorset".</ref> The [[inclosure act]]s of rural England contributed to the plight of rural farmworkers. Between 1770 and 1830, about {{convert|6|e6acre|km2}} of common land were enclosed. The common land had been used for centuries by the poor of the countryside to graze their animals and grow their own produce. The land was now divided up among the large local landowners, leaving the landless farmworkers solely dependent upon working for their richer neighbours for a cash wage.<ref name="hammond3">Hammond. ''The Agricultural Labourer 1760–1832''. Chapter III "Enclosure"</ref> That may have offered a tolerable living during the boom years of the [[Napoleonic Era]], when labour had been in short supply and corn prices high, the return of peace in 1815 resulted in plummeting grain prices and an oversupply of labour.<ref name="dorset"/> According to the social historians [[John Lawrence Hammond|John]] and [[Barbara Hammond]], enclosure was fatal to three classes: the small farmer, the cottager and the squatter.<ref name="hammond97">Hammond. ''The Village Labourer, 1760–1832''. p.&nbsp;97</ref><ref name="elmes178">Elmes. Architectural Jurisprudence. Title LXVI. pp.&nbsp;178–179. Definition of a cottage is a small house for habitation without land. Under an Elizabeth I statute, they had to be built with at least {{convert|4|acre|m2}} of land. Thus, a cottager is someone who lives in a cottage with a smallholding of land</ref> Before [[enclosure]], the cottager was a labourer with land; after enclosure, he was a labourer without land.<ref name="hammond100">Hammond. ''The Village Labourer'', 1760–1832. p.&nbsp;100</ref>

In contrast to the Hammonds' 1911 analysis of the events, the historian [[G. E. Mingay]] noted that when the Swing Riots broke out in 1830, the heavily-enclosed Midlands remained almost entirely quiet, but the riots were concentrated in the southern and south-eastern counties, which were little affected by enclosure.<ref>G. E. Mingay, ''Parliamentary Enclosure in England: An Introduction to Its Causes, Incidence and Impact, 1750-1850'', (1997) pp.17-19</ref> Some historians have posited that the reason was that in the West Midlands, for example, the rapid expansion of the Potteries and the coal and iron industries provided an alternative range of employment to agricultural workers.<ref>RICHARDS, ERIC. “‘CAPTAIN SWING’ IN THE WEST MIDLANDS.” International Review of Social History, vol. 19, no. 1, 1974, pp. 86–99. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44581713. Accessed 12 Nov. 2020.</ref>

Critically, [[J. D. Chambers]] and [[G. E. Mingay]] suggested that the Hammonds exaggerated the costs of change, but enclosure really meant more food for the growing population; more land under cultivation and, on the balance, more employment in the countryside.<ref>Chambers and Mingay. ''Agricultural Revolution''. p. 104</ref> The modern historians of the riots, [[Eric Hobsbawm]] and [[George Rudé]], cited only three of a total of 1,475 incidents as being directly caused by enclosure.<ref>E. J. Hobsbawm & G Rudé, '' Captain Swing '' (1969), appendix 1</ref> Since the late 20th century, those contentions have been challenged by a new class of recent historians.<ref>J.M. Neeson. ''Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure: and Social Change in England, 1700-1820''. p. 223</ref>  Enclosure has been seen by some as causing the destruction of the traditional peasant way of life, however miserable:
{{Blockquote|"Enclosure dissipated the haze which surrounded rural poverty and left it nakedly visible as propertyless labour"|Hobsbawm/Rude. Captain Swing p. 16}}
Landless peasants could no longer maintain an economic independence and so had to become labourers.<ref>Hobsbawm/Rude. Captain Swing p. 16</ref> Surplus peasant labour moved into the towns to become industrial workers.<ref>Moore. ''Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World'' pp. 29–30</ref>

