Swing Riots - Aftermath

Aftermath

Eventually the farmers agreed to raise wages, and the parsons and some landlords reduced the tithes and rents. But many farmers reneged on the agreements and the unrest increased. Many people advocated political reform as the only solution to the unrest. This included Earl Grey, who speaking in a debate in the House of Lords in November suggested the best way to reduce the violence was to introduce reform of the House of Commons. The Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, replied the existing constitution was so perfect that he could not imagine any possible alternative that would be an improvement. When that was reported, a mob attacked Wellington's home in London. The unrest had been confined to Kent, but during the following two weeks of November it escalated massively, crossing East and West Sussex into Hampshire, with Swing letters appearing in other nearby counties.

On 15 November 1830 Wellington's government was defeated in a vote in the House of Commons. Two days later, Earl Grey was asked to form a Whig government. Grey assigned a cabinet committee to produce a plan for parliamentary reform. Lord Melbourne, became Home Secretary in the new government.

During the disturbances of 1830–32, Melbourne acted vigorously and sensitively, and it was for this that his reforming brethren thanked him heartily. Melbourne blamed local magistrates for being too lenient and the government appointed a Special Commission of three judges to try rioters in the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire.

The landowning class in England felt severely threatened by the riots, and responded with harsh punitive measures. Nearly 2000 protesters were brought to trial in 1830–1831; 252 were sentenced to death (though only 19 were actually hanged), 644 were imprisoned, and 481 were transported to penal colonies in Australia. Not all the rioters were necessarily farm workers, the list of those punished included rural artisans, shoemakers, carpenters, wheelrights, blacksmiths and cobblers.

The authorities had received many requests to prosecute radical politician and writer William Cobbett for the speeches he had made in defence of the rural labourer; however it was for his articles in the Political Register that he was eventually charged with seditious libel. At his trial in July 1831 at the Guildhall, he subpoena'd six members of the cabinet, including the prime minister. Cobbett defended himself by going on the attack. He tried to ask the government ministers awkward questions supporting his case, but they were disallowed by the Lord Chief Justice. However, he was able to discredit the prosecution's case, and at great embarrassment to the government he was acquitted.

The 'Swing' riots were a major influence on the Whig Government. They added to the strong social, political and agricultural unrest throughout Britain in the 1830s, encouraging a wider demand for political reform, culminating in the introduction of the Reform Act 1832; and also to the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 ending "outdoor relief" in cash or kind, and setting up a chain of workhouses across the country, to which the poor had to go if they wanted help.