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Prosecution, Precedence and Official Memory: Judicial Responses and Perceptions of Swing in Norfolk

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Remembering Protest in Britain since 1500

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Abstract

This chapter offers a different perspective on the themes of the politics of memory and contested meanings of protest. It considers the perceptions and responses of the authorities to social unrest, and their role in shaping subsequent understandings of protest. Focused on the Swing disturbances of 1830, this analysis draws on Norfolk as a case study. The county’s experience of repeated unrest between 1816 and 1830 provides an opportunity to address the impact of the memory of popular protest: it informed both the resort to protest and the responses of the authorities. The prosecution of Swing is presented here as part of a process of simplifying or condensing ‘the messy historical realties’ of protest to establish an official narrative or memory of social upheaval.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Harvey J Kaye, ‘E. P. Thompson, the British Marxist historical tradition and the contemporary crisis’ in Harvey K. Kaye and Keith McClelland (eds), E. P. Thompson: Critical Perspectives (Polity Press: 1990), 259–260; Adrian Randall, ‘Captain Swing: a retrospect’, International Review of Social History 54 (2009), 427.

  2. 2.

    Steve Poole, ‘Forty years of rural history from below: Captain Swing and the historians’, Southern History, 32 (2010), 12–19; Carl. J. Griffin, The Rural War: Captain Swing and the Politics of Protest (Manchester University Press: 2012), 321–2.

  3. 3.

    Eric J. Hobsbawm and George Rudé, Captain Swing (London: Phoenix Press, 2001/1969), 258–63.

  4. 4.

    Griffin, The Rural War, 248–59; Carl J. Griffin, ‘“Policy on the hoof”: Sir Robert Peel, Sir Edward Knatchbull and the trial of the Elham machine breakers, 1830’, Rural History, 15 (2004), 130; Rose Wallis, ‘“We do not come here… to enquire into grievances we come here to decide law”: prosecuting Swing in Norfolk and Somerset’, Southern History, 32 (2010): 159–75; Rose Wallis, ‘The relationship between magistrates and their communities in the age of crisis: social protest c. 1790–1834’ (PhD thesis, University of the West of England, 2016).

  5. 5.

    Peter King, ‘Edward Thompson’s contribution to eighteenth-century studies. The patrician: plebeian model re-examined’, Social History 2 (1996), 222; Peter King, ‘The summary courts and social relations in eighteenth-century England’, Past and Present 183 (2004), 127.

  6. 6.

    Carl J. Griffin, ‘The culture of combination: solidarities and collective action before Tolpuddle’, Historical Journal 58 (2015), 443–80.

  7. 7.

    John Archer, By a Flash and a Scare: Arson, Animal Maiming, and Poaching in East Anglia 1815–1870 (Breviary: 2010/1990), 49; Carl J. Griffin, Protest, Politics and Work in Rural England, 1700–1850 (Palgrave Macmillan: 2014), 138.

  8. 8.

    Alfred J. Peacock, Bread or Blood (Victor Gollancz: 1965); Paul Muskett, ‘The East Anglian riots 1822’, Agricultural History Review 32 (1984), 2; Archer, By a Flash and a Scare.

  9. 9.

    Andy Wood, ‘Deference, paternalism and popular memory in early modern England’, in Steve Hindle (ed.), Social Relations and Social Change in Early Modern England (Boydell and Brewer: 2013), 234 and 246.

  10. 10.

    Archer, By a Flash and a Scare, 26–8.

  11. 11.

    Board of Agriculture, Agricultural State of the Kingdom (Board of Agriculture: 1816), esp.185–227.

  12. 12.

    Ibid., 190, 199, 205 and 219.

  13. 13.

    Andrew Charlesworth, An Atlas of Rural Protest 1548–1900 (Croom Helm: 1983), 146.

  14. 14.

    The National Archives, HO 42/151, fos. 3–6, Suffield to the Home Office, 11 June 1816; Peacock, Bread or Blood, 86–92.

  15. 15.

    Cambridgeshire Archives [hereafter CA], K 283/L/1/22 Narrative of the riotous transactions at Littleport, Ely and Downham 22–24 May 1816; Peacock, Bread or Blood, 95–111.

  16. 16.

    The Star, 26 May 1816, also cited in Peacock, Bread or Blood, 92–3.

  17. 17.

    Peacock, Bread or Blood, 93.

  18. 18.