=== Precarious employment ===
In the 1780s, workers would be employed at annual [[Hiring and mop fairs|hiring fairs, or ‘mops’]], to serve for the whole year. During that period, the worker would receive payment in kind and in cash from his employer, would often work at his side, and would commonly share meals at the employer's table. As time passed, the gulf between farmer and employee widened. Workers were hired on stricter cash-only contracts, which ran for increasingly shorter periods. First, monthly terms became the norm. Later, contracts were offered for as little as a week.<ref name="hobsbawm18">Hobsbawm/Rude. Captain Swing. pp.&nbsp;18–33</ref> Between 1750 and 1850, farm labourers faced the loss of their land, the transformation of their contracts and the sharp deterioration of their economic situations. By the time of the 1830 riots, they had retained very little of their former status except the right to parish relief, under the [[Old Poor Law]] system.<ref name="hobsbawmxxi">Hobsbawm/Rude. Captain Swing. pp.&nbsp;xxi–xxii</ref>

Additionally, there was an influx of Irish farm labourers in 1829, who had come to seek agricultural work which contributed to reduced employment opportunities for other farming communities.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Archives |first=The National |title=The National Archives - Homepage |url=https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/what-caused-the-swing-riots-in-the-1830s/ |access-date=2023-10-31 |website=The National Archives |language=en-GB}}</ref> Irish labourers would find themselves being threatened from the beginning of the riots the following year.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Griffin |first=C. J. |date=2010-11-01 |title=The Violent Captain Swing? |url=https://academic.oup.com/past/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/pastj/gtq035 |journal=Past & Present |language=en |issue=209 |pages=149–180 |doi=10.1093/pastj/gtq035 |issn=0031-2746|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

=== Poor Laws ===
Historically, the monasteries had taken responsibility for the [[classifications of poor used in the Poor Law system|impotent poor]], but after their dissolution in 1536 to 1539, responsibility passed to the parishes.<ref name="sutton3242">Friar. ''Sutton Local History''. pp.&nbsp;324–325</ref> the [[Poor Relief Act 1662|Act of Settlement in 1662]] had confined relief strictly to those who were natives of the parish. The poor law system charged a [[rates (tax)#United Kingdom|Parish Rate]] to landowners and tenants, which was used to provide relief payments to settled residents of the parish who were ill or out of work.<ref name="hobsbawm29">Hobsbawm/Rude. Captain Swing. p.&nbsp;29</ref> The payments were minimal, and at times, degrading conditions were required for their receipt.<ref name="harrison249"/><ref name="sutton3242"/> As more and more people became dependent on parish relief, ratepayers rebelled ever more loudly against the costs, and lower and lower levels of relief were offered. Three "one-gallon" bread loaves a week were considered necessary for a man in [[Berkshire]] in 1795. However provision had fallen to just two similarly-sized loaves being provided in 1817 [[Wiltshire]].<ref name="hammond183">Hammonds. ''The Village Labourer''. pp.&nbsp;183–185</ref> The way in which poor law funds were disbursed led to a further reduction in agricultural wages since farmers would pay their workers as little as possible in the knowledge that the parish fund would top up wages to a basic subsistence level (see [[Speenhamland system]]).<ref name="hammond183"/><ref name="friar324">Friar. Sutton Companion to Local History. pp.&nbsp;324–325</ref>

=== Tithe System ===
To that mixture was added the burden of the [[Tithe#England|church tithe]]. This was the church's right to a tenth of the parish harvest.<ref name="hobsbawm14">Hobsbawm/Rude. Captain Swing. pp.&nbsp;14–15
</ref> The tithe-owner could voluntarily reduce the financial burden on the parish either by allowing the parish to keep more of their share of the harvest. Or the tithe-owner could, again voluntarily, commute the tithe payments to a rental charge. The rioters had demanded that tithes should be reduced, but this demand was refused by many of the tithe-owners.{{efn|[[Tithe Act 1836|Tithe Act 1836 (6 & 7 Will. 4. c. 71)]] made it compulsory for [[Tithe commutation|tithe payments to be commutated to a rent charge]] instead.<ref name="lee27">Lee. Rural Society and the Anglican Clergy 1815–1914. pp.&nbsp;75–78</ref>}}<ref name="lee27"/>

=== Industrialisation ===
The final straw was the introduction of horse-powered threshing machines, which could do the work of many men.<ref name="harrison249"/><ref name="hobsbawmiv">Hobsbawm/Rude. Captain Swing. Appendix IV</ref> They spread swiftly among the farming community and threatened the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of farmworkers.<ref name="hobsbawmiv"/> Following the terrible harvests of 1828 and 1829, farm labourers faced the approaching winter of 1830 with dread.<ref name="harrison249"/>