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The Times, 18th December 1830

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VI

SWING CROSSES INTO SUSSEX

illiam Cobbett firmly believed that the Swing disturbances in the south of England and in particular the riots in Sussex largely resulted from the farm labourers’ intense dislike of the hired

overseers. Cobbett called the 1819 Poor Law Amendments ‘grinding contrivances’ that had created salaried assistant overseers, responsible in their professional capacity for administering payments.

Under the legislation, penny-pinching ratepayers gained control over vestry decisions, and the poor lost their long-established right to appeal to magistrates if they had suffered mistreatment. Now, should the labourers fall on the poor rates, argued Cobbett, they were mercilessly pushed to the verge of starvation. There were stories told of vindictive assistant overseers manhandling and sometimes harnessing the poor into parish carts so they could be moved elsewhere to work as cheap-labour gangs on the roads, breaking stones or filling in holes. This gross humiliation did nothing to improve community relations in rural society and caused, in Cobbett’s words, ‘a rooted hatred between the rich and poor, a thing that was never heard of before’.46 There is much evidence that supports Cobbett’s views, evidence undisputed by The Times:

Where disorder has occurred it has arisen from dislike to some obnoxious clergyman or tithe-man or assistant overseer, who has been trundled out of the parish in a wheelbarrow or drawn in triumph in a load of ballast by a dozen old women.47

The rector of Burwash, in a contribution to the periodical Leisure Hour, claimed the outbreaks in Sussex began in his parish. He recalled many years later, unfortunately without mentioning any date, an account ‘from the lips’ of a local labourer: ‘Well, mate, what be you goom to do, be you goom to starve?’ According to the rector, a parishioner’s own husband ‘was seized while at breakfast and compelled to join the mob’, which having been persuaded on its first visit to the village to

W

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disperse, returned in greatly increased force on the following Monday and having surrounded one of the principal farmers with a ring of excited labourers, ‘kept him, as it were, prisoner until he gave a promise that he would not use his threshing machine anymore.’ How much credence can be given to his assertion that the riots broke out originally in Burwash is difficult to assess.

Hobsbawm and Rudé noted mounting attacks on overseers once the Swing movement had progressed into the Sussex Weald. Their research uncovered a little-reported incendiary fire as early as 17th October 1830, targeting a barn at Hartfield, the property of a blacksmith and assistant overseer. On 3rd November, there was an arson attempt on the George Inn, still standing today in Battle High Street, which in 1830 had belonged to a local farmer and overseer. The inn was accepted as the unofficial town hall of Battle. This fire was later to take on huge significance. Cobbett had lectured at Battle on 16th October, but later denied any responsibility for the wide-ranging disturbances that followed. The Times found it a singular coincidence that in less than a fortnight after the delivery of Cobbett’s lecture, the first fire took place in Battle, and still more singular that the property destroyed belonged to Charles Emary, landlord of the George Inn, who had refused Cobbett use of his principal room for the purpose of delivering his lecture.’48 This charge was vehemently denied by Cobbett, during court proceedings at the Old Bailey for seditious libel, on 17th February 1831: ‘The story about the room at the Inn at Battle having been refused me, is sheer falsehood.

The day after the fire at the George Inn, the poor villagers of Brede held a preliminary meeting at a local pauper’s house and resolved to avenge themselves on an insolent overseer named Abel. Abel had made himself deeply unpopular by forcing the poor to be conveyed in the parish cart, to draw stones and sand on the road. To add insult to injury, Abel had taken it upon himself to draw up the design specifications for the cart used in the conveyance. The following day, 5th November, the Brede labourers assembled at the Red Lion* and negotiated an agreement with reluctant local farmers for a rise in wages, and had resolved to dump Abel outside the parish

__________________________________________________ * The Red Lion still exists.

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boundary at the first opportunity — but in a civilised manner, naturally.

Once the meeting had closed, the farm labourers, together with their wives and children, moved the parish cart, positioned it outside the wretched overseer’s house and began hammering at the gates. Abel was eventually persuaded, much against his will, to climb into his cherished cart and was drawn triumphantly by twelve women, accompanied by nearly five hundred men, women and children, to be deposited at his chosen destination — Vine Hall,* on the turnpike road to Robertsbridge. The Times thought the procession ‘a truly ludicrous sight, but a just caution to all arbitrary overseers.’49

A party of special constables, reinforced by soldiers, was ordered to Brede twelve days after Abel had been carted out of the parish, to apprehend some of the labourers known to have been responsible for his ignominious removal. The overseer would have supplied this information after being dumped outside Vine Hall, from where he made off, in search of an available magistrate, to lodge a complaint. Two of the ringleaders were arrested and ‘are now lying in Battle gaol.’50 The 1833 Poor Law Commissioners’ report on the disturbances refers to this spectacle as part of:

The riots in the north-east parts of the Rape of Hastings which commenced simultaneously on the 5th and 6th of November 1830. The farmers observed that their labourers all at once left their work: they were taken away by night by a systematic arrangement; no leader could be identified, but bills were run up at the public houses in the evening [including, presumably, the Red Lion] and in the morning a stranger came and paid.

We have to take the Commissioners on trust for the accuracy of this account.

Many surrounding parishes were inspired by the Brede example. Approximately three weeks after the events at Brede, the farm labourers of Fairlight assembled in strength to approach the neighbourhood’s farmers and landowners to demand a meeting next day at Stonelynk Hall† to press for an __________________________________________________ * Vinehall is today a private school on the A21. † The farm and hall still stand near the foot of Battery Hill to the east of

Fairlight.

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increase in wages — at a rate anyway that the farmers might find acceptable. At 5 a.m., well before daybreak, the Fairlight Workhouse superintendent was roused from his slumbers and summarily told his duty to the poor was over and he should forthwith quit the parish. Dispensing with a cart, the labourers placed a halter round his neck and unceremoniously dragged him up the climb to Pett, where they took refreshments — probably no more than a meagre breakfast of bread and potatoes — in the open air, as the pubs would have been closed. Their meal complete, they turned back down the hill to Stonelynk, where the farmers had already gathered. Such, apparently ‘was the prevailing terrorism that it was felt prudent to accede to the labourers’ demands to any extent that might be within the bounds of reason’.51 The farmers at Guestling had already been compelled to adopt higher rates of pay and the same scale was unanimously agreed to at Stonelynk. The advance in wages, according to T. B. Brett, a local historian, put the men in good heart and they promised, perhaps without much influence, to protect the farmers’ property within the parish and neighbourhood.

William Cobbett’s controversial public lecture at Battle took place on 16th October 1830. He had spoken in Maidstone only two days before. He gave his lecture standing on a makeshift stage of faggots and boards, almost certainly erected on the green fronting the Abbey. Had Cobbett genuinely been refused the use of the George Inn? The Times clearly thought so, asserting that: ‘Cobbett had the impudence to deny that he was refused the great room at the George Inn. He did not apply himself but the agent who managed his affairs in Battle did and was refused. He applied a second time and was refused it at any price. George Spate, in his biography of Cobbett, believed the agent in question was the Battle tailor, James Gutsell, who shortly afterwards became Cobbett’s secretary.52 Cobbett continued to deny, without mentioning his agent, that he had ever applied for permission to speak at the inn, or any other place in Battle. His denial is carefully drafted but the matter must be left open.

The Times relates how Cobbett told his Battle audience that, unless farmers were prepared to pay better wages to their labourers, the fires which were then going on in Kent might well take place in Sussex, adding that the boundary between the two counties was only imaginary. This prediction could perhaps be considered provocative but was hardly inflammatory. Moreover,

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there is good evidence that he went on to roundly condemn the burnings and destruction, although he welcomed the wage rises that had resulted. Cobbett urged his audience of five hundred, assembled from the surrounding villages, and which included many farmers’ labourers in smock frocks and a row of ‘pretty Sussex women’, to sign a petition and then they should all be restored soon ‘to the happy state in which our forefathers lived’.

On 17th November 1830, The Times directed the blame for the riots straight at the door of that ‘notorious demagogue’: ‘Mr Cobbett has been at Tunbridge, Maidstone, etc., giving lectures and distributing papers and this has added fuel to the flames. Have no doubt that there are persons much above the rank of labourer who privately urge the poor on at this critical period’. Three days passed before the newspaper again commented on the malign influence of Cobbett’s public addresses in helping to stir up discontent: ‘There are whispers about that great discontent has been expressed in all the places in Kent and Sussex where Cobbett has lectured, within a few weeks of his departure fires have started.’

A short time later, The Times published a letter from Brighton that directly implicated Cobbett in the disturbances. The correspondent alleged he had been present at one of Cobbett’s lectures in Eastbourne, where he told his audience, principally of labourers: ‘a revolution must inevitably take place in this country and it must be worked by such men as I see before me.’ The writer went on to state that Cobbett had asked a farm labourer at Battle ‘if his shoulders were strong enough to bear a musket’: ‘Thus not only by oblique hints did he inflame the minds but openly did he predict every part of the country would be visited with similar outbreaks to those that were raging in Kent. In Battle the conflagrations have since been nightly and Eastbourne is the scene of destruction.’

Cobbett had called for a widening of the franchise, arguing that every man capable of bearing arms was entitled to a vote. This may have been deliberately distorted by a correspondent politically hostile to the radical agitator. There is some suspicion that the letter’s contents were designed to initiate the grounds for a charge of incitement to riot. The correspondent claimed there had been nightly fires at Battle. This is somewhat exaggerated: between 3rd and 11th November, there were five reported incidences of incendiarism. Was it reasonable for Cobbett to be held directly responsible for any of these? At his trial for sedition, he produced a declaration signed by more than

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one hundred spectators who had heard his speech at Battle, including the signature of a farmer whose barn had been fired shortly afterwards, which suggests, as Cobbett swore in evidence, that he had never uttered any words urging others to set fire to property. Cobbett also denied that he had ever advised anybody to pick up a gun and follow him.

If Cobbett cannot take the blame for fanning the flames, what else might have influenced the setting of several incendiary fires in Battle, in particular the three fires that occurred on 10th and 11th November?

Sir Godfrey Webster (1789–1836) belonged to the family that owned Battle Abbey.* His active opposition to the agricultural disturbances placed him in danger. In Battle he was regarded as a marked man, and he had been manhandled at Herstmonceux when attempting to calm a labourers’ meeting at the Woolpack Inn. He carried two hog-knives — one in each pocket of his greatcoat — for self preservation, preferring them to pistols, which might misfire. On 9th November Sir Godfrey wrote from Battle Abbey: ‘A very considerable mob, to the amount of nearly five hundred, having their parish officer in custody, drawn in a dung cart, attempted to enter this town at eleven o’clock this morning’. This large assembly of farmers’ men had hoped to intimidate Battle magistrates into agreeing some concessions over wages and conditions, without being aware that a company of dragoon guards was quartered there or that special constables had been placed on day and night alert. The Times reported: ‘Sir Godfrey Webster, who happened to be at the Abbey, seized [twenty agitators] who now have been lodged in Lewes gaol and by well-timed threats he succeeded in dispersing the mob.’53

Might Webster’s successful intervention in arresting the ringleaders and breaking up the riots have so enraged the farm labourers that they plotted instant retaliation? Had he merely inflamed a volatile situation and ignited the fires? The day after Webster watched, from an Abbey window, the overseer being drawn down Battle High Street in a dung car, a fire broke out in a lodge on a farm rented by Charles Emary, an overseer and landlord of the George Inn, about three-quarters of a mile from the town. It was pure chance that a carter was in the stable close by, enabling him, with great difficulty, to save the house. A __________________________________________________ * And was responsible for its major renovation after selling Bodiam Castle in

1828.

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second lodge, the stable the carter had been working in, and a barn containing a considerable quantity of wheat, were consumed in flames.

The following evening, another lodge fire was discovered at Course Barn, a farm belonging to none other than Sir Godfrey Webster, rented and occupied by Thomas Quaife, within a mile of Battle. A small clover-stack and a barn close to the blazing lodge were also fired. It was only because labouring men flocked to help that three more stacks and another barn were saved. Webster’s farm cottage caught fire three times before being doused in water. Course Barn was to suffer a second incendiary attack just over two weeks later, on 26th November, far more damaging in extent. Witnesses described a scene of devastation; the remaining barn, containing oats and beans, was consumed together with the greater part of a wheat stack and several lodges. Fortunately for Sir Godfrey, the property was insured with the Kent Fire Office.

