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BERKSHIRE TO BOTANY BAY The 1830 Labourers' Revolt in Berkshire. Its Causes and Consequences. Norman E. Fox. B.A. Hons. (Reading). Published by: Littlefield Publishing (H.M & M.D.Weideli) 35 Bartlemy Road Newbury Berkshire RG14 6LD England ISBN 0 9526661 0 3 Dedicated to the memory of "Captain" William Smith (alias Winterbourn) - The very first of the "Victims of Whiggery", hanged 11th January, 1831. - and to all those who have suffered in the continuing struggle to achieve the Right to Work at a decent wage. --------------------------- The headstone on the opposite page William Winterbourn's grave, which was erected by the Rev. F.C.Fowle, Vicar of Kintbury, who, in a belated act of atonement, arranged for Winterbourn's body to be brought to Kintbury church yard and buried there. Cover Illustrations Permission to use the illustration of "Newbury from the South", which one source gives as "c. 1830", was kindly given by Mr. Tony Higgott, Curator of Newbury District Museum. Permission to use the drawing of Sydney, which is dated some time in the decade prior to the arrival of the Berkshire men, was kindly given by Ms. Jennifer Broomhead, Copyright and Permissions Librarian, of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales. CONTENTS Acknowledgements. Introduction. PART I. BERKSHIRE. 1. DISTRESS AND CONSEQUENT DESPAIR. (The Causes of the Revolt.) Beer, Contagion and Drab Great-coats. Violent Tracts and Seditious Preachers. Game Laws. Genuine Distress or Mere Embarrassment. Wicked Men and their Infernal Machines. Wild Geese and Northern Lights. Conclusion. 2. NOW IS OUR TIME. 3. SEVERITY IS THE ONLY REMEDY. 4. A CHASE THRO' THE COUNTRY, and Some Who (Temporarily) Got Away. 5. NO FRIEND IN HEAVEN. (The Special Commission at Reading). 6. EACH IN HIS SEPARATE HELL. (Reading Gaol). 7. AFTERMATH. PART II. TO "BOTANY BAY". 8. THE HULKS AND THE CONVICT SHIPS. The "York Hulk. The Convict Ship, "Eleanor". 9. "BOTANY BAY". 10. GREEN PASTURES. 11. BEYOND THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. 12. THE VALLEY OF THE HUNTER. 13. VAN DIEMEN'S LAND. POSTSCRIPT. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My interest in the Threshing Machine Riots of 1830 is a long-standing one having been aroused first by reading "The Village Labourer", by J.L. and B.Hammond, in the late 1940s. It was not, however, until the publication of "Captain Swing", by E.J.Hobsbawm and G.Rudé, in 1969, that I began any serious research into the events which occurred in Berkshire, and even then confined myself mainly to the Kintbury/Hungerford area. Only later was I able to visit Australia where I learnt a great deal about what happened to the Berkshire men transported. Though less than 10% of those transported for their part in "The Last Labourers' Revolt" their experiences ( which included examples of the well-recorded brutality of convict floggings and time in the chain-gangs, as well as examples of those who "came good", i.e. prospered sufficiently to appear on the property based Electoral Rolls ) were sufficiently varied as to give in miniature the story of the rest. I was greatly encouraged by the advice and constructive criticism of Professor E.L. Jones. I should like to thank him and all those archivists of the Public Record Office, London, the Berkshire Record Office, Reading, the Wiltshire Record Office, Trowbridge, the Mitchell Library, Sydney, and the State Archives Office of Tasmania, Hobart, and the librarians of Newbury Public Library, the Reading Reference Library, the Bodleian Library, the British Museum Library and the Reading University Institute of Agricultural History, and many others who assisted me. In particular I must mention Ms. Robyn Flynn, of the Mitchell Library, Sydney. Ms. Mary Macrae, of the Tasmanian State Archives Office,Hobart. Mr. Rex Cross, of the Queenbeyan Historical Society, and Mr. Arthur Street, of the Nepean Family History Society. Mrs Pamela Bates of 1, Spencer Road, Newbury for information concerning CHARLES MILLSON. For much of the material in Chapter 8 I am greatly indebted to C.Bateson ("The Convict Ships") and to A.M. Coulson (unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of London,1937.) Finally I should like to express my gratitude to the numerous writers of local histories, in both Berkshire and Australia, and the officers of many local history societies, without whose help many problems of persons, places and periods would have remained unsolved. Norman Fox, Newbury, Berks. 