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The Swing Riots were a widespread uprising by agricultural workers; it began with the destruction of threshing machines in the Elham Valley area of East Kent in the summer of 1830, and by early December had spread throughout the whole of southern England and East Anglia.〔Harrison. The Common People. pp. 249–253〕 As well as the attacks on the popularly hated, labour-displacing, threshing machines the protesters reinforced their demands with wage and tithe riots and by the destruction of objects of perceived oppression, such as workhouses and tithe barns, and also with the more surreptitious rick-burning, and cattle-maiming.〔 The first threshing machine was destroyed on Saturday night, 28 August 1830, and by the third week of October more than 100 threshing machines had been destroyed in East Kent.〔Hungerford Museum. The Swing Riots 1830.〕 The anger of the rioters was directed at three targets that were seen as the prime source of their misery: the tithe system, the Poor Law guardians, and the rich tenant farmers who had been progressively lowering wages while introducing agricultural machinery.〔 If caught, the protesters faced charges of arson, robbery, riot, machine breaking and assault.〔Andrew Charlesworth, Brian Short and Roger Wells. Riots and Unrest ''in'' Kim Leslie's. An Historical atlas of Sussex. pp. 74–75〕 Those convicted faced imprisonment, transportation, and possibly execution.〔 The Swing Riots had many immediate causes, but Prof. J. F. C. Harrison thought that they were overwhelmingly the result of the progressive impoverishment and dispossession of the English agricultural workforce over the previous fifty years, leading up to 1830.〔 In parliament Lord Carnarvon had said that the English labourer was reduced to a plight more abject than that of any race in Europe, with their employers no longer able to feed and employ them.〔Hammond. The Village Labourer 1760–1832. Ch XI. The Last Labourers' Revolt〕〔Hansard. ''House of Lords'' Debate 22 November 1830 vol 1 Column. 617〕 The name "Swing Riots" was derived from the name that was often appended to the threatening letters sent to farmers, magistrates, parsons, and others, the fictitious Captain Swing, who was regarded as the mythical figurehead of the movement〔Horspool. ''The English Rebel''. pp.339–340〕 ('Swing' was apparently a reference to the swinging stick of the flail used in hand threshing). The Swing letters were first mentioned by ''The Times'' newspaper on 21 October 1830.〔The Times, Thursday, 21 October 1830; p. 3; Issue 14363; col C〕 ==Background== Early nineteenth-century England was virtually unique among major nations in having no class of landed smallholding peasantry.〔Coffin. The Dorset Page. Captain Swing in Dorset.〕 Probably one of the main reasons for the Swing Riots were the Enclosure Acts of rural England.〔Hammond. The Agricultural Labourer 1760–1832. Chapter III Enclosure〕 Between 1770 and 1830 about 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.〔 This 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.〔 Whilst this may have offered a tolerable living during the boom years of the Napoleonic wars, when labour had been in short supply and corn prices high, the return of peace in 1815 brought with it plummeting grain prices and an oversupply of labour.〔 According to social historians John and Barbara Hammond, enclosure was fatal to three classes: the small farmer, the cottager and the squatter.〔Hammond. The Village Labourer, 1760–1832. p. 97〕〔Elmes. Architectural Jurisprudence. Title LXVI. pp. 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 of land. Thus a cottager is someone who lives in a cottage with a smallholding of land〕 Before enclosure the cottager was a labourer with land; after enclosure he was a labourer without land.〔Hammond. The Village Labourer, 1760–1832. p. 100〕 However, in contrast to the Hammond’s 1911 analysis of the events, the historian G. E. Mingay has pointed out that when the Swing riots broke out in 1830, the heavily enclosed Midlands remained almost entirely quiet, while it was in the southern and south-eastern counties, little affected by enclosure, that the riots were concentrated.〔G. E. Mingay, ''Parliamentary Enclosure in England: An Introduction to Its Causes, Incidence and Impact, 1750-1850'', (1997) pp.18-9 〕 Indeed the modern historians of the Swing riots, Eric Hobsbawm and George Rudé could cite only three of a total of 1,475 incidents as being directly caused by enclosure.〔E. J. Hobsbawm & G Rudé, '' Captain Swing '' (1969) , appendix 1 〕 In the 1780s workers would be employed at annual hiring fairs (or mops), to serve for the whole year. During this 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 increasing shorter periods. First monthly terms became the norm; later contracts were offered for as little as a week.〔Hobsbawm/ Rude. Captain Swing. pp. 18–33〕 Between 1750 and 1850 the farm labourer faced the loss of his land, the transformation of his contract and the sharp deterioration of his economic situation by the time of the 1830 riots he had retained very little of his former status except the right to parish relief, under the Old Poor Law system.〔Hobsbawm/ Rude. Captain Swing. pp. xxi–xxii〕 Historically the monasteries had taken responsibility for the impotent poor, but after their dissolution in 1536-9, it passed to the parishes.〔Friar. Sutton Local History. pp. 324–325〕 The Act of Settlement in 1662, had confined relief strictly to those who were natives of the parish.〔Hobsbawm/ Rude. Captain Swing. p. 29〕 The poor law system charged a 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.〔 These payments were minimal, and at times degrading conditions were required for their receipt.〔〔 As more and more people became dependent on parish relief, ratepayers rebelled ever more loudly against the costs, and a lower and lower level of relief was offered.〔Hammonds. The Village Labourer. pp. 183–185〕 Three and a half "one gallon" bread loaves were considered necessary for a man in Berkshire in 1795.〔 However provision had fallen to just two similar-sized loaves being provided in 1817 Wiltshire.〔 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, knowing that the parish fund would top up wages to a basic subsistence level (see Speenhamland system).〔〔Friar. Sutton Companion to Local History. pp. 324–325〕 To this mixture was added the burden of the church tithe.〔Hobsbawm/ Rude. Captain Swing. pp. 14–15 〕 Originally this had been the church's right to a tenth of the parish harvest.〔 However the earlier collection of goods in kind had been replaced by a cash levy that was payable to the Church of England Parson and went to pay his (often considerable) wages.〔Lee. Rural Society and the Anglican Clergy 1815–1914. pp. 27–29〕 The cash levy was generally rigorously enforced, whether the resident was a Church member or not, and the sum demanded was often far higher than a poor person could afford.〔 Calls for a large reduction in the tithe payment were prominent among the demands of the rioters.〔 The final straw was the introduction of horse-powered threshing machines, which could do the work of many men.〔〔Hobsbawm/Rude. Captain Swing. Appendix IV〕 They spread swiftly among the farming community, threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of farmworkers.〔 Following the terrible harvests of 1828 and 1829, farm labourers faced the approaching winter of 1830 with dread.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Swing Riots」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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