These two arson attacks were further examples of planned reprisals which, as we have seen in Kent, played such a key role in the Swing riots. On the night of the first fire at Course Barn, Battle inhabitants were greatly alarmed by strong rumours suggesting that the town itself would be destroyed before morning. The Hastings & Cinque Ports Iris reported:

About eleven o’clock at night several persons surrounded the George Inn and from their manner and appearance, an express was immediately sent off to Hastings for the fire engine and a number of constables to assist in keeping the peace. The engine was put in a van with a number of peace officers and was at the door of the George Inn within one and three-quarter hours. No burning took place in Battle but about 2 a.m. a haystack, the property of Robert Watts, a very short distance from the town was on fire, the engine from Hastings being fortunately at hand soon extinguished the flames and the labouring men, women and children, many of them with their ankles in water, rendered every assistance.54

Another fire was discovered on Robert Watts’s Yew Tree Farm outside Battle three weeks later, at 11 p.m., Thursday 2nd December. A lodge adjoining a barn filled with oats was found alight but, because the thatch was very old and covered with weeds, the fire was brought under control. Only one and a half hours later a further property, belonging to Watts but occupied

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by a tenant farmer named Alderton, was fired. A barn containing twenty quarters of oats and a stack of meadow-hay was completely burnt out. A reward of £100 for each of the first three fires was offered for the discovery of the arsonists, The Times wondered why Emary, Quaife and Watts had been singled out, as they were not considered hostile to the poor. Days later, the newspaper was informed of a ‘mischievous person’ spreading gossip around Hastings that Charles Emary had a reputation for paying very low wages, although Emary had never employed an able man at less than two shillings a day and ‘generally more’.

On the same night as Robert Watts had his haystack burnt out at Yew Tree Farm, another fire was discovered on the premises of Henry Farncombs at Icklesham. Farncombs lost his lodge and a barn of oats plus three corn stacks to the incendiarists, and the fires were seen burning with considerable fury for some time. The Hastings & Cinque Ports Iris commented: ‘In the course of two days since these burnings in Sussex great mischief has ensued and terror and dismay are spread far and near’. The editorial continued: ‘It is time for ministers to open their eyes and attend to the complaints of the people and not trifle with their safety or insult them with boasting that we are prosperous, contented people’.55

Many seasoned journalists employed by national and county newspapers understood the underlying economic distress that motivated the Swing rioters, yet continued to blame the malign influence of strangers to the neighbourhood or the public rantings of radical agitators. As Hobsbawm and Rudé have pointed out, the labourers had plenty of reasons to riot without Cobbett. And as Cobbett himself remarked: ‘Why need the parsons hunt about after lecturers as the cause of the discontents?’ The Times mixed an economic logic with a desperate search for politically-inspired scapegoats:

The peasantry are labouring under great distress and privation, caused by the superabundance of labour enabling farmers to reduce wages to a bare minimum with a supplementary allowance from the poor rates. In some cases single men have had no more than 10d a day to live on and labourers have been procured at that and even a lower rate. It is not surprising therefore that there should be discontent and a predisposition to tumult amongst those so placed — the knowledge of what is passing abroad and

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at home and the impression made by Cobbett during his visits in these parts have operated with mischievous effect.56

There is scarcely a comment from journalists without the use of the adjective ‘mischievous’ or the noun ‘mischief ’. The term crops up again in the following quote, which shows some of the lower wage scales paid:

Gentlemen in gigs have been known to make inquiries of gate-keepers when passing through the turnpikes as to the state of such and such farmers, how they pay their men, whether thrashing machines are used, &c., and some mischief generally occurs soon afterwards. Numbers of the poor labourers are working for 1s 3d, 1s 6d and 20d per day and single men at 1s. Many farmers in the eastern parts of Sussex, who had used thrashing machines, have taken them down from their barns, and exhibit them in carts by the roadside for the satisfaction of the labourers, and to appease their vengeance.57

It would appear that Charles Emary’s payment of a daily wage of a minimum of 2s was nowhere near the lowest in Sussex but probably about average for the Battle area. On 8th November Battle and Hastings farmers agreed to pay their men 2s 2d a day through the winter, to be increased to 2s 6d in the spring.

As the riots gathered pace, the pressure for a reduction in tithes mounted. At Hurst Green on 10th November, three hundred farm labourers formed a ring, waiting for a response from the Reverend Cottie to a request for a tithe reduction. Although the rector had offered a reduction of fifty per cent, the farmhands insisted this was insufficient. A spokesman explained, ‘We do not want to create a disturbance; we want the tithes to be lowered and then the farmer can give us better wages.’ The men sought to justify their demands by claiming that single men were receiving only 10d a day, increased to 1s 6d for married men with a family. As the labourers saw it, this was simple economics: ‘The poor and the parson swallow up the farmers’ surplus.’ In many parishes around Battle, farmers had been forcibly prevented from paying the full tithe-audit; as the labourers explained, had they done so, it would deny any possibility of the men being paid fair wages. Farmers were pressed, through fear of reprisal, into attending a meeting at

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which a list of grievances was presented — finally, they were threatened with dire consequences if they went ahead and paid the full tithe. There was little sympathy shown for the rector, but his curate was broadly supported since he was seen as financially aggrieved and suffering — in a similar plight as themselves and the small tenant-farmer. The Times reported:

Farmers have universally agreed to the demands made—that is if they were not mad enough to refuse requests which they could not demonstrate to be unreasonable in themselves and in which they were urged by three hundred or four hundred men, after a barn has been fired and each farmer had an incendiary letter in his pocket.58

Some shrewd Battle analysts suspected that the barn fires were viewed with comparative indifference by some tenant-farmers, even when they occurred on their own farms. Many were pledged for arrears in rent and appreciated that the hay and corn destroyed was only nominally theirs, through indebtedness, and belonged in reality to grasping, wealthy landlords. Meanwhile the farms in Battle were watched day and night, at no cost to the tenants but at great expense to the proprietors. Several suspected incendiarists had been arrested by these patrols and one stranger, supposedly from London, had been seized in St Leonards on 10th November with combustible materials on his person. This strengthened earlier reports from witnesses who had observed an initial burst of flame, which they thought could have resulted from some chemical preparation that exploded on contact. This had convinced some that rockets were being fired from a distance and had carried up a portion of the stack roof. Whatever the truth, a Battle reporter was certain that the Swing rioters had grown in confidence and now went about the redress of their grievances with more ‘coolness, precision and firmness than heretofore’.

The Battle magistrates continued to sit every day at the George Inn and a considerable number of special constables had been sworn in from various parishes outside the town. One special had consumed ‘a drop too much to wet his staff ’,*

promptly lost the staff and, on awakening next morning, was amazed to see it thrust into the hands of an effigy hung by the neck near his house with a placard that read: ‘Taken by the mob hired by the paupers’. __________________________________________________ * A stick with some special use or an emblem of authority.

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On 15th November a considerable number of labourers had been due to assemble in Battle but they beat an exit once they learnt of the ‘timely arrival’ of the dragoon guards from Maidstone. The Times describes the retreat thus: ‘Numerous bodies of labourers from the county, not having heard of the arrival of the military, were seen entering Battle in the morning, armed with large bludgeons, but on being informed of the circumstances, speedily threw away their weapons and retraced their steps.’59

On the same evening, soldiers were called out to Battle after reports that a large group of labourers had assembled, determined to compel the Reverend Hare to reduce his tithes. Sir Godfrey Webster unwisely ‘got among some of them’ at the George Inn in order to address them, but the candles were rapidly snuffed out, and he was very roughly handled in the darkness and had his coat torn. A police officer named Clements and three soldiers had to rescue Sir Godfrey from further violence. Strangely, as soon as a lighted candle was brought into the room, those assembled inside were as civil as possible.60 The very next day a serious riot broke out at Cuckfield, brought on by the arrest of a boy of sixteen or seventeen charged with sending threatening letters to six individuals in the neighbourhood.

At the Lewes Assizes, which began on 21st December, a young hoop-maker named Thomas Goodman was indicted for wilfully firing Robert Watts’s barn at Battle on the night of 2nd December. The prisoner had been observed by a patrol at 11.30 p.m., near the tollgate about one-quarter of a mile below the Chequers Inn. Prints which were identified later as coming from Goodman’s boots led straight from his lodgings at Pankhurst Cottage to the barn that was fired at Yew Tree Farm. This was sufficient evidence for the jury. The Judge donned his black cap:

It is most melancholy to see a young man like yourself cut off in his prime for the crime of destroying property, a crime which till of late was unknown in this country and which disgraces the once glorious name of England ... In your case if the boots had not been seen you might have escaped. It is now my painful duty to pass upon you the awful sentence of the law, which is that you will be taken from whence you came and from thence to a place of execution and hanged by the neck till you are dead and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.

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While Battle was denigrated by the press as the ‘headquarters’ or ‘nucleus’ of disorder in Sussex, Hastings was praised as remarkably tranquil: ‘no part of the country has experienced less excitation than this town and its adjoining parishes.’61 By the end of November, many Hastings residents had been sworn in as special constables and a nightly watch had been established, merely as a measure of protection since there had been no tumult or disposition to riot. The contrast with Battle could not have been more marked; here there was a noticeable sympathy for the rioters’ aims and magistrates had found it almost impossible to recruit sufficient ‘specials’ from among the local farmers and tradesmen. Courthorpe, chairman of the Battle magistrates, presided over a permanent Bench of Justices meeting at the George Inn. He even contacted the Home Office stating his intention of reducing his rents to try to encourage the tenant-farmers to serve. Whilst the rioting was largely absent within the neighbourhood of Hastings, smuggling was observed to have been never more prevalent. The local historian, T. B. Brett, wrote that poaching and burglary prevailed to an alarming extent and in the outlying districts incendiarism was ‘more than the authorities could cope with in the absence of increased (civil) powers.’62 He maintains that despite the increased vigilance to protect the granaries, stacks, barns and farm machinery, incendiarism was still ‘rampant’ during 1831, although the incidents may have gone mostly unreported. Barns and other farm premises were fired at Brede, Westfield and Bexhill; hard times persisted and the rural labourers remained disaffected. Evidence of this discontent is shown in the following Sussex rhyming strain:

Pork and cabbage all the year; Mouldy bread and sourish beer, Rusty bacon, skim milk cheese; Beds of chaff and full of fleas, Who would like the living here?

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The Times, 2nd November 1830

The Times, 15th December 1830

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VII

SWING TO THE WEST

he Swing movement was spreading westwards. By 15th November, a massive number of labourers, and in many instances farmers, assembled in Lewes at Gardener Street demanding an increase in wages and a

reduction of rent and tithes. Afterwards, many of the men were regaled with a pint of strong beer. That same day between seventy and one hundred labourers were seen approaching from the direction of Ringmer towards Lewes, stopping at parish after parish to visit farmhouses, demanding that wages should rise to 2s 6d a day and threatening that if any threshing machines were discovered, they would be destroyed on sight. This planned march to intimidate farmers had been initiated by labouring men from Ringmer and their ranks swelled as they compelled every farmhand they met en route to join them. A rumour developed that the marchers intended to rescue four prisoners in custody at Lewes House of Correction, who had been charged with similar offences. In rapid response, a detachment of horse guards was stationed at Uckfield, while at Crowborough other disturbances were reported. As the Ringmer labourers began to progress from farm to farm, another large gang of three hundred commenced an evening call on several farms in the parish of Felpham, strenuously urging compliance with their wage demands — something farmers found difficult to refuse as most of the visitors were armed with large sticks. The same procedure occurred the following day as they passed through the neighbouring countryside, coercing new recruits into marching beside them.

Two days earlier, on a Saturday evening, a large body of labourers was seen proceeding to attack the castle of Lord Abergavenny at Eridge Green. This alarming news brought an urgent despatch for a troop of horse guards and supporting special constables but, as the ‘defenders’ moved towards Frant, the mob must have learnt of their impending arrival and dispersed.

T

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On 18th November soldiers were despatched to Hellingly where there were disturbing reports that nearly one thousand labourers had assembled, ready to march on Lord Gage’s residence, Firle Place; however, this proved a false alarm and a messenger was sent to meet the approaching soldiers to inform them that the mob had separated peacefully, allowing the soldiers to return to barracks. Gage was the wealthy landowner who had unsuccessfully tried to entice the ‘captain’ of the demonstrators to step forward at Ringmer’s village green.

A band of fifty or more had assembled at Mayfield on 15th November, intent on ‘terrorising’ the Reverend Crawley, a Rotherfield clergyman, into lowering his tithes. Some little distance from Rotherfield, a Mr Howis was subjected to an unannounced visit by the same gang. He ran a substantial experimental farm that was known to use threshing machines. When the gang moved on, they left behind a large quantity of smashed machinery.

Three days later similar tactics were repeated at Wadhurst, where a combined force of six or seven hundred left farmers no choice but to agree a wage increase. That Thursday, 18th November, many farmhouses answered an unwelcome knock at the door but were assured that, in a return for an advance in wages, they would be relieved from paying half of their tithes by gang members set on threatening local parsons.