    Parliamentary Papers [hereafter PP], 1822 (236) Agricultural distress. A list of all petitions, which have been presented to the House of Commons in the years 1820, 1821, and 1822; complaining of agricultural distress.

  19. 19.

    PP, 1825 (299) Labourers’ wages. Abstract of returns prepared by order of the Select Committee of last session, appointed to inquire into the practice which prevails in some parts of the country, of paying the wages of labour out of the poor rates.

  20. 20.

    Muskett, ‘The East Anglican riots’, 5.

  21. 21.

    TNA, HO 40/17, fos. 133a, 135, 3, 4 and 78, various letters, 27 February–8 March 1822; Charlesworth, An Atlas of Rural Protest, 148–51.

  22. 22.

    Norfolk Chronicle, 16, 23 and 30 March, 20 April, 22 July, and 29 October; Norfolk Record Office [hereafter NRO], C/S 1/21 Quarter Sessions book, MF 658; Muskett, ‘The East Anglian Riots’, 5–9.

  23. 23.

    TNA, HO 52/9, fos. 101–2 Author obscured, Kilverston, to Melbourne, 2 December 1830.

  24. 24.

    NRO, C/S 1/21, Quarter Sessions book, MF 658; Norfolk Chronicle, 30 March 1822.

  25. 25.

    TNA, HO 52/9, fos. 101–2.

  26. 26.

    See below.

  27. 27.

    Archer, By a Flash and A Scare, 59–60.

  28. 28.

    TNA, HO 52/9, esp. fos. 174, 187, 193; Norwich Mercury and Norfolk Chronicle, 4 December 1830 to 22 January 1831; Archer, By a Flash and A Scare, 59–60.

  29. 29.

    TNA, HO 52/9, various fos.; NRO: C/S 1/ Quarter Sessions Minute Books 1830–31; MF/RO 36/1 Calendars of Prisoners for Assize; Norwich Mercury and Norfolk Chronicle, 1830–1831. For tabulations, see Wallis, ‘The relationship between magistrates and their communities’.

  30. 30.

    Archer, By a Flash and a Scare, 63.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., 56.

  32. 32.

    Norwich Mercury, 3, 20 and 27 March 1830.

  33. 33.

    PP, Report from the Select Committee, to whom the several petitions complaining of the depressed state of the agriculture of the United Kingdom, were referred, 1821 (668), 189.

  34. 34.

    Norfolk Chronicle, 15 and 22 January 1831.

  35. 35.

    TNA. HO 52/9 fos. 75–77, Temple Frere to Melbourne, 3 December 1830, and fo. 65–67, 6 December 1830.

  36. 36.

    TNA, HO 52/9 fos. 165, Wodehouse to Melbourne 29 November and fos. 144–7, 30 November 1830.

  37. 37.

    Charlesworth, An Atlas of Rural Protest, 146.

  38. 38.

    Norfolk Chronicle, 18 May 1816; TNA, HO 40/17, fo. 10, Rackham to Sidmouth, 6 March 1822.

  39. 39.

    TNA, HO 52/9, fos. 165 and 144–7, Wodehouse to Melbourne 29 and 30 November 1830.

  40. 40.

    Norwich Mercury, 4 and 11 December 1830.

  41. 41.

    TNA, HO 52/9 fos. 90–1 and 176–82, Berney to Melbourne, 2 December, and Anon. near Aylsham to Peel, 25 November 1830; NRO, WLS XLIX/54 Letter, 11 December 1830 Grigson to Wodehouse.

  42. 42.

    John Archer, Social Unrest and Popular Protest in England 1780–1840 (Cambridge University Press: 2000), 18.

  43. 43.

    TNA, HO 52/9, fos. 90–91, Berney to Melbourne, 2 December 1830; see also above.

  44. 44.

    John R. Harvey (ed.), Records of the Norfolk Yeomanry Cavalry (Jarrold and Sons: 1908), 236–8.

  45. 45.

    TNA, HO 52/9, fos. 16–17, 72–3 and 79, W. Withers to Melbourne, Holt, 2 December, Wodehouse to Melbourne, Norwich, 4 December, and, letter to the Rev. Slapp from Attleborough Hall, 30 November 1830.

  46. 46.

    TNA, HO 52/9, fos. 72–3, Wodehouse to Melbourne, Norwich, 4 December 1830.

  47. 47.

