head, one of Mr. Lloyd's special informants, sent by him
from his own district to the West Riding. Barrowclough
was arrested at Holmfirth, under a warrant from Mr. Hay,
by Maitland's aide-de-camp, with whom were Mr. Lloyd, Mr.
Lloyd's clerk, and Whitehead. It might naturally be ex-
pected that he would be taken before a magistrate to be
examined ; instead of this his examination was conducted
by Mr. Lloyd and by Mr. Allison, the solicitor for the Hudders-

1 H.O.,42. 132, January 13. M H.O.,42. 126.

1 For Barrowclough see H.O., 42. 125, and 42. 129.



THE YORKSHIRE LUDDITES 317

fit-Id Society for Prosecuting the Luddites. 1 General Maitland
described himself as unwilling to interfere in the matter of
Barrowclough's examination, ' but I believe Lloyd and a
very zealous Officer indeed having no such Delicacy, went
into him and got out of him all the Information we
had.'

Meantime Mr. Hay spirited the prisoner away into Lan-
cashire, to the intense annoyance of Mr. Radcliffe. The
battle for the body of the living Barrowclough resembles
the quarrels among medieval cities for the bodies of dead
saints. Barrowclough, in Mr. Lloyd's hands, did his best
to give satisfaction, and the susceptible Mr. Hay confessed
himself to be ' a good deal agitated ' by the disclosures. The
general rising, or the marriage feast of Mrs. Ludd, was post-
poned, said Barrowclough, till July 24, 1814, twenty-four
years from the beginning of the Luddite system. French
officers were drilling the Luddites and managing the whole
affair : roads were being mined and powder laid for blow-
ing up opponents. Pressed for concrete details Barrow-
clough warmed to his task, revealed the name (a wrong one)
of Horsfall's murderer, and gave a circumstantial and detailed
account of fifteen small depdts of arms near Holmfirth, con-
veniently placed in fields, so that no search warrants were
necessary. In vain did General Maitland make long and
earnest search for all fifteen : not a firearm, not even a pike,
could be found. Barrowclough was much disturbed at this
and asked leave to point out the places himself. Accordingly
Mr. Radcliffe received him once again into his jurisdiction.
But confidence was shaken, and though nine men were kept
in prison on his information, and though the stories that
French officers on parole were drilling Luddites were believed,
and the question of supervising them more closely considered,
Barrowclough himself could not recover his prestige. Even
Mr. Lloyd, though still convinced that Samuel Haigh, whom
Barrowclough had denounced as Horsfall's murderer, was
the criminal, for he had exhibited symptoms ' very convinc-
ing to me of his guilt,' reluctantly admitted that Barrow-
clough's manner was ' sufficiently equivocal to induce a stranger
to suppose him flighty.*

Barrowclough no sooner faded from the scene than a man
of stronger inventive powers took his place. This was Sergeant

1 Mr. Allison seems also to have been employed by the Crown either now or
later (H.O., 42. 132, January 13).



318 THE SKILLED LABOURER, 1760-1882

Lawson, 1 alias Montgomery, of the 1st Royal Surrey militia,
stationed at Chelmsford, who confessed to Brigade -Major
Chamberlain at that place that he was involved in a terrible
and far-reaching plot, fostered by French prisoners, the ultimate
object of which was to establish a Republic, the immediate
programme to fire all big towns and to assassinate Castle-
reagh. One of the leaders, ' Lord Lovat ' by pseudonym,
corresponded with France, and Lawson had seen a letter
to him from Talleyrand beginning ' My Beloved Couzin.'
The conspirators were active round Manchester and in the
West Riding, the plot extended to Ireland, and they cal-
culated on mustering some 150,000 followers. Week after
week did Lawson pour out his fresh revelations. Maitland,
to do him justice, was occasionally sceptical with regard to
his part of the country, but no doubt seems to have been
cast on Lawson's more important revelations : indeed on
September 21 warrants were issued by Sidmouth to appre-
hend Lord Lovat, otherwise Russel, and twenty-one others
for high treason, and Maitland, in spite of the dissuasion
of the Law Officers, was ordered not to restrict himself to
the persons named in the warrants, if there seemed occasion
to arrest others. ' I am confident,' wrote Sidmouth, ' that
you will assume an Authority for that purpose, if the Occasion
should appear to you to call for it, and I need not add that
in that case, you may rely on the support of the Govern-
ment.' But the warrants were never executed, for the culprits
were not to be found, and Lawson himself fell under a cloud.
He crossed over into Ireland, and Peel's searching eye 2 noted
serious inaccuracies in his tales of operations there. His
stories, it must be confessed, presumed on his hearers' powers
of credulity. Amongst other items he professed to have
travelled 1078 miles in eleven days. Disillusionment pro-
gressed rapidly after this, and outside the last of innumerable
bundles of documents about him runs the inscription, ' Papers
relating to Lawson, a fabricator of false intelligence.'