On the previous day Chichester had held its beast and corn market. Many farmers had flocked into town that Wednesday but some in the crowd noticed that there were numerous doubtful-looking men wandering about the marketplace ‘who were utter strangers and who appeared to have no business to transact’. The Iris noted that the presence of these ‘foreigners’ excited some suspicion, increased by intelligence that two bodies of men, each amounting to about three hundred, had assembled at Pagham and Goodwood. Alerted magistrates went into consultation and abandoned their regular business of the day. The Iris takes up the story:

Magistrates having determined to meet the malcontents, fifty gentlemen from Chichester and farmers sworn in as special constables proceeded, headed by Lord George Lennox and George Farhill, to a place where they were assembled near Goodwood — they succeeded in prevailing them to disperse quietly. By similar means those assembled

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at Pagham were also dispersed. All is now quiet and orderly here. Last night most of the gentlemen’s houses in the neighbourhood were visited by small parties who demanded provisions or money and the alarm was incessant during the night.63

The peace in Chichester did not last. A Times correspondent gave a detailed account of the following day when he volunteered his assistance in suppressing the disturbances if required. On his arrival at Chichester he was told that as many as twelve threshing machines had been destroyed during the night within a few miles of the city and that many of those involved were known to the magistrates. His story is well worth recounting in full:

A strong body of constables, some on foot, some on horseback, proceeded to a public house about a mile from Chichester, where eight of the men engaged in breaking machines were taken into custody and brought before the magistrates assembled in the council chamber. I again mounted my horse and proceeded to Halnaker, a village about five miles distant, on the edge of the Duke of Richmond’s park. There I found the Duke himself in the midst of the mob on horseback. The rioters were not uncivil but pressed around his Grace and earnestly argued with him on the subject of their grievances. He was as usual mild but firm and told them he could hear no arguments in such an unfit place—they must disperse. At length he ordered one of the noisiest to be taken into custody—this was done with some difficulty. A rush was repeatedly tried to rescue the prisoner but being a pretty numerous body of horsemen, we formed across the road and headed them back. I then formed one of a small escort to carry the prisoner to Chichester and this afternoon he has been sent off with the eight taken earlier to Petworth House of Correction.64

The correspondent then made an oblique attack on Sir Edward Knatchbull, reasoning that the spirit of insubordination might have been suppressed at the outset if the Kent magistrates had shown more firmness. The Iris also joined in the criticism: ‘It would have been well if certain Kent magistrates had acted earlier and with more courage during the riots.’65

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Arundel was not to escape the attention of arsonists. Many local observers thought it remarkable that all the fires in the area had been on roadside premises, a fact that strengthened the belief that the incendiaries were strangers travelling along roads from outside the locality. But an obvious alternative explanation is that escaping detection was far easier if farms were selected for firing close to the roadside. It allowed a speedy retreat without the necessity of moving across farmers’ fields and leaving a trail of muddy bootprints. Any trespasser found close to burning farm premises was immediately suspect.

In Arundel, as elsewhere, there were reports of labourers going from parish to parish forcing others to join them against their will. In the week ending 20th November even farmhands working in the fields were compelled to leave their horses, whilst on the roads teams of horses were led home by boys after the men had been pressed into the ranks of the ‘discontented’. There were instances where several men had been dragged out of their beds to join the gangs. By midweek their numbers had risen to about four hundred as they went from one house to another, demanding money and provisions.

The Mayor of Arundel, William Holmes, with the assistance of other magistrates, was constantly on the alert for trouble. On Thursday 18th November, fifty or more ‘countrymen’ had marched into Arundel but the specials had received a warning signal and immediately assembled to confront the men, with the Earl of Surrey, the mayor and other magistrates in the vanguard. Lord Surrey addressed the oncoming labourers and appealed for them to quietly return home and he would see what could possibly be done for them. This advice was taken, and most of the men returned to work with an increase of wages.

Other Swing rioters were less easily satisfied, and the frequency of the fires around Arundel and Chichester had grown to such an extent that the authorities suspected there might be an incendiary attempt on the Duke of Richmond’s outhouses and his stock at Goodwood Park. Members of the London police began patrolling the surrounds of the park, day and night, to prevent this possibility. The police despatched from London were also hoping to discover the arsonists involved in the wilful destruction of so many ricks and barns in the Chichester neighbourhood. The Times was aghast to learn

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that ‘the rioters are actually breaking machines in open daylight’. A Donnington farmer named Humphrey had pulled his threshing machine to pieces and laid it out in his orchard for inspection; many others were to follow his example.

As the civil powers grappled to contain the outbreaks, three fires had been discovered at Southover, West Dean and Framfield. In the early hours of 19th November, the extensive premises of a Southover farmer named Morris were found enveloped in flames. Although the alarm was quickly raised and the water engines applied, it was too late to prevent immense destruction. A huge barn was totally gutted and, once the roof collapsed in flames on a hayrick, the rick rapidly ignited another close by. The fire spread to two long hovels which could not be saved, despite the cattle being led out safely, except one poor calf that was literally ‘roasted to death’. A wagon shed was also completely engulfed. Eventually, all that was left standing were the four walls of the barn—and they were in a precarious condition. The fires continued to burn for nearly twelve hours before being extinguished.

Some observers were surprised at the unremitting incendiarism, particularly as the magistrates, a week earlier, had addressed the mob at Ringmer and Laughton and ‘met their wishes’. But the wage increases were fairly meagre—upped from 10s to 12s a week for married men, and for single men raised from 6s to 7s. This cannot have satisfied some of the farmers’ bitterest foes. Special constables were hurriedly sworn in at Lewes County Hall and a meeting was hastily arranged to try to put a check ‘to these destructive proceedings’. The local landed gentry were encouraged to come forward to act as night watchmen and to man patrols. The day before the conflagration at Morris’s, many ‘suspicious-looking’ individuals had been examined before the magistrates, but had been released as no proof of wrongdoing could be found. Lewes had descended into a state of extreme alarm and panic. A reward was posted for the capture of the arsonists ‘which will exceed the most liberal ever before offered on such an occasion.’66

Only two or three days elapsed before a massive fire broke out at Worthing that was plainly visible from Chichester, seventeen miles away. The Iris knew of a labourer who had heard a hissing sound from the windward side of the rick and in the next instant the rick burst into flames. In the same

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Chichester news dispatch, an Iris reporter watched an express arrive for the 2nd Dragoon Guards, who were urgently required at Petersfield ‘where rioters were reported doing great damage’.67

Allegations spread that ‘villains’ had been hired to move around the neighbouring countryside exciting the rural labourers to mischief. It was much to the advantage of the farmers’ men to claim they had been led on by strangers into joining in the riots; this deflected any blame attached to them.

Stories of these villainous strangers roaming around rural parts of west Sussex causing mischief cannot be entirely dismissed. A William Evans was apprehended at Westbourne, a remote and secluded village about five miles from Chichester. Evans may not have looked suspicious but his strange behaviour certainly aroused suspicions; reservations that deepened until it was thought prudent to inform magistrates. Evans was to be frequently spotted mysteriously driving his chaise in every direction, drawn by his horse which he kept stabled at the Westbourne farm where he lodged with a kept mistress.

Eventually a police officer was sent to investigate. As the officer approached the isolated farmhouse, he was seen by Evans from a downstairs window, giving him time to barricade himself into a second-floor bedroom. The door had to be broken down before the lodger could be placed in custody. Evans was found to be carrying £40 on his person, together with a receipt for £800 in Bank of England stock, with a further receipt for a preparation of combustible material. This preparation, when tested, would not ignite if placed against hay or corn until rain or damp set in. Police were summoned to escort the prisoner back to London to be interviewed by the Secretary of State to the Home Office. A reporter for The Times, based at Chichester, went on to ask with incredulity:

What are the magistrates and county gentlemen about, to permit the county to be reduced to such a state? Upwards of one hundred and fifty gentlemen and farmers assembled this morning, Tuesday, November 23rd , dressed in scarlet and green, all well mounted, not for the purpose of either putting down or pacifying the illegal assemblies of the half-starved peasantry, but for fox hunting. Any person witnessing the splendid field of sportsmen assembled with Mr Craven’s hounds, to draw Lord Chichester’s cover, could never suppose that conflagration nightly took place within view of this spot.68

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A day later, at Brighton, labourers illegally assembled at Hickstead Church, successfully demanding an increase in farm wages. Similar wage meetings were held at Cowfold, and at Steyning wage rises were agreed on the same scale as had been adopted at Arundel. That same day five ‘leading inhabitants’ of Hove had become so concerned about an impending riot and tumult in the town that they called at the Kerrison Arms* and were appointed special constables. Thirty more specials were sworn in at Preston. The journalist who had expressed his amazement at the fox-hunt commented sarcastically: ‘Let masters compensate their labourers for their toil and all this fussing will be unnecessary. It avails nothing and only tends to alarm old ladies and maiden aunts.’

On 22nd November quite a scuffle had ensued on Colonel Lloyd’s land at Lancing, after local labourers had demanded an increase in wages. When the Colonel stood his ground and utterly refused any advance, the Lancing coastguard† was ordered out. Somehow, but probably deliberately, they found the precise directions given were most ‘arbitrary’ and managed to arrive late. Colonel Lloyd ended up with a black eye and a swollen face and there was some dispute amongst bystanders as to who were the aggressors—the assembled farmhands or the Blockade. Three rioters were arrested and transported to Petworth House of Correction. The reporter was not quite sure on what charges: ‘for in retired country places justice assumes at times the most fantastic shapes’. Many Blockade men were very poorly paid, and had a similar class background to the farmhands, so it is not difficult to guess where their sympathies lay. Numerous south coast justices had come to doubt the trustworthiness of the coastguard. One Battle magistrate reckoned the Blockade was the last force he would resort to in combating the riots.

On 25th October 1830, The Times published a letter heavily criticising the Blockade and urging a complete reform. The letter blamed the government for allowing the service to employ vagrants of all descriptions—far better if it had been composed of the poor yet able seamen often found idle and starving on the beach who, because of their circumstances, were driven into smuggling. Another Rye correspondent wrote: __________________________________________________ * Now the Iron Duke Hotel. † In the 1830s the coastguard was there to prevent smuggling.

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I have in our neighbourhood seen as many as nine landings in one night within the last month and the blockade men assisting at four of them. They never try to prevent a landing, except when the smugglers try to elude making an adequate payment, which they not infrequently do.

It is not only the men, but the officers who are guilty in this way; for I often see these lads arrive from an unprofitable station with threadbare coats and after a week or two at a ‘fat’ one, both they and their families no more resemble their former appearance than the gay butterfly does a crawling grub.69

Wealthy Lord Gage owned a farm at Berwick, just north of Alfriston, on the South Downs. It was occupied by a tenant-farmer named Scrace Saxby, who had foolishly chosen to ignore two threatening letters warning that his stack would be fired unless he dismantled his threshing machine. He may or may not have consulted Lord Gage before dismissing the warnings but his landlord cannot have been pleased with the outcome. On the evening of 25th November a huge fire broke out, engulfing much of the farm premises. Before the barn roof collapsed, forty sacks of wheat were rescued, but a stable and a lodge were completely burnt out. Despite the fine, moonlit evening, the fire was so great that, although twenty miles from Hastings, it was plainly visible from the East and West Hills. To those watching, the blaze appeared much nearer than it really was.

Towards the end of November The Times was appalled to learn that Gage had employed many men to work at hedging and ditching at Ringmer, from dawn to dusk, for the miserly amount of 2s a week. Lord Gage denied any knowledge of this to a journalist but promised to speak to his steward. This prompted The Times to comment: ‘if true, Lord Gage should go to these poor labourers, atrociously robbed of their hard earnings and make up the 2s to 12s a week, during all the time they have worked for him — the next thing is to drive the steward from his house with hisses and hootings’.70

Convicted alongside the Battle hoop-maker Thomas Goodman at the Lewes Winter Assizes was Edmund Bushby, a twenty-six-year-old labourer. He was charged with feloniously setting fire to a stack of wheat belonging to a George Oliver at East Preston on 28th November. Several days before the stack was fired, Oliver had offered Bushby a piece-rate of 4s a quarter

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for some thrashing work by flail. His labourer replied that he would prefer to be paid the Swing rate of 14 shillings a week or an equivalent daily amount. This was bluntly rejected by the farmer, who threatened to take his threshing machine down from the barn. The accused was later overheard saying, ‘Poor men are not to be driven more than the farmers—if I can’t have work by day, I’ll have it at night.’ James Booker, an East Preston blacksmith, remembered the night in question because he met the prisoner running up the street crying ‘Fire!’. James Collins gave evidence that he saw Edmund and his brother William standing in a ten-acre field and heard one of them say, ‘Let it burn on — I wish Oliver was in the middle of it.’

It was admitted in court that the evidence was circumstantial but the jury wasted no time in returning a guilty verdict. Judge Justice Taunton again assumed the black cap, declaring that the offence of arson justified a sentence of death, ‘particularly as the present time was one of so alarming a character that, if not checked, the country will be plunged into ruin and desolation.’ The judge solemnly advised the condemned man to use the short time left to him in prayer and penitence.

