Rioting
Starting in the south-eastern county of Kent, the Swing Rioters smashed the threshing machines and threatened farmers who had them. The riots spread rapidly through the southern counties of Surrey, Sussex, Middlesex and Hampshire, before spreading north into the Home Counties, the Midlands and East Anglia. Moving on as far as Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. Originally the disturbances were thought to be mainly a southern and East Anglian phenomenon, but subsequent research has revealed just how widespread Swing riots really were, with virtually every county south of the Scottish border involved. In all sixty per cent of the disturbances were concentrated in (Berkshire 165, Hampshire 208, Kent 154, Sussex 145, Wiltshire 208); whereas East Anglia had fewer incidents (Cambridge 17, Norfolk 88, Suffolk 40), while the south‐west, the midlands and the north were only marginally affected.
The tactics varied from county to county but typically, threatening letters, often signed by Captain Swing, would be sent to magistrates, parsons, wealthy farmers or Poor Law guardians in the area. The letters would call for a rise in wages, a cut in the tithe payments and for the destruction of threshing machines, otherwise people would take matters into their own hands. If the warnings were not heeded local farmworkers would gather, often in groups of 200 – 400, and would threaten the local oligarchs with dire consequences if their demands were not met. Threshing machines would be broken, workhouses and tithe barns would be attacked and then the rioters would disperse or move on to the next village. The buildings containing the engines that powered the threshing machines were also a target of the rioters and many gin gangs, also known as horse engine houses or wheelhouses, were destroyed, particularly in south−east England. Other actions included incendiary attacks on farms, barns and hayricks in the dead of night, as it was easier then to avoid detection. Although a lot of the actions of the rioters, such as arson, were conducted in secret at night, meetings with farmers and overseers about the grievances were conducted in daylight.
Despite the prevalence of the slogan "Bread or Blood", only one person is recorded as having been killed during the riots, and that was one of the rioters by the action of a soldier or farmer. The rioters only intent being to damage property. Similar patterns of disturbances, and their rapid spread across the country, were often blamed on agitators or on "agents" sent from France, where the revolution of July 1830 had broken out a month before the Swing Riots began in Kent.
Despite all of the different tactics used by the agricultural workers during the unrest, their principle aims were simply to attain a minimum living wage and to end rural unemployment.
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