At the end of July 1812 the Bill for which the Yorkshire
magistrates had asked was passed. They were given power
to search for arms in any place where they suspected them
to be, without waiting for a deposition on oath that arms
were there. They were also empowered to demand the

1 For Lawson see H.O., 42. 126, 42. 127, 42. 128, 42. 129, 42. 130.
8 Peel was Irish Secretary.



THE YORKSHIRE LUDDITES 819

surrender of any arms not secure from seizure, and to dis-
perse without the formality of the Riot Act, tumultuous
assemblies by day, or suspicious assemblies of ten or more
by night. 1

The provisions of the Bill were to expire on March 25 next
year. Another Bill was passed earlier in July, which made
the penalties for giving or taking illegal oaths more stringent,
death being decreed for the former, and transportation for life
for the latter. 2 One section of the Act promised indemnity
within three months to any one coming forward to confess
that he had taken an unlawful oath, and to take the oath of
allegiance.

Little resulted from the new powers given to the magis-
trates, whom Maitland accused of slackness, but as summer
advanced and trade showed some improvement the raids
for arms became less frequent. The Orders in Council had
been repealed on June 23, 8 five days too late, as America
had already declared war, but Napoleon's disastrous invasion
of Russia broke up the continental system. 4

No want of zeal could be alleged against the indefatig-
able Mr. Lloyd, but he worked under certain difficulties,
as Mr. Radcliffe's ways were not his ways. * In the case
against the Murderer of Horsfall,' 5 he writes from Wake-
field, 6 ' and other Depredators committed to York, I have
obtained a material piece of Information, which if the zeal
of Mr. Radcliffe the Justice has not marred, I shall avail
myself of here but the doubt I have is that Mr. Radcliffe
has been taking some steps upon the same information which
was unfortunately laid before him and now if I make any-
thing out of the Witnesses, it must be by suddenly taking
them up and running away with them to a Distance a measure
I shall certainly take the responsibility of doing, and there-
fore I am not asking your advice, but informing you of the
resolution I have formed. I find Mr. Scott a valuable Justice
I fear Mr. Radcliffe talks too much.'' ' I see no great objec-

1 The Preservation of the Public Peace Bill, 52 Geo. ill. c. 162. In Lanca-
shire and Cheshire the magistrates had not waited for the legal permission ( H.O.,
42. 124, 40. I).

8 52 Geo. in. c. 104. In the original Bill both giving and taking were
made capital offences (see Hansard, May 5, 1812).

3 Maitland, on June 19, declared that the suspending the Orders in Council
had already had a good effect on trade (H.O., 42. 124).

4 Smart, Economic Annals, i. p. 332. * The wrong one.
H.O., 42. 126, August 31.



320 THE SKILLED LABOURER, 1760-1832

tion to this Step ' (of running away with the witnesses), answered
Mr. Becket of the Home Office, 1 but he warned Mr. Lloyd
to leave Bent alias * B.' alone, for Lloyd, with inconvenient
zeal, had got hold of a letter from ' B.' written in his character
as reformer, and had asked what should be done about him.

A startling example of Mr. Lloyd's methods was given
in the case of John Schofield of Nether Thong. 2 John Hinch-
cliffe of Upper Thong, parish clerk of Holmfirth, told the
Rev. Mr. Keeling, whether correctly or not it does not appear,
that John Schofield was implicated in Luddism. Schofield
accordingly was arrested, but as there was no evidence
against him he was released. Shortly after, Hinchcliffe was
visited at night, according to his own story, by two men,
who abused him for informing against Schofield and shot
him in the left eye. Hinchcliffe was unable to identify either
of them. Next day, John Schofield, hearing that Hinch-
cliffe accused him of the attack, made off for America via
London. In London he was caught and taken before a magis-
trate, where he foolishly denied that he knew any one of
the name of Hinchcliffe. He was then brought back to York-
shire, much to the annoyance of the Home Office authorities,
who were considering the question of offering him a pardon
in return for disclosures. Mr. Lloyd now set to work to prove
that Schofield, against whom there was no particle of evidence,
beyond the fact that he had run away, was the culprit. At
last he met with success. ' By a particular mode of examina-
tion,' he writes, ' which I made use of in this neighbourhood
where I have met with Hinchcliffe (the person shot at Nether
Thong) I have now prevailed over Hinchcliffe to identify
Schofield as one of the two men concerned in that outrage.'
The case, he remarks complacently, will cause a great sen-
sation. Hinchcliffe, after his complaisant identification,
might well wonder whether he were accuser or prisoner. ' Hinch-
cliffe is now safe at a Gentleman's House in the neighbour-
hood, not to be seen by any except myself and Mr. Allison
the Solicitor of this place.' Later on, Hinchcliffe, like many
others, was spirited over the County borders to Congleton.
* I placed [him] here in retirement under the inspection of
Mr. Watson, a county Magistrate, who is my relation ; and
consequently to be trusted with such a business.'

