Barry Shurlock: New slant on Swing Riots by local historians

BETTER understanding of the agricultural riots that wracked Hampshire and elsewhere in 1830 is paving the way for a commemoration of the 200th anniversary of these troubled times, when many ordinary men were transported to the colonies and a few hanged.

A new interpretation of the events is being created by local historians in the several villages where mobs of starving workers broke threshing machines and threatened landowners, clergymen and others.

Fresh insights into what have been called the Swing Riots – after a fictional “Captain Swing” who wrote threatening letters to the Duke of Wellington and others – are not only illuminating the social history and politics of the day, but also highlighting issues around different forms of spoken English.

A key issue at the special assize for the rioters held in December 1830 in the Great Hall, Winchester, was that lawyers and rioters effectively spoke two different languages, according to Professor Christopher Mulvey, Trustee of the English Project at the University of Winchester. Their grammar and especially their accent were different - legal jargon meant little to the defendants, such words as “deed, deponent, dismissal, dock, fiat, garnishee” and the like.

This divide between the classes had roots in the 1600s, when “grammatical crimes” commonplace in ordinary speech were invented, such things as double negatives and split infinitives. Even the great literary figure Samuel Johnson was criticized for not defining in his pioneering Dictionary how words should be pronounced. Throughout his life, for example, Wellington called himself the “Dook” of Wellington.

Professor Mulvey was speaking recently to a packed audience at a fringe event of the Winchester Heritage Open Days held in St Paul’s Church, Fulflood and organised by the English Project as part of the “Captain Swing” Bicentenary Commemoration. One of the central issues of the Swing Riots in the count was the hanging of Henry Cook, a young man of 19 sentenced for the “attempted murder” of William Bingham Baring, the eldest son of the banker Alexander Baring, Lord Ashburton, seated at The Grange, Northington.

He is buried in Micheldever, which was in the heart of a raging mob of Swing rioters brandishing sticks, crowbars and sledge hammers that swept down the Dever valley between Sutton Scotney and East Stratton on November 19, 1830. Since then, many have questioned whether Cook should have been hanged. Some argue that all he did was knock off Baring’s hat (an insult, but little more), whilst witness statements suggest that when he went for him with a sledge-hammer he really did intend to kill him.

A plaque placed in the church in 2009 by Unison and the Hampshire Agricultural Trade Group declares that he was “tragically executed”. It also says that “his body lies in this churchyard” – a local story that he was buried alongside or elsewhere lacks any definite proof. 

New research by East Stratton historian Pat Craze has cast new light on the whole episode, which has often polarized opinion between “Henry Cook the violent rioter” and “Baring the heartless grandee”. Working through 43 records related to the Swing Riots in the Baring (Northbrook) papers (92M95) and from the deposition of Richard Colis held by the Hampshire Record Office he has discovered that Cook was in the main crowd of some 800 rioters for all of the morning, but later broke away with 20 or 30 men who set out for Northington Down Farm, which still stands.   

When Bingham Baring, who came to the scene, was told that they were going to smash up farm machinery, he went off to raise workers from The Grange with the intention of making arrests, as Wellington had urged landowners. A spokesman for the mob called Silcock confirmed that “they had broke the machines and they would break others”.

It was at this point that Cook got involved, Pat explained: “Baring then attempted to arrest Silcock but the mob rushed forward to prevent it and Bingham Baring was hit from behind and fell senseless to the ground.”

Making a statement on the events at Cook’s trial, George Harding, one of Bingham Baring’s men, said that Cook’s sledge-hammer fell on the brim of Baring’s hat and then landed on his “collar” and knocked him down. Cook then tried to repeat the blow, but was prevented by Harding, who punched him and seized the hammer.

Reflecting on the evidence, Pat said: “At Cook’s trial, Bingham Baring played down the severity of the incident and said that Cook had never seen him before, and therefore could have no malicious motive, but that it was done in the heat of the moment.

“This incident should never have happened as it was a complete departure from the confrontations at the other farms during that day, where the mob outnumbered the farm occupants and was overpowering and intimidating.

“Had Henry Cook and the others remained with the main group the outcome would have been very different.”

New research on the Swing Riots is also focused on the behaviour of the clergy: on the one hand their Christian beliefs might have favoured the poor, yet the system of tithes (a proportion of farm produce, or an equivalent sum of money) which helped to support them meant that it was harder for farmers to pay their workers a decent wage.

Retired clergyman Martin Coppen has made a forensic study of the 122 clergy in the 95 parishes of north-west Hampshire. Seventeen of them met crowds during the riots, with varying outcomes. A curate of Stoke Charity, David Cockerton, received “a cheer” when he promised to speak to the farmers on their behalf. On the other hand, some crowds demanded money. The most violent scenes were in Selborne “where an armed mob compelled the vicar to reduce his tithe income by £300”.

Subsequently, nine court cases involved clergy, almost all with mentions of tithes: in four cases “clergy headed off trouble by reducing the tithes so the farmers could raise wages”. The most active clergyman in the legal process, however, was the magistrate Robert Wright (1772-1850, rector of Itchen Abbas, depicted as one with “little true empathy” in a book by local historian David Taylor (wdtay@hotmail.com). 

At the special assize in Winchester, Wright committed 65 men for trial, including the ill-fated Henry Cook. At Avington House alone, where the clergyman headed a party of servants and tenants of the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, he took 50 prisoners, many facing arrest.

In support of the men arrested from various places, farmers and others, including 15 clergy, signed letters of petition. Martin commented: “A petition for 51-year-old John Allen of Charlton, father of 10 children, was signed by no less than 5 clergy…[but] the success rate of these petitions was dismal. Only one petition, by the rector of Wonston, was successful.”

A particularly shocking case was that of William Easton, vicar of St Mary Bourne, who “accepted a reward of £145 (£12,600 now) for testifying against the rioters into his vicarage”. On the face of it this was a heartless selfish act, but research by Martin – who once served the same church – for his book, The Trials of William Easton (coppenma@1and3.org.uk), made him see Easton as “simply a flawed clergyman of his time…trying to do his best for his family [who had borne the brunt of the riot] and parishioners”.

Commenting on these historic events in the context of recent riots, he said: “Change was needed. But have we yet solved the problems of poverty and unemployment? And how much progress have we actually made in getting the rich to fulfil their responsibility toward the common good?”

barryshurlock@gmail.com

CAPTIONS

William Bingham Baring (1799-1864), late in life. Image: Wikipedia Commons

Northington Down Farm, site of attack on Bingham Baring, 1896 OS map

Henry Cook plaque unveiled in 2009 in Micheldever church

Study of Swing Riots by David Kent, Hampshire Paper, Hampshire County Council (HCC), 1997

Retired clergyman’s story of predecessor and the Swing Riots