Thomas Goodman and Edmund Bushby were taken back to Horsham gaol under guard. On New Year’s Day 1831, Bushby was executed from a scaffold that had been erected outside the gaol. Goodman escaped the same fate as his death sentence was commuted to transportation for life. The Times had reported after his trial that Goodman attributed his untimely end to that ‘notorious demagogue William Cobbett’s public lecture at Battle’. The unfortunate young man said he was so stirred up by the mob and by Cobbett’s words that ‘his brain was nearly turned’ and he was under the impression that nothing but the destruction of property by fire would produce the revolution so strongly encouraged by the arch-lecturer. Of the eight fires which took place in Battle within one month, Goodman confessed to setting fire to five by his own hand.71

Thomas Goodman was saved from having ‘his neck stretched’ by extremely dubious confessions almost certainly prompted by government supporters determined to implicate Cobbett. One confession, made on 23rd December, supposedly without any assistance from those present, read:

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I, Thomas Goodman, never should af thought of douing aney sutch thing if Mr Cobbet Cobet had never given aney lectures i believe that their never would bean any fires or mob in Battle nor maney others places if he never had given aney lectures at all.

Afterwards, Cobbett sought to discredit the confessions, claiming that Goodman had been hurriedly placed on board a transport ship at Portsmouth. He even produced a letter from Goodman, addressed to his brother-in-law, making it clear his confessions were false and blaming his situation on his own bad conduct.

Richard Pennells, a dim-witted lad of fourteen, was another to be indicted before Justice Taunton at Lewes. He was accused of setting fire to a haystack, the property of Stephen Smith, a farmer from Bodrain.* Without any defending counsel, young Pennells stood distraught at the bar and was unable to offer any defence for his actions. He related in court how a stranger, dressed in a velvet jacket and white hat, whom he had met in a meadow near the Bodrain turnpike road, had offered him 6d if he would set his master’s stack on fire. The jury recommended mercy should be shown because of his youth and confused understanding of the gravity of his actions.

The judge ordered that a sentence of death should be recorded but told Pennells his life would be spared. However, if the stranger had stood in his place, the utmost severity of the law would have been enforced.

__________________________________________________ * The village is no longer in existence.

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The Times, 4th January 1831

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The Times, 4th January 1831

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VIII

AN INNOCENT HANGED

earching through Thomas Brandon Brett’s handwritten History of Hastings and St Leonards, an item he had jotted down in a brief summary of the main events of 1831 caught my attention. He rather casually mentions that, on

21st August, he had followed the Hastings’ fire engines out to Guestling, where Thomas Breeds’s barn, lodge and stable had already fallen in. In 1831 Brett was a youth of fifteen and had his dormitory in Church Street, which was approached via Swan Lane in Hastings Old Town. The fire engines and pipes were stored in the belfry of St Clement’s Church and Brett was woken by the bustle of activity as the equipment was hurriedly taken down. When he finally arrived at the scene of the fire the conflagration had ‘nearly done its work’. Nothing unusual there, after the widespread incendiarism of the Swing riots — what intrigued me was Brett’s rather offhand reference to a labourer named Buffard who was wrongly convicted as the incendiarist, despite his persistent declarations of innocence, and hanged at Lewes — a miscarriage of justice uncovered only after the real culprit confessed on his deathbed that he had taken and worn Buffard’s boots on the night he fired the property.

Brett’s account contains at least one error. Buffard was executed outside Horsham gaol, not at Lewes and there is some confusion about the correct spelling of his name: it is sometimes given as Bufford. The confusion probably arose because Tom was illiterate and could only sign his name with a cross. He was buried in Guestling churchyard one week after his execution and no headstone has yet been discovered, but the lettering could have been weathered away and the ancient church was, in any case, shortly to be rebuilt. However, there are other Buffards buried in the graveyard which suggests it was a local surname.

On 26th August 1899 the Hastings Observer ran a story headed ‘Miscarriage of Justice’ which repeated much of what Brett had written sixty-eight years earlier:

S

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On the 21st August 1831, a large barn belonging to Thomas Breeds of Hastings was set on fire by an incendiary — not a sufficiently remarkable thing to make history, had it not been that a man named Buffard suffered the extreme penalty of the law, which in those days was still attached to arson, and was hanged at Lewes [sic] protesting his innocence of the crime and that the real offender confessed upon his deathbed to having committed the crime while wearing a pair of Buffard’s boots. This unfortunate miscarriage of justice is said to have been made even more horrible by the fact that the testimony which turned the scale of evidence against the unfortunate Buffard was given by the actual criminal himself.

Since then, this sad episode has never been properly examined. I thought that, as Breeds’s premises were fired in August, it was probable that Buffard’s indictment had taken place at the Lewes Winter Assizes; sure enough, his trial was held on 13th December 1831 and was covered by The Times the following day. The paper described the prisoner as a labourer, aged twenty-four, but mistakenly called him Burford.

Reading the transcript, I found it strange that no evidence was brought to show that Buffard’s bootprints had left any incriminating marks to and from Breeds’s ruined outbuildings. This might be explained because a hard gravel pathway ran through a plantation, near a stack yard, to the cottage where Buffard lodged with Edward and Mary Catt. As it was summer, the surrounding ground may also have been hard and dry underfoot. The barn, stable and two lodges were accessible from the Hastings to Winchelsea road — all these buildings adjoined the road, so any footprints would have been difficult or impossible to find. Without these incriminating prints, the true culprit would have to devise alternative means of throwing suspicion on poor Tom Buffard.

After its destruction in August 1831, the barn was rebuilt later in the year. Today, it stands beyond Hillcrest School on the north side of the A259, fifty yards past its junction with Winchelsea Lane and near the White Hart public house at the top of Guestling Hill. A stone inscribed ‘T. B. 1831’ has been set into the brickwork of the barn and can be clearly seen from the roadside. T. B. are the initials of Thomas Breeds.

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A certain D. Woodhams, who worked under Breeds’s

bailiff, Tyndall, at Lidham Farm, gave evidence that, at around 2 a.m. on the Sunday, he was awoken by Buffard raising the alarm by calling ‘Fire!’ Both Mary Catt and her husband then gave damning accounts of the night’s events that ingeniously dovetailed to falsely implicate their lodger. The stage was set for the framing of Tom Buffard. The borrowed boots ploy had not worked, so other damaging evidence had to be discovered: a steel from a tinder-box that just happened to have mysteriously gone missing from their cottage. Edward Catt had described the missing steel to Woodhams a week after the fire. Woodhams’s deposition continued: ‘I found the steel at the west end of the barn … lying on the ground in the corner of the inside. It was impressed in the gravel. I showed this steel with two others to Catt and his wife. They picked out that which I had found as theirs.’

Breeds’s bailiff, J. Tyndall, was next called to give evidence: ‘I saw Woodhams search for the steel. He found it exactly two feet from the lodge, inside the yard, but outside the barn. The rubbish was raked off and Woodhams cried out “Oh”, before he touched the steel. I saw it lying on the ground. The impression was in the gravel.’

Since another man later confessed that Buffard was, in fact, innocent, the prisoner would not have accidentally dropped the steel — it must have been planted, perhaps on the night of the fire, possibly soon after the bootprints were discovered. On the day after the fire, Edward Catt was examined by Battle magistrates as the leading suspect. Cross-examined by Buffard’s inept defence counsel, he admitted: ‘I was taken upon the Sunday. I did not fight or resist, though they laid hands on me.’ Why Catt was the main suspect will become clear as the trial progresses. Several days after being seized, Catt pointedly brought the steel to the attention of Thomas Breeds’s under-bailiff — to deflect suspicion onto Buffard.

There was no doubt that Mary Catt was in collusion with her husband in her perjured evidence. She informed the court that the prisoner had lodged at her cottage for six weeks before the fire. On the night in question, she had gone to bed at ten o’clock; both Buffard and Catt had gone out earlier and had not

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returned. She had let Tom Buffard in after midnight, after he knocked on the door. Her husband had yet to return home. According to Mary Catt’s well-honed story, Tom asked for the tinder-box:

I put it in the kitchen. A new candle was in the washroom. I heard him go into the wash-house and strike twice with the flint and steel. The candle next morning had not been used … The prisoner was in the habit of coming home late at night, but he never before asked for the tinder-box. He used to go to bed in the dark. I had three bundles of matches on the ledge near the tinder-box and had missed one of the bundles. On the Sunday morning I missed the steel.

This evidence proved very damaging for Tom. A convenient new candle, not lighted. The striking of flint and steel, not to light the candle but to check it worked correctly. The missing bundle of matches supposedly taken to strike the steel to fire the barn — a steel just so carelessly dropped only a few feet from the outbuildings. When Edward Catt took the stand, he admitted he had not returned until 1.15 a.m.:

When I got in, I locked the door and went to the kitchen ledge for the tinder-box. It was not there. I searched the kitchen for it and could not find it. I asked my wife for it and she told me she had given it to Tom Buffard. I went to his bedroom; he was not there. I asked my wife what he had done with it, when she told me to hold my tongue, for somebody was coming up the track. I stood still and heard the gate bang — the gate that goes from my garden to the farm. I heard somebody come from the gate to the back door and come in. He was very much out of breath. I cried ‘Hallo, Tom, is that you?’ He (the prisoner) then enquired for Ned Foster; and then he said, ‘The job is done.’ I don’t know what he meant by this; but I asked him where the tinder-box was, but before he answered I took it off the ledge of the wash-house. I asked him where the steel was: he said ‘I don’t know, for I just was drunk.’ I was going to strike a light with my knife, when I saw a flash come into my window. I looked and saw there was a fire in the direction of Mr Breeds’s premises.

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Under cross-examination, Edward Catt denied that he had

ever been in any dispute about haymaking with Thomas Breeds: ‘I had never threatened him with any revenge.’ This directly contradicts earlier testimony from Woodhams, who had given evidence of a ‘breeze’ between Mr Breeds and his men and that, while Catt was one of his farmhands, Buffard was not employed at the farm. James Breeds was called. He had never heard of any quarrel with Catt and knew of no quarrel with the prisoner. Crucially, Thomas Breeds does not appear to have been questioned. He may have been indisposed and absent from the court hearing.

Mary Catt was called back. She acknowledged that her husband was at work at Mr Breeds’s: ‘Other men had been set upon his work. I can’t say if he had been dissatisfied at this. I can’t say that my husband had a fight with the prisoner, nor that he expressed a dislike to the prisoner and his father.’

Reading the report in The Times, it appears that Buffard’s defence was poorly handled by his counsel, Parkhurst. When Tom was called to give testimony he merely urged the malignity of the witness, Catt, towards him. This was scarcely adequate for a man fighting to clear his name and the hangman’s noose. A defence witness, W. Game, recollected that, on 19th June, Catt and Buffard had a quarrel and had stripped to fight. As it was a Sunday, he had tried to prevent the brawl, but it was encouraged by the bystanders: ‘They went into the field and fought it out. Catt said, “You are a damned rogue, Tom, and so is your damned old father; you once informed against me when you were in the tower and I will do for you one time or another.”’ Cross-examined, the witness reaffirmed that the accused had been held in a tower over ‘some smuggling business’. But none of the bystanders was called to confirm the fight. Neither was any coast-blockade officer asked to testify to show that, in the past, Buffard had ‘fingered’ Catt as a member of a local smuggling gang. Without this vital confirmation, the jury chose to believe the Catts’ well-rehearsed story.

Edward Sawyer testified that he had been drinking with Buffard on the night of the fire:

He was very much in liquor. I and another man led him for a quarter of a mile and I took charge of the basket for him.

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He was very drunk and I left him on the ground, three-quarters of a mile from the Catts’. The landlord of the public house had turned us out and would not let us have more drink.

But being drunk often brought the courage for an incendiary to torch a barn. Many fires occurred on a Saturday night after closing time.

Farmer Watson was the last witness for the defence. He had known the prisoner for two years and had found him an honest man. The defence evidence was too thin to undermine the conspiracy of a husband and wife. The motives that might have inspired Catt to gain a savage, deadly revenge on Buffard were never seriously scrutinised in court. Perhaps the accused did not wish the defence to delve too deeply into his smuggling background — public knowledge that he was an informer could place his life in danger. But why on earth share a cottage with the Catts? Could Buffard have been lured into becoming their lodger so that the trap could be sprung?

This is the likeliest scenario: Tom returned some time between midnight and 1 a.m., after a regular bout of heavy drinking, and went, as usual, straight to bed in the dark. Edward Catt came home a little later and found Buffard in a drunken stupor in bed, put on his discarded boots, slipped out of the cottage and fired Breeds’s premises, dropping the steel that night or soon after. The framing of Buffard amounted to cold-blooded murder. Perhaps only Mr Justice Alderson saw through this cunningly-devised plot that had been so confidently played out during the trial. He summed up, cautioning the jury that the evidence was circumstantial, that Buffard had no motive, and that the prisoner ought to have the benefit of any doubt in the minds of the jury. Yet, within minutes, the jury returned a guilty verdict. The Catts’ apposite version of the night’s events was accepted, obviously without much discussion or questioning. The judge, after a long and solemn pause, put on the black cap and passed upon the prisoner the sentence of death. Tom Buffard asked, ‘My Lord Judge, how long have I to live?’ There was no response from Mr Justice Alderson. The Times reporter watched from the public gallery as ‘the unhappy man left the dock, appealing to his friends that he was innocent.’