    Hobsbawm and Rudé, Captain Swing, 154–5.

  48. 48.

    Norwich Mercury, 11 December 1830.

  49. 49.

    NRO, Kim 6/38, Melbourne to Wodehouse, 26 November 1830.

  50. 50.

    TNA, HO 52/9, fos. 151–3, Suffield, Gunton Park to Melbourne, 30 November 1830; NRO, WLS XLIX/54, 426X9, Kimberly correspondence.

  51. 51.

    TNA, HO 52/9, fo. 19, An address to the Inhabitants of the County of Norfolk, 3 December 1830.

  52. 52.

    NRO, GTN 5/9/40 printed circular, 8 December 1830.

  53. 53.

    TNA, HO 52/9, fos. 14–15, Wodehouse to Melbourne, 16 December 1830.

  54. 54.

    Norwich Mercury, 15 January 1831; TNA, HO 52/9, fo. 151, Suffield to Melbourne, 30 November 1830.

  55. 55.

    TNA, HO 52/9, fos. 151–3, Suffield to Melbourne, 30 November 1830.

  56. 56.

    Hobsbawm and Rudé, Captain Swing, 257–62.

  57. 57.

    Wallis, ‘“We do not come here…”’, 159–75; Wallis, ‘The relationship between magistrates and their communities’, 208–52; see also Griffin, The Rural War, 248–59.

  58. 58.

    John H. Barrow (ed.), The Mirror of Parliament, vol. 1 (Longman: 1831), 95.

  59. 59.

    NRO, C/S 1/24, Quarter Sessions Book MF 660; Norfolk Chronicle, 22 January 1831.

  60. 60.

    Norwich Mercury, 15 January 1831.

  61. 61.

    TNA, HO 42/151, fos. 30–1, Suffield to Sidmouth, 10 June 1816; CA, K283/L49/18–20, Dering to Ely magistrates, 8–11 June 1816, and Isle of Ely Assize minute book, 1801–1820.

  62. 62.

    TNA, HO 42/151, fos. 30–31 and 316–17, Suffield to Sidmouth, 10 June, and Hobhouse to Beckett, 19 June 1816.

  63. 63.

    Phillip Warren (ed.), Report of the Trials for Rioting at Ely and Littleport 1816 (Wilburton: 1997/1816), 5.

  64. 64.

    CA, K283/L49/7 Hobhouse to Evans, 3 June 1816, and K283/L14, Indictments; TNA, HO 42/151, fos. 348–57, Calendar of Prisoners, 17 June 1816.

  65. 65.

    TNA, HO 42/151, fos. 137–8 and 335, Hobhouse to Sidmouth, 19 June, and Hobhouse to Beckett, 21 June 1816.

  66. 66.

    TNA, HO 42/151, fos. 353–54, Bolland to Sidmouth, 21 June 1816; Norfolk Chronicle, 29 June 1816.

  67. 67.

    Charles Johnson, An Account of the Ely and Littleport Riots in 1816 (George T. Watson: 1948/1893), 66, 77.

  68. 68.

    Norfolk Chronicle, 24 August 1816; Peacock, Bread or Blood, 93–4.

  69. 69.

    Norwich Mercury, 22 January 1831.

  70. 70.

    NRO, C/S 1/24 Quarter Sessions books, MF 660 (January 1831); Norwich Mercury, 8 January 1831.

  71. 71.

    Norwich Mercury, 8 January 1831.

  72. 72.

    Norfolk Chronicle, 22 January 1831.

  73. 73.

    Ibid.; NRO, C/S 1/24, Quarter Sessions books, MF 660.

  74. 74.

    TNA, HO 52/9, fos. 49–50, Wodehouse to Melbourne, 10 December 1830.

  75. 75.

    Norwich Mercury, 15 January 1831.

  76. 76.

    NRO, C/S 1/21, Quarter Sessions book, MF 658; Archer, By a Flash and a Scare, 55.

  77. 77.

    Norfolk Chronicle, 30 March, 22 May, 19 October 1822.

  78. 78.

    Norwich Mercury, 8 and 15 January 1831.

  79. 79.

    Norwich Mercury, 8 January 1831.

  80. 80.

    TNA, HO 52/9, fo. 149, Notice to farmers from the Magistrates of Melton Constable, 26 November 1830.

  81. 81.

    Norwich Mercury, 8 and 15 January 1831.

  82. 82.