In spite of all the exertions of Mr. Lloyd information came

1 H.O., 42. 127, September 2.

a For Schofield see H.O., 42. 126, and 42. 138.



THE YORKSHIRE LUDDITES 321

in but slowly. Culprits were arrested in plenty, but no evi-
dence against them could be obtained. At last, early in
September, Mr. Lloyd succeeded in gaining information
against one of what General Maitland called the * gangs of
plunderers.' His method was circuitous ; he started by
arresting a man at Flockton for being out of his house at an
unreasonable hour. Now this man was known to have been
in company with a man of bad character, and the man of
bad character was examined to such good effect that warrants
were issued against two other men for burglary or incitement
to burglary. One of these last men, Earl Parkin by name,
a collier, * impeached (by good management *) many others
of capital offences.' a General Maitland was clearly a little
uneasy about these methods of obtaining information. * There
is no doubt,' he wrote,* ' much of it is out of the strict letter
of the Law, though I believe perfectly in the Spirit both of
the Law and of the Constitution, when fairly understood.
It does not appear,' he continued, * that the Gang here have
ever taken the Oath regularly, and I rather think it will turn
out, what I heard for the first time three days ago, that an
accumulation of Villains, had come into this part of the Country,
finding that the Terror, and the Timidity was such, that by
knocking at a Door, and stating themselves to be Luddites,
they could obtain the same Ends, in a much more quiet
manner, than they had heretofore done, by House breaking
or any such Practise.'

In spite of the arrest of this gang, the results, from the
point of view of cases to try, were still poor. In the middle
of September the Law Officers, consulted on the advisability
of resuming the Assizes at York on October 19, for trying such
cases as were already to hand, answered that in the absence
of confirmatory evidence it was better to postpone the trials
rather than risk an acquittal. 4 The magistrates meanwhile
were asking for a Special Commission. Their motives were
not so much the desire for the greater pomp and impressive-
ness of a Special Commission, as the wish to avoid having
the lenient Mr. Justice Bayley as Judge. 6 At the August
Assizes at York, when the Sheffield rioters were tried, he
had deeply pained the county authorities by his treatment

1 ' By good management ' is scratched out in original but still legible.

* H.O., 42. 127, September 4. * /**</., 42. 127, September 13.
4 Ibid., 42. 127. * /*</., 42. 129, Norember 2.

See p. 309 above.

X



322 THE SKILLED LABOURER, 1760-1832

of the offenders. 1 ' I could have wished,' wrote Mr. Radcliffe, 2
' Judge Bayley had not so lightly held forth the conduct

of Sykes of 's forcibly taking arms (to the jury) as to

deem it a frolic. I am very glad to hear,' he writes later, 3
' there is no chance of the prisoners being tried by Judge
Bayley whose determinations at the last assizes have in my
humble opinion done much harm.' Unaware of the strong
prejudice against him, Mr. Justice Bayley wrote in November,
offering to resume the Assizes in York, in December, if re-
quired.* But Government had decided otherwise.

Late in October, six months after Horsfall's death, his
murderers were apprehended. Two of them, Mellor and
Benjamin Walker, had been in custody on suspicion shortly
before, but had been released for want of any evidence. Two
other men had also been in prison on suspicion of being the
murderers, one on the information of Barrowclough, the
second, Joshua Haigh, who had probably taken part in the
attack on Cartwright's mill, and had certainly run away,
on the information of an inaccurate aunt. Both were guilt-
less of the murder. Benjamin Walker's mother, afraid that
one of the other murderers might turn King's Evidence,
confided her fears to a friend, through whom Mr. Lloyd heard
of the affair. He applied his usual methods, 5 and in the
end Benjamin Walker agreed to give information. A visit
by Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Allison to Wood's workshop, where
the prisoners had been working, in order ' to prevent their
proving alibi,' resulted in information from William Hall, one
of the most prominent of the frame-breaking croppers, who
had lent Mellor the pistol with which he shot Horsfall. Hall
further informed against sixteen men for the attack on Cart-
wright's mill, and against ten for breaking Mr. Vickerman's
shearing frames. 6