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On 3rd January 1832, The Times reprinted the following article taken from the Sussex Weekly Advertiser:

Thomas Bufford [sic], the man convicted at the late assizes for this county of setting fire to a barn and other premises, at Guestling, the property of Mr Breeds, underwent the last sentence of the law in front of Horsham gaol on Saturday last [31st December 1831]. From the time of his conviction, until the period of his dissolution, he conducted himself with propriety, and paid diligent attention to the exhortations of the gaol chaplain. Although Bufford never made a full confession of the crime for which he suffered he, on the other hand, never positively denied it, but cautiously abstained from entering into conversation respecting it. During the whole of his confinement he did not appear to lose any bodily strength. The chaplain remained with him until late on Friday evening, after which the unhappy culprit retired to bed, and slept several times during the night. He partook of the sacrament in the morning, and at five minutes before 12 he was conducted by a turnkey from the Infirmary into the gaoler’s house; he walked with a firm step and when about to be pinioned, he took off his own neckerchief, unbuttoned his collar, and turned up the clothes from the wrists himself; during all this time, and till he reached the platform, he did not utter a word. At 12 precisely the procession reached the drop. The culprit walked up the steps without faltering, raising his eyes once to the fatal beam. After the reading of the first part of the Burial Service, Bufford, upon being asked by the executioner if he wished to say anything, merely addressed these few words to the persons assembled — ‘Beware of bad company, young men; keep yourselves sober — drunkenness has been the ruin of me.’ The cap being drawn over his face, the drop fell, and the unhappy man was launched into eternity. His convulsions were much greater than usual, for eight minutes after his fall the muscles had not lost their action. After hanging the usual time, the body was taken down, placed in a decent coffin and delivered to his relations, who were waiting to receive it. They conveyed it to Guestling for interment.

Tom Buffard was buried in Guestling churchyard on 6th January 1832.

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Let us return to the claim made in court that Buffard was arrested and held in a tower accused of involvement in smuggling. More than three years earlier, on 3rd January 1828, one hundred and fifty tubs of spirits were landed from several small boats lying ashore under the bluff known as Galley Hill, about one mile east of Bexhill. The landing had been spotted, and the coast-blockade men caught up with the smuggling gang at Sidley Green, where a pitched battle was fought at close quarters. Quartermaster Charles Collins had his skull smashed in and two batsmen were also killed. A certain Hokkey Smithhurst was later discovered with a musket ball in his throat, still clutching his bat, which had been hacked almost to bits by cutlasses. Shortly after the inquest on Charles Collins, a local girl named Mary Easton volunteered information on the affray. She and her boyfriend, Charles Hills, were taken on board the Hyperion for their own safety. Roy Philp, in his book The Coast Blockade, continues the story:

There was some suspicion that Hills had arranged this so that both could be held in protective custody because he too started to name some of the gang. Another man named Buffard was arrested in Pett and he offered to identify those members of the gang that came from around that area, being men unknown to Hills.72

Tom Buffard was questioned by Lieutenant John Green in the Galley Hill station tower, where he made a number of sworn depositions admitting his involvement as a tub carrier. What follows is part of a deposition dated 27th February 1828:

That on the evening previous to the night on which the affray happened at Bexhill … between six and seven o’clock this Deponent was at the White Hart Public House at Guestling and one James Catt of Guestling aforesaid Laborer came to him and after calling him aside asked him to go with him and some others to carry a pair of tubs. That this Deponent consented [and they] set out together from Guestling and went to Westfield and from thence across the country through Crowhurst to the corner of a lane some little distance from Bexhill where they fell in with a large company of men upwards of fifty in number many of whom were armed with long bats.

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James Catt was described as the foreman of the Guestling smugglers. The others in the party named by Buffard were ‘Edward Catt of Guestling aforesaid laborer, William Plumb of Guestling aforesaid laborer, Joseph Hayseldon of the same place laborer and Robert Jenkins of the same place laborer’.

On 14th January 1828, there was another violent encounter between the Blockade and a gang of smugglers at Eastbourne. Information coming from three informers brought sixty-seven warrants for the arrest of members of the gang. A statement taken from one informer, named Spencer Whiteman, listed the tub carriers as Robert and Thomas Noakes of Udimore, George Peters and Daniel Gill of Westfield, James and Edward Catt and Thomas Buffard, all of Guestling.

Charles Jones wrote to John Phillips on 5th March 1828: ‘If Thomas Buffard’s evidence cannot be corroborated magistrates are advised not to convict the parties but retain them as witnesses’. Need anything else be said?

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IX

THE RYE REFORM RIOTS

he huge upsurge in agrarian violence witnessed throughout the Swing riots, together with the alarming terror tactics so widely employed, had some impact on the English landed classes, sapping their nerve and

weakening their political resolve. The extensive rioting had shaken a long-established confidence and conviction that they possessed an absolute right to govern the country. The panic-induced response of the landowners and farmers served only to extend the contempt of the labourers; a reaction that, once broadcast further afield, stirred the political consciousness of other rural workers and their urban counterparts. One outcome of the disturbances, largely unforeseen at the time, was the indirect challenge to the aristocracy’s power base and the boost the riots gave to the growing agitation for a radical change to the unreformed House of Commons. As E. P. Thompson maintains, Swing gave a final push to the practices of Old Corruption — the squire and the gentry had indisputably lost face, a factor that served to underline the necessity and urgency of reform.

It should be remembered that, prior to the Swing outbreaks, a rotten borough system had existed for more than a century. It was only the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832 that swept this long-running municipal corruption aside after bitter opposition from die-hard anti-reformers. Hastings, then a small watering place, suffered under this boroughmongering system. In late April 1831, its walls were plastered with placards headed ‘Unpopularity of the Reform Bill’, conspicuously posted all over the town. Frederick North and John Ashley Warre, two reformers, were successfully returned at the election despite the poster campaign. The Times commented that former Hastings MP the Right Honourable Joseph Planta* had

arrived at his residence at Fairlight, about two miles from this place: whether or not he came thinking to spy out the nakedness of the land, or in hopes that he might once more represent the town in Parliament, the inhabitants of

__________________________________________________ * Joseph Planta (1787–1847), MP for Hastings 1827–1830 and 1837–1844.

T

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this town neither know nor care. He remained at his residence one day and on Wednesday morning again bent his course homeward. The patron of the borough, Edward Milward, Esq., will have his name placed in that honourable list of patriots who have nobly sacrificed their private interests for the public advantage.73

Previously, wealthy and influential families had been allowed to dominate the local political landscape, using their hereditary patronage to exercise their authority to support nominees of their choice. These ‘corporation’ candidates were often elected by a mere handful of jurats* and freemen, voting on the old claim to have paid scot and lot.† The Reform Bill may have swept away these corrupt electoral arrangements but it went nowhere near towards providing universal suffrage — instead severely restricting the eligibility to vote to £10 householders, effectively excluding the vast majority of the male working class.‡

The small town of Rye was one such pocket borough (generally to become known after the Parliamentary reform as ‘rotten’), where municipal control had rested for several generations in the hands of one family — the Lambs. As the Hastings & Cinque Ports Iris made clear, the main object of the Rye boroughmongers was to neutralize efforts of the reformers by ‘creating divisions among them, seductive insinuations and hypocritical professions of friendship, intrigue and chicanery to mislead the unwary’. The newspaper was certain that Rye offered no better example of the mischievous nature of the rotten borough system; the borough was renowned for its corruption, whilst ‘the town was remarkable as a nursery and cradle of reform’.

In 1831, Dr Lamb still clung obstinately to the practices of Old Corruption, quite content to dictate political nominations for public office. The Lamb family owned probably the most prestigious residence in Rye, Lamb House (later to be occupied by the novelist Henry James). Dr Lamb was the formidable __________________________________________________ * Jurats combined the functions of a council’s elected representatives with

those of its paid officials. They sat with the mayor to decide the Corporation’s policy for the prosperity of the town and the welfare of the townsfolk.

† To pay taxes according to one’s ability. ‡ The notion of women voting was, of course, not even mentioned.

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patron of this notoriously rotten borough and was variously described by his more progressive opponents as ‘the arch-boroughmonger’ and more sarcastically as ‘His Holiness’.

This unyielding patron was so desperate to preserve his monopoly control that he refused to countenance the return of even one reformer; an intransigence that placed him in direct defiance with the ‘Men of Rye’. A collision course was inevitable. Two popular candidates, the reformers Colonel De Lacy Evans* and Benjamin Smith† were pitted against the corporation nominees, Pursey and Pemberton, both staunch anti-reformers favoured by Dr Lamb. Even before polling began, the Rye magistrates had correctly anticipated trouble:

The boroughmongers, not feeling themselves secure in their iniquity, have resorted once more to the introduction of an increased police force. About eighteen Bow Street officers, most of them well acquainted with the pugilistic art, have been employed by them with the assistance of a great many labourers as special constables from the adjoining parishes, as they have it to preserve the public peace or rather as the public believe, to perpetuate the disgraceful trafficking on the rights of their fellow townsmen. The people of Rye met this with a noble determination. Resistance to oppression was the order of the day.74

The Rye election was scheduled, as was that of Hastings, for Friday, 29th April 1831. The Times described the eventful proceedings:

The town was in that dreadful state of terror and alarm which baffles all description; during it the iron pallisading in front of the Town-hall was torn up. At night the windows of several individuals of the corporation were demolished, as well as the frames and shutters. One young man, a special constable, ran into the mob half-dressed and with a naked sword in his hand; but he was quickly disarmed and had his arm broken by a blow from a stick.75

__________________________________________________ * General Sir George De Lacy Evans, 1787–1870. Professional soldier. He

lost a later election for Rye but was returned for Westminster, a post he held until 1865, when he was succeeded by John Stuart Mill.

† Benjamin Leigh Smith later became MP for Norfolk. He lived in Hastings for seventeen years, where he was a JP. His daughter Barbara, later Madame Bodichon, was a founder of the women’s rights movement.

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There is some divergence in the reports that circulated that day but no dispute that the residents of Rye had assembled in great numbers outside the Town Hall, only to catch sight of an armed detachment of the coastguard. The Bow Street officers may also have been observed, together with the special constables sworn in from the outlying villages. The assembled gathering immediately responded by breaking down the railings and brandishing them as pikes to confront any possible assault — at some stage the iron rails in front of the Market House were also totally demolished. In many parts of the town, paving stones and kerbs were pulled up as a further means of defence.

The first attempt of the boroughmongers to reach the hustings, even though protected by the ‘prize fighting’ police officers, ended in abject failure. The second attempt by the mayor and his corporation party was met with such a storm of popular indignation and unrestrained uproar that the election was abandoned until the following day. A correspondent writing from Mountfield to the Hastings & Cinque Ports Iris gives a good account of the disorder:

On Saturday morning, Dr Lamb had assembled at Mountfield, a troop of dragoons and a large body of mounted police and Coastguard, besides the gang of prize fighters and their associates. The people had not been idle — the pavement had been removed, preparations had been made for barricading the streets and a large quantity of straw had been procured to set fire to, should the dragoons approach. The determination of the people not to yield to such illegal and unconstitutional proceedings on the part of the Corporation, being made known at Mountfield, brought a request that some person might be sent on the part of the people. Dr Butler and Lieutenant Francillon were accordingly sent and after considerable delay the Corporation consented to return a member who should be chosen by the town.76

Because of the continuing turbulence, Dr Lamb had been unable to persuade the freemen of Rye to approach the polling station and so a compromise averted what was feared might turn into a ‘dreadful catastrophe’; Colonel Evans was returned with the anti-reform candidate, Pemberton. As the few Corporation worthies proceeded dejectedly through the crowd, their upper garments were observed to be in a very tattered state. The Iris viewed the outcome as a humiliating defeat for the Rye patron, a disaster from which he would not easily recover.

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Afterwards Dr Lamb was heard to give vent to his feelings in ‘language not very respectful to his successful opponents’. One journalist judged that, should the military have been allowed to enter Rye, the town could have resembled Paris in miniature during the violent revolution of July 1830; indeed, many historians believe that in the crisis months preceding the Reform Bill, England had come closer than ever before to a revolution.

The residents of Rye celebrated their brave resistance to the boroughmongers’ hostility and intimidation. Many thought that the ‘Men of Rye’ had set an example to the country deemed worthy of imitation. Few could disagree.

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X

THE ANTI-POOR LAW RIOTS

ent was one of the first counties to be reorganised under the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act and there was an immediate and drastic response on behalf of the labourers. The intensity of their bitterness and

dark despair reached a new pitch in the brutal slaughter of farm livestock. The rural war against the introduction of the remodelled poor law regulations was fought with a bloodthirsty ferocity not seen in the Swing disturbances. Hobsbawm and Rudé recognised this when writing that the labourers, especially after 1834, ‘for another twenty years or so waged a silent, embittered, vengeful campaign of poaching, burning and rural terror … which erupted into an epidemic of cattle-maiming at moments of acute distress’.77 To appreciate this heightened rural bitterness it is useful to follow the anti-poor law battle in some detail.

