The Luddites
General Ludd’s fight against the Industrial Revolution
Though the term Luddite has come to mean a person opposed to technology or technological development, it can be traced to a specific and bloody period of English History.
In the early nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution swept through England, creating a new kind of mass-market capitalism that would ultimately change global economics. The Revolution was driven by the creation of new technologies that allowed unskilled workers working on machines to quickly produce consumer goods that formerly had to be painstakingly produced by skilled labour. New ideas such as interchangeable parts and conveyor-belt assembly lines also increased the speed and efficiency with which goods could be produced. These economic changes would lead to major social changes such as the swelling populations of cities, the creation of a wealth-class outside of the nobility, and eventually to the formation of trade unions and other semi-political organizations.
Although the Industrial Revolution can be credited with creating vast amounts of wealth that has greatly increased the standard of living of the average individual, it caused a lot of pain and suffering for many of those who lived through it. Among those, were a group called the Luddites.
In 1811 factory owners in Nottingham began to receive mysterious letters from General Ludd and his Army of Redressers, complaining about reductions in wages and the replacement of skilled workers with unskilled workers. These complaints soon turned to violence. Although General Ludd was a fictitious creation, the Army of Redressers were all too real. Now called Luddities these desperate workers broke into factors and destroyed the machines that were taking away their livelihood. In one period in 1811 an average of two factories were being attacked every night.
From Nottingham the movement spread to the surrounding counties and soon the government was forced to intervene. Despite an empassioned speech by Lord Byron for the plight of the workers, a new law was passed imposing a death-sentence for machine breaking. 12,000 soldiers were deployed to areas of Luddite activity. Still the violence continued and many Luddities were killed during attacks on factories and more through capture and execution.
The Luddite movement, and the associated violence, continued until 1817. In the end, it wasn’t the government’s brutal suppression that ended it; it was the will of society. The Industrial Revolution created numerous jobs for unskilled labourers, a group that far outnumbered their skilled counterparts. Slowly, the Luddites came to realize their fight could not be won.
Although the Luddite movement failed, the group left their mark upon history and even worked their name into the English lexicon. Today, the term Luddite is used for a person who is opposed to technology or technological development.