Much to Mr. Lloyd's chagrin, it was decided to send down
the solicitor for the Treasury 7 on behalf of the Government
to manage the prosecutions. General Maitland had long been
' ill at ease in regard to the effect of over Zeal which is frequently

1 The heaviest sentence was fifteen months' imprisonment.

2 H.O., 42. 126. J IHJ. t 42. 128, October I.
4 Ibid., 42, 129, November 6.

8 e.g. October 20 : ' I have run away with one of the witnesses to prevent
her being tampered with and have placed her in my own House where she will
more fully and freely give'her Examination.'

8 See H.O., 42. 128, for above. 7 Mr. Henry Hobhouse.



THE YORKSHIRE LUDDITES 328

worse than doing nothing at all.' l and had urged that the
cases needed sifting. It was decided to hold a Special Com-
mission in January. The evidence against the men in custody
for the attack on Cartwright's mill, and for the breaking
of Vickennan's frames was still unsatisfactory, resting entirely
on William Hall, the accomplice : indeed the Law Officers,
who seem to have been more strict than many Judges in their
views as to the value of the testimony of accomplices, gave it
as their opinion, as late as November 11, that there was * no
evidence whatever ' in these cases. 2 Efforts were now directed
to obtaining some sort of corroboration of William Hall.

Early in December some more arrests were made : Job Hey,
John Hill, and William Hartley for stealing arms in August ;
James Hey, Joseph Crowther, and Nathan Hoyle for demand-
ing firearms and taking a l note, as late as November 29.
The first three seem to have been part of the original Ludditc
organisation, the latter group a mere plundering gang, whose
object, as an accomplice euphemistically put it, was * to receive
or get some property to better their circumstances, by going
into people's houses and plundering them.' s It may be re-
marked here, that whatever their threats, in no instance
did these gangs do any bodily harm to the persons whose
property they took, nor does there seem, after the early days
of searching for arms, any concerted action. General Maitland,
early in November, pointed out that there was ' no real bottom
in all this Luddite system.' * Had the harvest been better
and the American ports open, the ' unpleasant scene ' as he
called it would end, but whilst provisions were high and
wages low, the situation must be anxious.

The Special Commission opened at York on Saturday,
January 2, 1818. 6 The Judges were Mr. Baron Thomson
and Mr. Justice Le Blanc, both of whom had already figured
at the Lancaster trials. The Grand Jury, we are told, was
4 highly respectable.' 8 The first trial was of four men, Swallow,
Batley, Fisher, and Lumb, members of a plundering gang,
against whom Earl Parkin had * by good management ' in-
formed. Three of them, as well as the informant, were coal

1 H.O., 42. 127, September 28. 2 Ibid., 42. 129.

* Proceedings at York Special Commission, p. 198.
4 H.O., 42. 129.

8 See Proceedings at York Special Commission, Jauuary 1813, Jrd edition.

H.O., 42. 132, January 4.



324 THE SKILLED LABOURER, 1760-1882

miners. The case was clear, and was strengthened by the
fact that the prisoners had talked incautiously to a debtor
in York Castle. All four were found guilty. ' The Court,'
we read, ' was extremely crowded throughout the day, and with
an audience for the most part of a very ill Complexion. But
the Verdict was received with perfect Silence.' x

Next day, Wednesday, came the trial of George Mellor,
William Thorpe, and Thomas Smith for the murder of Horsfall,
made dramatic by the evidence of their fellow murderer,
Benjamin Walker. Here again the case was clear. The
defence consisted in attempts to prove alibis for all three. A
curious light is thrown on the value of these alibis and on the
administration of the gaol by a letter smuggled out by Mellor,
which afterwards fell into the hands of the Government. 2
In it he urged a friend to impress on his cousin that he must
stick by what he had sworn before Mr. Radcliffe, ' remember
a Soul is of more value than work or Gould.' All three were
found guilty and condemned to death. Thursday was spent
over the trial of John Schofield for shooting at John Hinch-
cliffe. He was acquitted. Not only was the difference
between Hinchcliffe's statements a strong point in the prisoner's
favour, but his alibi was a good one. There had been a
Methodist meeting in his father's house, where he lived, the
evening that Hinchcliffe was shot, and he had been seen in
the house by persons who attended the meeting though he
had not been present at it himself. At the close of the day
a curious little scene was enacted. The Grand Jury stated
that they had no more bills before them. Mr. Park, the pro-
secuting counsel, thereupon made a solemn short speech
to the effect that finding that the persons involved in certain
cases had been misled by those already convicted, the pro-
secution had decided to exercise leniency and to forbear to
press the charges by presenting bills against them, at any
rate for the present. He hoped that they would return to
a better course of life, through fear if not from ' gratitude
for the mercy extended to them.' ' The Effect of this step,'
wrote the solicitor for the prosecution, ' is to release about
six Prisoners without Prosecution against whom the Evidence
was next to nothing.' 3