Under the new law, parochial responsibility for the poor was to end, leaving the parishes to come under the control of a centralised authority; a change that was an attempt to severely restrict relief in order to cut costs. On the very first day of granting relief there was a riot at Bapchild, near Sittingbourne. The relieving officer was mobbed and his books and papers burnt. At first it was thought that the riot had resulted because paupers were compelled to queue for a long time after assembling from many villages outside Bapchild to be relieved. The Commissioners quickly discouraged bringing large numbers of paupers together in one parish and ordered that future relief was to be given in each village. The authorities could not have been informed of an earlier meeting to discuss the working of the new poor law, which was violently interrupted by a party of agricultural labourers armed with bludgeons and sticks who proceeded to smash the workhouse windows and verbally threaten the inmates. Three of the ringleaders were taken into custody and appeared the next day before Sittingbourne magistrates. A large body of their companions met near the Lion Hotel and entered the justice room whilst the prisoners

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were undergoing examination. They intimated that if their colleagues were not immediately released they would wreak their vengeance on the magistrates. The defenceless justices had no choice but eventually to set the prisoners at large.

Further anti-poor law riots occurred at the villages of Doddington and Upchurch, near Sittingbourne, on 4th May 1835. The protests centred on the new provisions of the Act, which would provide only half the relief in money, with the other half in bread or provision tickets. Once news of the new method of payment had reached the paupers they gathered to obstruct the relieving officers. The Maidstone Journal recognised that ‘The incident was not therefore any sudden disturbance or outbreak of feeling but the result of an organised combination — preconceived to resist by force the new mode of relief.’ There was no denying that notices had appeared in churches at Doddington a week earlier indicating how the new relief was to be granted. An estimated two hundred and fifty paupers assembled at Doddington Workhouse on Dully Hill and declared their intention of knocking down anybody who dared offer them bread tickets — others simply declared they came for ‘money or blood’. Those that had already accepted the bread tickets were threatened with personal violence if they retained them, and were forcibly driven back to the workhouse. By the afternoon the crowd had swelled to two hundred demonstrators who laid virtual siege to the workhouse, trapping the magistrates and officials inside. A frightened relieving officer told how anyone who had taken the tickets was compelled to hand them back, and the parish officers were informed they must stay behind until those that returned had received the other half in money.

The thoroughly intimidated overseers sent for the local magistrates, two of whom addressed the mob in the workhouse yard, pointing out the folly of their actions and stating that it was not in their power to alter the new system. This was too much for several in the crowd, who cried out they knew better, since the justices had made the laws themselves. A relieving officer, anxious to leave, was followed from Doddington Workhouse to Newnham by about one hundred paupers and

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overheard one say, ‘If you can find a pond give the bastard a ducking’; another suggested, ‘Let’s rip the bastard’s guts out and see what colour they are’. Later on it was noticed that a door of a building in the workhouse yard was marked in chalk with the single word ‘Kill’.

The protesters used a traditional method of endeavouring to force others to join their ranks. At Upchurch women were prevented from leaving the church used for relieving the poor unless they returned the tickets. The following day, 5th May, ‘riotous assemblies’ occurred at Hernhill (near Faversham), Lynstead (near Deal) and Teynham (near Sittingbourne), the relieving officer was threatened and men were forced from their work and assaulted. Further disturbances ensued at Throwley and Rodmersham on the following two days; in both cases paupers were impelled to return tickets. At Throwley the receiving officer was held in the workhouse for six hours and at Rodmersham about three hundred labourers assembled, and their rowdy conduct grew violent enough for local magistrates to send for military assistance from Chatham. A hundred and twenty men from the 28th Regiment were moved from their barracks and stationed at Sittingbourne, whilst upwards of one hundred special constables were sworn in to patrol the town of Faversham and its adjoining parishes. A Kent newspaper commented: ‘Such has been the malicious feelings of the labourers that a valuable horse belonging to a man in Sittingbourne was destroyed by having its throat cut’.78 On 18th May there were disturbances at Chiddington, where parish officers were preparing a spot for building a new workhouse; stumps were pulled out that marked the ground, to prevent the officers from pursuing their plans. At a later stage an attempt was made to demolish the new building.*

In May 1835 the agricultural labourers’ conditions were debated in Parliament. Lord Russell suggested that distress was __________________________________________________ * Later, fifty-three demonstrators were convicted for their part in what were

later called the ‘Swale Disturbances’. Of these Henry Butler, John Barrett, John Woodley and James Blanche received hard labour for three, 12, 18 and 20 months respectively.

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being caused because the new poor law had not had time to prove itself and, where it was in operation, there were already signs that it was beginning to reduce the rates. In the Commons, Cobbett responded: ‘no wonder, each boy in a workhouse had so little to eat that a spaniel dog should be allowed more’.

In early July four ewes and eight lambs were found with their throats cut at Ash, a neighbourhood where, according to the Kentish Gazette, labourers and paupers seemed to be in a very distressed condition. On 15th August there was a huge fire at Bickly Farm in Bromley; thirty cornstacks, eight stables, an extensive granary and several storerooms were entirely destroyed.

More evidence of the bitterness of the labourers was shown on 20th January 1836, when a large barn fire was discovered at Edenbridge, a clear act of reprisal since the barn was owned by the newly-declared chairman of the Board of Guardians at Penshurst Union. In May an incendiary fire did severe damage to a farm belonging to the overseer at Cliffe, another target for retaliation.

The new poor law enactment in Sussex also received a hostile reception; the amendment was a source of widespread complaint and there is some sketchy detail showing that the overseers in both urban and rural districts around the neighbourhood of Hastings suffered considerable harassment. Hobsbawm and Rudé write that riotous opposition to the new law ‘coincided with a distinct revival of an economic movement which came close to trade unionism and in the case of the Tolpuddle martyrs actually became trade unionism.’79 My own local research has uncovered some sparse but highly significant supporting evidence suggesting that the anti-poor law agitation had some influence on efforts to establish the formation of agricultural unions in Rye and other strictly rural areas.

The incendiary fires may have died down in the years after Swing but there was a noticeable revival of agrarian unrest in the eastern parts of Sussex and a sudden surge in the numbers of highway robberies and burglaries that were mostly concentrated outside urban towns. The prolific Hastings historian T. B. Brett believed that a good, early harvest in 1835 could be held partly responsible for breaking up the associations

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of ‘Unionists’ since Mr Hilder’s water-driven mill at Robertsbridge was able to supply an unusually plentiful source of cheap flour that helped mitigate the farm workers’ disaffection. He notes that some attempts were made at Rye and other outlying rural parts to revive the union movement but the ‘efforts were but feebly supported and some of the labourers’ meetings were total failures.’80 Nevertheless, the fact that Rye and Winchelsea (according to Hobsbawm and Rudé) had briefly, prior to 1835, established agricultural labourers’ unions is of great importance in charting the historical development of early trade unionism and although the union leaders never went on to become celebrated as martyrs, it does place both towns firmly on the map of English labour history.

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XI

SOME REFLECTIONS ON SWING

nyone who has studied the Swing disturbances by searching through old newspaper copy, preserved on microfilm, will be immediately struck by the sheer speed at which the riots advance as they pass through

county to county. For a few short weeks, spanning October and November 1830, the outbreaks in Sussex held centre stage, dominating the headlines, absorbing a considerable amount of newsprint. Then abruptly, as the microfilm tape winds on, all the source material for Sussex vanishes. There is a sense that the incident book on that rebellious county has been closed to public scrutiny. The great firework display had flickered and faded — Kent and Sussex were suddenly yesterday’s news. The riots had moved on and attention had shifted elsewhere. Captain Swing was causing alarm and disorder in Hampshire, Wiltshire and Shropshire.

Now, passengers travelling on the ‘Wonder’ coach were bringing distressing news of a massive clover-stack fire near Shifnal in Shropshire. Hundreds of labourers had marched into Andover, some with pitchforks holding mouldy crusts of bread. Andover was suffering the ‘dreadful’ example of incendiarism that had only recently been reserved for Winchester.

It appeared, on the surface, that the storm of protest in Sussex had largely blown itself out, leaving behind the occasional squalls and gusts that were no longer deemed newsworthy. Hobsbawm and Rudé explained it succinctly: ‘The riots had run their course and died a natural death’. Both authors rated it a strong possibility that, at least for some counties, active intervention either by government or by local justices had little effect, one way or the other, on the riots.

Even the expected deterrent effect of the opening of the Lewes Winter Assizes, just prior to Christmas 1830, had at best only a marginal influence; it seemed that, for Sussex, the bright lights had already dimmed on the Swing movement. Apparently, the riots were on the wane before any harsh sentences could influence village communities in trials that were to continue into Easter and beyond. In Sussex during 1831 Edmund Bushby and

A

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Thomas Buffard were the only two convicted incendiarists to end their days on the gallows. Of the fifty-one accused on various charges, seventeen were transported, sixteen received gaol sentences, while the other eighteen were acquitted. As regards Kent — four were executed, forty-eight imprisoned, and fifty-two transported to Australia.*

Both counties escaped the introduction of the Special Commissions — high-profile trials set up by Lord Grey to spread legal terror into the heart of the countryside. As the usual judicial proceedings were already in progress in Kent and Sussex, they were allowed to continue.

But had the lights really been snuffed out for Captain Swing in Sussex as his followers took up arms in Hampshire? It is necessary to qualify any definite statement about his sudden departure. Was it simply that the journalists’ focus had been diverted toward another direction? Maybe under-reporting was partly responsible for the lack of information on Sussex. This is what the Brighton Herald had to say on 31st December 1831 — the day of Thomas Buffard’s execution:

It is painful to reflect that the terrible example made of persons convicted of the dreadful crime of arson appears to have little effect in checking the progress of incendiarism. Even while the Judges were holding the assizes at Lewes, property to the amount of £3,000 was consumed at only a few miles’ distance and no later than Wednesday night last, agricultural buildings and produce to a large extent were wilfully fired at Gardener-street, near Lewes. A plan had, we hear, been formed to burn the whole village and which would have been effected but for the most prompt exertions in checking the progress of the flames. There are no less than ten men in custody on suspicion of being concerned in causing the fire.

As in Kent, where the authorities were slow to react, so in the eastern parts of Sussex magistrates struggled at first to contain the outbreaks. The landed gentry and clergy responsible for maintaining public order were simply overwhelmed. They lacked the resources needed to quell the disorder. Special __________________________________________________ * Nationally, 252 were sentenced to death, of which 233 had their sentences

commuted to life transportation; 19 were executed, 505 were transported, 644 were imprisoned, seven were fined and one was whipped.

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constables were urgently needed but farmers were reluctant to come forward. They rightly feared reprisals, knowing that enrolment in the specials would place them on a direct collision course with their labourers.

As agriculture became increasingly a capitalist enterprise, the gulf between farmer and farmhand widened and socially they grew further apart. Trust between the two diminished, and suspicion took its place; the few contacts were formal and based almost solely on working arrangements. Whilst the farmers feared violent retaliation, the labourers feared changes in farming practices and reverted to traditional methods of resistance. The Times commented haughtily: ‘Revenge was the natural feeling of ignorant, coarse minded and ill-treated men and it seems to have spread wide and taken deep root.’81

Once the Swing rebellion gained real momentum and the countryside was reduced to a ‘state of anarchy and terror’, many farmers became cowed and compliant. As the rioting intensified, farmers were criticised for their weak and conciliatory response. A correspondent to the Kentish Gazette scornfully asked:

Men of Kent ! ! ! Do such men now exist? or are their energies smothered in the smoke of their burning stacks…? Have the villainous agents of revolutionary agitators … entirely intimidated that chivalrous spirit for which Kent, and your Men of Kent, have so long been celebrated in history’s page and poet’s song?82

In November 1830 a despairing Times correspondent urged Sussex farmers to rouse themselves from their

miserable way of timid selfishness. They must stop making the best terms for themselves with the rioters. This will only lead to further and further demands. A concession which at another time would have been kind and prudent, is now folly and cowardice.83

And yet agreeing terms with the rioters on dismantling or withdrawing threshing machines, on making slight adjustments on wage scales, on co-ordinated efforts to reduce tithes and rents, all undoubtedly helped to defuse the disturbances.

After the successful conclusion of the French Wars, the yeoman cavalry was disbanded; when the riots showed no sign of abating, farmers came to bitterly regret its loss. Most farmers had little appetite for enrolling in a reconstituted yeoman force,

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since they feared the consequences. Helping hunt down and disperse a mob on horseback might bring the same thrill as chasing a pack of hounds but not if, as a result, the farmer turned back home to discover his stack or barn in flames. The Poor Law Commissioners recognised that, because there was so much distress amongst tenant-farmers, they could no longer afford to keep horses fit for cavalry service; they either made do with a carthorse or went about on foot: ‘The few who are opulent hang back; as, from living in isolated situations, their property is completely at the mercy of their own labourers.’