7 INTRODUCTION Though the lives of more than one hundred men and their families from South-west Berkshire alone were seriously affected by the events with which this study is concerned, the threshing machine riots over the whole of Berkshire receive mention in only four (not wholly accurate) sentences in the Victoria County History. This omission or under-emphasis is general, for what the Hammond's called The Last Labourers' Revolt has rarely been given more than a passing reference in most histories of the period. This is not a valid judgement on its importance, but merely a reflection of the narrow attitudes of most historians. Even Walter Money, in his excellent "History of Newbury", devotes less than three pages to these events and most of this consists of a local newspaper's report of the round-up of the rioters, though, to be fair, we know that he later became sufficiently interested in the aims and aspirations of those involved in them to write a series of articles in the "Newbury Weekly News" in 1898. Unfortunately, these pieces are not so well based on genuine research as is his larger work. Written in a popular style these articles, though very interesting and readable, contain the sort of error which Money would not have allowed to creep into his more scholarly works. As far as the national scene is concerned the revolt began on the first day of June, 1830, when the ricks of an Orpington farmer were set ablaze. In any ordinary year this might not have been worthy of notice for rick-burning was a common enough occurrence, but this was no ordinary year. In the same month, on the 26th, George IV died and brought an era to an end. The excitement of the election which automatically followed was heightened by the news of revolutions in France and Belgium. There was an air of expectancy about. During the very severe winter of 1829-30 there were frequent displays of The Northern Lights which alarmed the country folk who believed them to be a warning of some awful calamity. On the other hand great hopes were placed in the new king and in the new parliament. Local gossip had it that the new monarch was on the side of the working people. It was firmly believed that he desired the destruction of the hated threshing machines and a large increase in farm workers' wages. During the election campaign the voices calling for the immediate reform of parliament had increased in number and volume. There was great excitement; the number of meetings, petitions and addresses multiplied. As a result of the election the Whig leader, Lord Grey, could claim that his party had obtained an additional 50 votes in the House of Commons. However, the Tory government, led by the Duke of Wellington, somewhat precariously maintained itself in office, but not for long. The meetings in favour of Parliamentary Reform continued to be held after the election. Many artisans and labourers believed that their lot would be improved once parliament was reformed. In Sutton Scotney for example there were regular meetings, and a petition calling on the king to reform parliament was drawn up and signed by 186 labourers and their allies. However, the hopes of those who believed in Parliamentary Reform as a panacea for all ills received a severe set back on 2nd November when the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, made a reactionary speech in which he stated bluntly not only that he was not prepared to bring forward any reforming measure himself, but that he would always feel it to be his duty to resist such a measure when proposed by others. 8 DISTRESS AND CONSEQUENT DESPAIR The Duke's declared resistance to Reform brought about his own and his government's downfall. On the 15th of November the government was defeated by 29 votes. Although this was on a minor measure the Duke was persuaded to resign because he could not be certain that a similar result would not follow the much more important debate on Brougham's Reform Bill which was scheduled for the following day. On the 22nd of November the members of the first wholly Whig Government for nearly half a century kissed hands and received their seals of office. These national events, apparently far removed from the common-place lives of the agricultural workers of southern England, were to have a radical effect upon "the even tenour of their ways". It is not without significance that, whereas the revolt began in Kent in the first week of June, the main rioting did not begin in Surrey until the 3rd of November, the day following the Duke's "backs to the wall" speech; the Hampshire labourers did not move until the 11th; while Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Wiltshire remained unaffected until the 15th. By late Autumn the Swing movement - if disparate events so haphazard,often unorganised and spontaneous, can be dignified as such - had spread as far westwards as Gloucestershire and Somerset. Before it petered out or was suppressed not a county south of a line drawn from the Wash to the Bristol Channel had remained unaffected ; nearly 400 threshing machines had been reported destroyed, and nearly 2,000 labourers had been prosecuted.