On the Friday morning before the court opened the three
murderers of Horsfall were executed. To the last they refused

1 Letter from Solicitor for Treasury, H.O., 42. 132.

a H.O., 42. 132. 3 Ibid, 42. 132, January 7.



THE YORKSHIRE LUDDITES 825

to acknowledge their guilt. ' They were young men,' wrote
the Leeds Mercury, ' on whose countenances nature had not
imprinted the features of assassins.'

Friday's sitting of the court was taken up with charges
of administering illegal oaths. First John Eadon, a weaver
of Barnsley, was convicted of administering in May an illegal
oath to Richard Howells. This case was one of the fruits
of the exertions of Thomas Broughton, who had offered
his services to Major Searle of Sheffield. Richard Howells
was a young man whom Broughton persuaded to produce
information. Howells' story was that Eadon had persuaded
him to take the oath when they were alone in the fields
together, and had given him a paper on which the oath was
written out. This paper he professed to have given to
Broughton, and it then passed through various hands. Howells
explained that he himself took the oath as a sort of joke. The
case rested on the evidence of Howells, and on that of Broughton,
who had no hesitation in swearing that the paper was in
Eadon's handwriting, on the strength of having once seen
Eadon writing some names of delegates. Broughton also
described an interview with Eadon, in which Eadon had
talked of forming an organisation in the country to overthrow
the tyrannical system of Government. Eadon denied the
whole story. Whether he was a Parliamentary Reformer,
as seems possible, does not appear. At any rate he was sen-
tenced to seven years' transportation. It was arranged after-
wards that Broughton and Howells should receive 10 each
for this piece of work, as well as their expenses which amounted
to 27. Broughton went to settle in Dublin, and Howells
enlisted. 1 Another case of Broughton's against the same
John Eadon and a certain Craven Cookson for administer-
ing an illegal oath to him was dropped, as it was too weak.
There was no Howells to corroborate. Cookson was exhorted
to return to the course of honest industry.

The next case, also one of administering an unlawful oath,
excited great interest. It was against six prisoners from
Halifax : John Baines the elder, a hatter of sixty-six ; his
son, Zachariah Baines, a boy of fifteen ; his nephew, John Baines
the younger, a shoemaker of thirty-four; William Blakeborough,

1 H.O., 42. 133, April 28; but from Mr. Stuart Wortley's letter, October
30, 1813 (H.O., 42. 135), it seems as if only Broughton got the \o. Mr.
Stuart Wortley complains bitterly of not having had the money he advanced for
the purpose repaid by the Treasury.



326 THE SKILLED LABOURER, 1760-1832

a shoemaker of twenty-two ; George Duckworth, a shoemaker
of twenty-three ; and Charles Milnes, a cardmaker of twenty-
two. John Baines the elder was leader of such democratic
or republican party as existed in Halifax, and the other
prisoners were all his close associates. For three -and -twenty
years, so he said, his eyes had been opened, arid when the
Luddite movement began he hailed it with joy. At a meeting
of his democratic club at the Crispin Inn he made a fiery
speech, so impressive to the listeners that it was handed
down by oral tradition. 1 ' Oh that the long suffering people
of England,' he cried, ' would rise in their strength and crush
their oppressors in the dust. The vampires have fattened
too long on our hearts' blood. . . . They have filched from
us our natural inheritance, and by usurping the House of
Commons, have got the purse strings of the nation into their
hands also. They have provoked wars and lived and fattened
upon them. They have sent us to fight anybody and every-
body, to crush French liberalism and to maintain despotism
all over Europe. . . . All the offices in the land are held by
them and their friends ; salaries and pensions are showered
upon them from the national treasury, and still like the horse-
leech they stretch forth the greedy, ravenous maw, and cry,
" Give ! give ! "

' For thirty years I have struggled to rouse the people against
the evil and, as some of you here know,, have suffered much