The new police had only recently been formed by Sir Robert Peel in 1829 and was raw and inexperienced and, initially, far too small to make a serious contribution to riot control. The Commissioners concluded that a more efficient rural police force was a matter of the utmost importance.

As for the use of the military, its size had been reduced to the customary, small standing army numbers after the wars abroad, and thus became often severely stretched should an urgent request for assistance come from local magistrates. In the latter stages of the east Sussex disturbances, General Dalbiac*

was summoned to Battle to command a depleted company of mounted infantrymen — that is as many as could be safely spared when Wellington’s government was anxiously watching political events in France and Belgium. Some idea of the shortage in troops is revealed on 11th November 1830, when intelligence reached Battle magistrates of an alarming disturbance in Mayfield, close to Lord Abergavenny’s vast estates. Henry Abergavenny† was, according to William Cobbett, literally ‘rolling in wealth’. Once the alarm had been raised, a troop of the 5th Dragoon Guards was sent off immediately, leaving only five soldiers to patrol the main road in Battle. Sir Godfrey Webster, who was still ‘particularly active’, apparently followed the dragoons to Mayfield, further undermining his popularity with the locals. The military was hard-pressed to guard the towns they were assigned to, let alone possibly defend all the tiny villages or hamlets. Nor could they protect the

__________________________________________________ * Sir James Charles Dalbiac (1776–1847). MP for Ripon. Knighted for

quelling the Bristol riots in 1831. † His correct name was Henry Neville, 2nd Earl of Abergavenny (1755-1843),

a one-time MP for Seaford.

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isolated farms even if it had been their responsibility, which the Home Office assured local justices it wasn’t. But by the middle of November, the dragoons had begun to be stationed in various east Sussex towns that showed signs of serious discontent.

At length, the civil powers gradually reorganised and strengthened their local forces. At an earlier stage, Courthorpe, the presiding magistrate at Battle, had voiced concerns over the difficulty of encouraging the town’s farmers to enrol as constables. But by 17th November the situation had drastically changed; somehow, nearly five hundred special constables had been sworn in by Battle magistrates from various parishes around the neighbourhood. How many were farmers was not recorded. Whether there were financial inducements is not known. These specials were placed on day and night duty, patrolling the roads and watching farm property. These huge numbers must have discouraged the less-committed incendiarists from further night activity. Voluntary associations were formed to provide subscriptions to help cover the heavy cost of night watches and patrols. Intelligence was slowly improving and warrants for the arrest of suspects were increasingly being issued. By January 1831, many residents in Horsham suspected of involvement in earlier disturbances were reportedly fleeing their homes before they could be held in custody.

Hobsbawm and Rudé relate how the Duke of Richmond was responsible for the enrolment of ‘a constabulary force of shopkeepers, yeomen and “respectable” labourers, organised them in sections and districts under local commanders and sent them out as mobile units to occupy villages, whether already rebellious or likely to become so’.84

Did this improvement in intelligence-gathering, detection and organised patrols really succeed in subduing the riots of Kent and Sussex? By the time Home Office ministers and local magistrates finally developed an anti-riot strategy, the majority of threshing machines had either been destroyed or dismantled, and many farmers had conceded wage increases under duress. Several hundred of the machines disappeared from view — some social historians believe it was not until the 1850s that steam-powered threshers began to operate in significant numbers.

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The evidence for Jacobin involvement in the disturbances that covered the two counties is extremely sketchy and was almost certainly confined to the fringes of the movement. The Jacobin-inspired naval deserter Robert Price has already been mentioned. A letter was sent to The Maidstone Journal from Dover, dated 6th October 1830, showing that the High Sheriff had recently attended a meeting of suspected incendiarists, and pointing out ‘the folly and wickedness of their proceedings’. Previous to dispersing, one said, ‘We will destroy the corn-stacks and threshing machines this year. Next year we will have a turn with the parsons and the third we will make war upon the statesmen.’

In early November 1830, a large assembly, estimated at about four hundred, gathered on Penenden Heath, near Maidstone, and hoisted a tri-coloured handkerchief on a flagpole to the accompaniment of a fifer. An observer thought that at least half of those assembled were journeymen papermakers from Maidstone. A few days later, on 10th November, strangers were seen on roads neighbouring Lamberhurst, haranguing passers-by, under a flag inscribed ‘Liberty’, and only the day before a man was arrested at Tonbridge with a large collection of anonymous letters addressed to government ministers.

Radical craftsmen played a far greater role in the disaffection than did Jacobin revolutionaries. Small market towns such as Rye, Battle, Horsham and Maidstone had a deserved reputation for political radicalism. Maidstone was damned for being ‘infested with radicals’ and Horsham denounced as a ‘hot-bed of sedition’. Justice Parke, one of three senior judges heading the infamous Special Commission, publicly admitted his astonishment at finding so many craftsmen deeply involved in the rioting. Parke was puzzled because he imagined artisans’ wages would have placed them above the labourers’ ill-requited toil. Yet blacksmiths and carpenters were regularly brought before the bench and charged with active involvement in machine-breaking. Hobsbawm and Rudé have a valid explanation: it was men such as these, together with sawyers, millwrights and wheelwrights, who possessed the necessary skills and tools to dismantle the farm machinery. These artisans witnessed at first hand the wretched existence of the village labourers and became their natural allies, lending out saws and hammers or becoming actively involved in the

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wrecking. Shoe and bootmakers were well known for their radicalism in rural society.

In November 1830, a large group of labourers, perhaps three or four hundred, were observed at Boughton Hill, Kent. They were approached by a number of magistrates and gentlemen and asked to justify their assembly. A journeyman bootmaker named Adams, mounted on another man’s shoulders, addressed the magistrates. He blamed the government for using the outrages ‘as an excuse for sending soldiers to spill the blood of these half-starved men’. Magistrates were said to have heard him out patiently until the Riot Act was read, and then promptly took him into custody, together with another bootmaker who had evidently used noisy and inflammatory language. A tailor was also apprehended.

There were many anecdotal stories of well-dressed strangers attempting to stir up trouble and encourage disaffection. The Maidstone Journal published a letter on 6th October 1830 which claimed:

There is nothing of a political nature in these tumults — but there are some fellows who have adopted a plan of going into the public houses in unfrequented hamlets about the country, conversing with the peasantry and exciting their bad passions and commiserating at their conditions. One of these fellows was dressed in a new silk hat, frock coat, dark grey trousers and boots and from what I have learnt he is not the only one of his infamous calling prowling about.

In the same issue the editor had to agree: These lamentable occurrences are caused by strangers activated by the most diabolical motives who prowl from place to place. A respectably dressed man was seen at a public house in Tudeley, near West Peckham, who said that Mr Martin’s premises would be burnt before long.

Within two days a hundred quarters of wheat were consumed by fire at Martin’s farm and a reward of £300 was offered for the discovery of the culprit.

In mid-November, a gentleman in a carriage, driven by coachmen and drawn by a fine pair of horses, stopped at St Mary’s in Romney Marsh and asked if anyone knew of any threshing machines in use on the Marsh. On being told

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cautiously, one or two, he announced that they would not be working for much longer.

Throughout the Swing riots there was an extraordinary number of similar stories of respectably-dressed gents observed riding around the countryside in gigs or a coach-and-pair. It is possible to surmise they might have been renegade members of the landed classes who had rebelled against that refined lifestyle — perhaps the outcast offspring of wealthy families, who had grown to hate their own class? It is all speculation.

John Blakey was arrested in October 1830 on suspicion of being responsible for setting fires. He was found carrying political pamphlets, manuscripts and other papers of an ‘inflammatory’ nature. Also discovered were a bow and arrows fitted with hollow brass tubes, which he later confessed could fire a small shell of combustible material. A Kent reporter described him as a radical politician of the worst sort.

The radical craftsmen must have been outraged at the farmers’ exploitation of their labourers; neglected and semi-starved members of their own village community. This anger may have been whipped up by the preaching of a dissenting or non-conformist minister. The agricultural distress had created a deep sense of loathing between the classes, and a hatred of the landowners and gentry would have been nurtured by radical political ideas. Many rural artisans may have hoped that involvement in the riots might undermine the political control of the landed classes and possibly weaken the government. Motives for joining the rebellion would have varied, just as the characters in the crowd that constituted any mob disposed to riot differed.

Sir Edward Knatchbull was in a unique position to study the motives of the Swing rioters. The Maidstone Archives possesses handwritten notes made by him with full details of all the cases he presided over between the years 1830–1835 — including information on the riots penned in September 1830 that lists the accused men. Sir Edward appears to have been one of the more enlightened and sympathetic magistrates of his time. He never deviated from his belief that the disturbances were no more than a desperate appeal for reform, dismissing any notion they could have been caused by an underlying desire for revolution.

The rioters’ demands and ambitions do seem profoundly conservative; they clung fervently to the traditional country ways

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and stubbornly resisted the new with a tenacity that was remarkable, considering they risked death and imprisonment.

There is a general consensus among social historians that the riots brought few lasting benefits to the rural labourers in southern England. Once the farmers regained their nerve and composure, they began to claw back the minimal gains the rioters had achieved. The legal campaign of terror unleashed by the Special Commission fortunately bypassed both Kent and Sussex, allowing them to escape the defeat and demoralisation elsewhere. However, for a short period the landlords and their farm tenants had been reduced to fear and trembling by a mass uprising of a dispossessed ‘inferior’ class. The vulnerability of their isolated farm property to arson had been fully exposed. In so many instances the assaults on farm premises were pre-planned, discriminate onslaughts against their masters, who were viewed as class enemies. The Swing rioters may have ultimately lost the rural war but a spirit of underground resistance remained, especially in Kent, where the movement began.

In August 1831, threshing machines were still being destroyed on the Romney Marshes, at Bonnington and at Burmarsh. Days later, another machine was wrecked at Cold Harbour Farm. Here, the farmer had unwisely mowed his own corn, and paid the price — his stack was fired. In November I834, an association for the protection of property in East Kent met at the fifteenth-century Woolpack Inn at Chilham ‘to consider the alarming state of the county and the most effective means of stopping incendiarism’, and made sure their insurance cover was sufficient to lessen any fire damage costs incurred.85 Nightly patrols were reinstated at Hernhill a month later and the parish meeting agreed a new scale of rewards for the discovery of incendiarists. Two farms were fired on the opposite sides of the road at Chalk, near Gravesend, in October 1837, suspicion falling on a discharged thrasher.

The following year there was some revival of incendiarism and sheep stealing around Robertsbridge and other rural districts in east Sussex, occasioned by distress brought on by an exceptionally severe winter. The extreme weather drove countless wild birds within easy range of the fowler’s gun while many swans and other large birds died of cold and starvation. The consequent lack of work and the scarcity of food forced

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huge numbers to seek parochial relief until most of the workhouses were overflowing.

In late January there was an alarming incendiary fire at Udimore totally consuming a large barn stables and outhouses belonging to a farmer named John Woodhams. The perpetrators showed scant concern for the safety of farm stock since four horses and three pigs were callously left to be roasted alive. A mate called Hookam was seen to leave the premises at ten p.m. and the fire was discovered an hour later. Hookam and a labourer named Sinden were arrested on suspicion of involvement but the evidence was insufficient to sustain an indictment and the men were discharged.

Hostility to the Poor Law Amendment Act continued throughout 1835 and 1836. Attacks were made on overseers’ property and there were attempts to destroy the new union workhouses — dubbed ‘bastilles’ by some of the more literate paupers.

A mysterious uprising in 1838, led by Sir William Courtenay,* probably signalled the Kent labourers’ grudging, long-drawn-out acceptance of defeat. Sir William’s supporters devoutly held to a millenarian belief that he was the Messiah. Such fantasies had inspired the actions of the poor during the French Revolution — a desperate but fervent hope that intolerable burdens would be lifted and past promises fulfilled with the dawn of a golden era about to emerge. Historians have generally viewed such millennial dreams as a consolation for a political defeat.

After failing to enter Parliament, Sir William Courtenay developed a chiliastic† ideology to inspire his followers into a more faithful force; a millennial movement that culminated in 1838 in the Battle of Bossenden Wood, near Hernhill, where Sir William, a military officer, and fourteen of his devoted supporters were killed. E. P. Thompson describes the affair as perhaps the most desperate battle on English soil since 1745. The Courtenay uprising was, partly, a religious crusade for the

__________________________________________________ * He was really John Nichols Thom, a wine seller with a history of mental

illness. † Relating to, or believing in, Christian millenarianism (that there will come a

time after the Second Coming where Christ will reign in person on earth for a thousand years).

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divine rights of the poor against the ‘devilry’ of the detested new poor laws.

Despite the revolt’s almost inevitable collapse, there were undeniable positive repercussions. Its enormous scale gave encouragement to a ruthlessly exploited urban working class in its struggle towards an embryonic trades union movement. It is worth remembering that the Captain Swing riots held back the inevitable progression towards steam-powered threshing machines with far greater success than was achieved by the Luddites in their battles with the advance of textile and other industrial machinery.