    NRO, C/S124, Quarter Sessions books, January 1831, MF 660/4 (see fos. 45–6); Norwich Mercury, 15 January 1831.

  83. 83.

    Norwich Mercury, 22 January 1831.

  84. 84.

    Norfolk Chronicle, 22 January 1831.

  85. 85.

    NRO, C/S 1/24, Quarter Sessions books, January 1831 MF 660 (see fos. 48–9); Norfolk Chronicle, 22 January 1831.

  86. 86.

    Norwich Mercury, 8 and 22 January 1831.

  87. 87.

    Muskett, ‘The East Anglican riots’, 9.

  88. 88.

    CA, K283/L49/7, Hobhouse to Evans, 3 June 1816; and, K 283/L/1/22, Narrative of the riotous transactions, May 1816.

  89. 89.

    TNA, HO 42/151, fos. 353–54, Bolland to Sidmouth, 21 June 1816; Norfolk Chronicle, 29 June 1816; Peacock, Bread or Blood, 174–6.

  90. 90.

    Norwich Mercury, 12 March 1831; TNA, HO 44/52, Judges of the Norfolk circuit to Home Office, 4 and 8 March 1831.

  91. 91.

    Stella Evans, ‘The life and death of Richard Nockolds hand loom weaver of Norwich’, in Michael Holland (ed.), Swing Unmasked: The Agricultural Riots of 1830 to 1832 and their Wider Implications (FACHRS: 2005), 170–84.

  92. 92.

    Norfolk Chronicle, 26 March 1831.

  93. 93.

    Hobsbawm and Rudé, Captain Swing, 259.

  94. 94.

    Norfolk Chronicle, 26 March 1831.

  95. 95.

    Steve Poole, ‘“A lasting and salutary warning”: incendiarism, rural order and England’s last scene of crime execution’, Rural History 19 (2008), 4–5.

  96. 96.

    Richard M. Bacon, A Memoir of the Life of Edward Third Baron Suffield (Privately printed, Norwich: 1838), 324; Archer, By a Flash and a Scare, 60.

  97. 97.

    Norwich Mercury, 2 and 16 April 1831.

  98. 98.

    Norfolk Chronicle, 6 and 22 April 1822.

  99. 99.

    TNA, HO 40/27, fo. 30, Justices of Norwich to Sidmouth, 2 March 1822; Archer, By a Flash and a Scare, 57–8.

  100. 100.

    Norwich Mercury, 15 January 1831; Norfolk Chronicle, 22 January 1831.

  101. 101.

    Ibid.

  102. 102.

    NRO, C/S 1/24, Quarter Sessions books, MF 660; Norfolk Chronicle, 22 January 1831.

  103. 103.

    NRO, C/Saa 1/15, Franklin to the Visiting Justices of the County Gaol, 25 July and 22 September 1831.

  104. 104.

    Norfolk Chronicle, 22 January 1831.

  105. 105.

    Norwich Mercury, 15 January 1831.

  106. 106.

    Ibid.

  107. 107.

    Norwich Mercury and Norfolk Chronicle, both 22 January 1831.

  108. 108.

    Norwich Mercury, 8 January; Morning Chronicle, 3 January 1831.

  109. 109.

    Ibid.

  110. 110.

    Norwich Mercury, 19 April 1831.

  111. 111.

    CA, K283/L49, various, June 1816 and January–February 1817; TNA, HO 42/151, fos. 357, Calendar of Prisoners Isle of Ely Special Assizes, 17 June 1816.

  112. 112.

    King, ‘Edward Thompson’s Contribution to Eighteenth-Century Studies’, 226.

  113. 113.

    Douglas Hay, ‘The state and the market in 1800: Lord Kenyon and Mr. Waddington’, Past and Present 103 (1999), 156–7.

  114. 114.

    Keith D.M. Snell, ‘The culture of local xenophobia’, Social History 28 (2003), 23–9.

  115. 115.

    Wallis, ‘The relationship between magistrates and their communities’, part II.

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  1. University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

    Rose Wallis

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  1. University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom

    Carl J. Griffin

  2. University of Hull, Hull, United Kingdom

    Briony McDonagh

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Wallis, R. (2018). Prosecution, Precedence and Official Memory: Judicial Responses and Perceptions of Swing in Norfolk. In: Griffin, C., McDonagh, B. (eds) Remembering Protest in Britain since 1500. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74243-4_7

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