Ransome’s was one of the firms responsible for the mass-production of the early threshing machines. The firm went on to manufacture good quality lawn-mowers and combine harvesters in the twentieth century. What would the machine-breakers in 1830 have thought of that technical achievement?

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Brett, T. B., The History of Hastings and St Leonards 1828–1864. Brett, T. B., Historico-Biographies. Cobbett, William. (1830) Rural Rides. 1967 edn. Hammond, J. L. and Hammond, B. (1911) The Village Labourer 1760–1832. 1995 edn. Hobsbawm, E, and Rudé, G. (1969) Captain Swing. 1973 edn. Holland, Michael. ‘The Swing Project’ in Rural History Today, Issue 3, July 2002. Hopker, David. (1988) Money or Blood, 1835 Riots in the Swale Villages. Lowerson, J. A. (1980) A Short History of Sussex. Peacock, A. J. (1979) Bread or Blood. Philp, Roy. (1999) The Coast Blockade: The Royal Navy’s War on Smuggling in Kent and Sussex 1817–1831. Rudé, G. (1964) Revolutionary Europe 1783–1815. 1972 edn. Spater, G. (1982) William Cobbett: The Poor Man’s Friend Vol. 2. Thompson E. P. (1963) The Making of the English Working Class. Thompson, E. P. ‘The crime of anonymity’ in Hay et al, (1975) Albion’s Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-century England.

Jubb’s Thrashing machine

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REFERENCES 1 Hobsbawm and Rudé, p.175 2 Holland, introduction 3 Thompson, E. P., ‘The Crime of Anonymity’, p.273 4 Cobbett, Political Register, 11th December 1830 5 Rudé, G. Revolutionary Europe 1783–1815, p.292 6 Kentish Gazette, 24th September 1830 7 The Times, 30th October 1830 8 Hobsbawm and Rudé, op. cit. p.36 9 Cobbett, Rural Rides, p.176 10 Cobbett, Rural Rides, p.206 11 Cobbett, Rural Rides, p.123 12 The Times, 11th December 1830 13 The Times, 27th October 1830 14 Quoted in the Kentish Gazette, 22nd October 1830 15 Private correspondence of Sir Edward Knatchbull, Maidstone Archives 16 The Times, 8th September 1830 17 The Times, 21st October 1830 18 The Times, 26th November 1830 19 Hammond, J. and B., p.189 20 Hammond, J. and B., p.191 21 Cobbett, Rural Rides p.164 22 Spater, p.603 23 Private correspondence of Sir Edward Knatchbull, Maidstone Archives 24 Kentish Gazette, 3rd January 1832 25 Thompson, E. P. ‘The Crime of Anonymity’, p.277 26 The Times, 12th November 1830 27 Thompson, E. P. ‘The Crime of Anonymity’, p.289 28 Hobsbawm and Rudé, p.74 29 Kentish Gazette, 24th September 1830 30 Kentish Gazette, 28th September 1830 31 Private correspondence of Sir Edward Knatchbull, Maidstone Archives 32 Thompson, E. P., ‘The Crime of Anonymity’, p.281 33 The Times, 30th October 1830 34 The Times 9th February 1831

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35 Hobsbawm and Rudé, p.75 36 Private correspondence of Sir Edward Knatchbull, Maidstone Archives 37 The Times, 6th November 1830, extract from the Kent Herald 38 Hobsbawm and Rudé, p.76 39 The Times, 27th October 1830 40 The Times, 30th October 1830 41 Private correspondence of Sir Edward Knatchbull, Maidstone Archives 42 Hammond J. and B., p.246 43 Hobsbawm and Rudé, p.76 44 The Times, 17th November 1839 45 Ibid 46 Spater, p.603 47 The Times, 12th November 1830 48 The Times, 26th November 1830 49 The Times, 27th November 1830 50 Hastings & Cinque Ports Iris, 20th November 1830 51 Brett, T. B., The History of Hastings and St Leonards 1828–I864, Book 1 52 Spater, p.600 53 The Times, 12th November 1830 54 Hastings & Cinque Ports Iris, 13th November 1830 55 Ibid 56 The Times, 12th November 1830 57 The Times, 17th November 1830 58 The Times, 10th November 1830 59 The Times, 17th November 1830 60 Hastings & Cinque Ports Iris, 20th November 1830 61 The Times, 26th November 1830 62 Brett, T. B., The History of Hastings and St Leonards 1828–I864, Book 1 p.24 63 Hastings & Cinque Ports Iris, 20th November 1830 64 The Times, 21st November 1830 65 Hastings & Cinque Ports Iris, 29th January 1831 66 The Times, 20th November 1830 67 Hastings & Cinque Ports Iris, 27th November 1830 68 The Times, 26th November 1830 69 The Times, 25th October 1830

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70 The Times, 26th November 1830 71 The Times, 26th December 1830 72 Philp, p.141 73 The Times, 2nd May 1831 74 Hastings & Cinque Ports Iris, 30th April 1831 75 The Times, 2nd May 1831 76 Hastings & Cinque Ports Iris, 30th April 1831 77 Hobsbawm and Rudé, p.xxiii 78 Maidstone Journal, 7th May 1835 79 Hobsbawm and Rudé, p.244 80 Brett, T. B., Historico-Biographies Vol 1, p.25 81 The Times, 30th October 1830 82 Kentish Gazette, 24th September 1830 83 The Times, 20th November 1830 84 Hobsbawm and Rudé, p.218 85 Kentish Gazette, 14th November 1834

INDEX Abergavenny, Lord 71, 105 Alfriston 78, Arundel 74, 77 Ash(e) 26, 36, 39, 41, 52, 100 Austen, Wm 57 Aylesford 48 Ballard, John 57 Barham 35, 38 Barrow, George 57 Barton, G 56 Battle 27, 59-69, 70, 77-80, 85, 105-107 Battle Abbey 63 Beale, John 57 Becker, Michael 36 Bekesbourne/Beaksbourne 41, 42 Benenden 45 Benstead 43 Berwick 78 Bexhill 69, 90 Blakey, John 109 Blockade 19, 77 Bodrain 80 Bonnington 110 Booker 79 Bossenden Wood 111 Boughton Hill 47, 108 Brasted 19, 34 Brede 59-60, 69 Breeds, Thomas 83-9 Brett, T. B. 61, 69, 83, 100, 113 Brighton 62, 70, 77, 103 Bromley 33, 100 Brown, Thomas 28 Buffard, Thomas 83-91, 103 Burmarsh 110 Bushby, Edmund 78-9, 81-2, 102 Butler, Dr 95 Butler, James 57 Canterbury 23-4, 34-6, 38, 40-2, 44, 46, 48

Canterbury Workhouse 47 Catt, Edward and Mary 84-91 Catt, Mr 42 Chalk 110 Chapman, Edward 57 Charing 41 Chartham 42 Chatham 11, 99 Chichester 72-6 Chiddington 99 Chilham 110 Chrisford, Wim 57 Cliffe 100 Coastguard 19, 77, 95 Cobbett, Wm 2, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 19, 23, 32, 33, 34, 45, 58-9, 61-3, 65, 66, 79-80, 100, 105, 113 Cobham Hall 24-5 Colebrook brothers 57 Cottie, Rev 66 Courtenay, Sir Wm 111 Courthorpe 69, 106 Cowden 34 Crawley, Rev 72 Crowborough 71 Dalbiac, General 105 Darnley, Lord 11, 23-4 Dodd, PC 31 Dodd, Wm 35 Doddington 98 Dodge, John 57 Donnington 75 Dover 32, 34-6, 102, 107 Dunk, James 57 Dragoon Guards 32, 35, 48, 63, 68, 76, 95, 105-6 Dyke, John 48-9 East Preston 78-9 Eastbourne 62, 91 Easton, Mary 90 Edenbridge 100 Eridge 71 Emary, Charles 59, 64-6

Emigration 13 Evans, George De Lacy 94-5 Fairlight 38, 60-1, 92 Farncombs 65 Faversham 39, 41, 99 Firle Place 28, 72 Folkestone 34-6 Framfield 75 Francillon, Lt 95 French Revolution 3, 9, 105, 111 French Wars 7, 8, 12, 37, 104 Gage, Lord 28-9, 72, 78 Game, W 87 Gill, Daniel 91 Goodman, Thos. 68, 78-82 Green, Lt. John 90 Guestling 61, 83-4, 89-91 Gutsell, James 61 Hardres vi, 35, 38, 40 Hartlip 39 Hastings 69, 83, 92, 100 Hawkhurst 46 Hammond J & B vii, 113 Hammond, Farmer 46 Hayseldon, Joseph 91 Hernhill 99, 110-1 Hills, Charles 90 Hobsbawm & Rudé vi, vii, 5, 6, 10, 34, 38, 39, 41, 45, 59, 65, 97, 100, 101, 102, 106, 107, 113 Holland, Michael viii, 6, 113 Hollands, George 57 Hookham, Mr 111 Horsham 79, 81, 83, 89, 106, 107 Hougham 32, 36 Hove 77 Hubble, Mrs 21-22 Hurst Green 38, 66 Icklesham 65

Ide Hill 21 Irish 32-3, 50 Jacobin 2, 8, 41, 107 Knatchbull, Sir Ed. vi, 18, 24-26, 35, 38-43, 48, 73, 109 Lamberhurst 107 Lancing 77 Langley 44 Lenham 11, 41 Lewes 71, 75, 103 Lowerson, John 7 Luddites 1, 3, 48, 112 Lydd 47 Lyminge 36, 40, 52, 53 Lynstead 99 Maidstone 2, 24-5, 30, 37, 44, 48, 61, 62, 68, 107 Malthus, Thomas 5 Manning 21-22 Maresfield 28 Martin, Mr 53, 108 Maxton 32 Mayfield 105 Minster 46 Monkton & Sarre 12, 34 Moore, George 57 Munstone 39 Newington 38, 40, 41 Newnham 98 Noakes, Thomas 91 Nourvaille, Peter 21 Oliver, George 78-9 Orpington 19, 33, 34 Packman brothers 48-9 Parke, Justice 107 Parkhurst 87 Patrixbourne 41 Peacock, A. J. 6-7, 113 Peel, Sir Robert 44, 105 Pemberton, Mr 95 Penenden Heath 48-9, 107 Pennells, Richard 80 Penshurst 100 Peters, George 91

Petworth 7, 73, 77 Phillips, John 91 Philp, Roy 90, 113 Plum, Wm, 91 Poaching 18-24, 69, 97 Pointer, James 57 Poor Laws 18, 21, 22, 60, 97-100, 105, 111 Poore, J 39-41, 43 Price, Rev Ralph 36 Price, Robert 41, 107 Pursey, Mr 94 Quaife, Thomas 64-5 Rainham 38-39, 41 Richmond, Duke of 73, 74, 106 Ringmer 27, 71, 72, 75, 78 Ripple vi Robinson, Wm 57 Rolvenden 45 Romney 47, 108, 110 Rotherfield 72 Rutley, Thos. 32 Rye 92-6, 100, 101, 107 Sandwich 34, 37, 41 Saville, Joseph 27 Saxby, Scrace, 78 Sawyer, Edward 87 Sevenoaks 10, 19, 21, 34 Sittingbourne 37, 41, 97-9 Sheerness 11 Shoreham (Kent) 33 Sinden, Mr 111 Smith, Benjamin 94 Smith, Stephen 80 Smithurst, Hokkey 90 Smuggling 69, 77, 78, 87, 88, 90-1, 113 Southover 75 Special constables 22, 35, 42, 44, 47, 60, 63, 68, 69, 71, 72, 75, 77, 94-5, 99, 106 St Leonards 67 Steyning 77

Stockbury 39 Stonelynk Hall 60-1 Studham, Elizabeth 45 Swingfield 35 Taunton 28, 79-80 Teynham 99 Thanet, Isle of 10, 12, 32-35, 46, 48 Thompson, E. P. vii, 6, 11, 14, 20, 26-7, 30, 36, 92, 111, 113 Thompson, Jonathan 20 Throwley 99 Tickner, John 57 Tolpuddle Martyrs 3 Tonbridge/Tunbridge 44, 48, 62, 107 Transportation 1, 3, 15, 19, 22, 23, 26, 28, 39, 45, 56, 77, 79, 80, 103 Tudeley 108 Tunbridge Wells 47 Tylden, Mary 17, 24, 28 Tyndall 85 Uckfield 68, 71 Udimore 111 Upchurch 98, 99 Upstreet 23, 39 Vine Hall 60 Walter, Matthew 57 Watts, Robert 64-5, 68 Webster, Sir Godfrey 63-4, 68, 70, 105 West Dean 75 Westbourne 76 Westfield 69, 90, 91 Whiteman, Spencer 91 Winchelsea 101 Woodhams John 111 Worthing 75 Wrotham 2, 37, 47, 53

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