A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



occasional high wages could bring little permanent prosperity, especially at 

 a time when the staple industry of Nottinghamshire, the stocking-weaving, 

 was in a state of depression. 



How important the stocking trade was appeared in the fact that 12,950 

 frames were said to be at work in 1812, despite the distress that prevailed. 

 This distress was severe. The commercial crisis of 1797 had caused the 

 stoppage of many frames, 263 and the high prices induced by the war had been 

 felt in Nottinghamshire as elsewhere. In 1801 the average price of wheat 

 all over the country was 129*. 8</., and of barley 6gs. yd., and though prices 

 sank for a time, yet the influence of the war and of bad harvests had raised 

 the price of wheat again in 1808 to 90^. a quarter. 364 In 1812 it was 

 io8j. 265 As usual, wages lagged far behind prices; the stockinners of 

 Nottingham received only about js. a week, 266 while the conditions of 

 stocking-making were said to be unhealthy in the extreme. 



The distress was intensified by a severe outbreak of smallpox. This 

 disease, which is said to have been a frequent complaint in Nottinghamshire 

 during the i8th century, broke out into a violent epidemic in the years 

 1 807-8. 267 But despite this scourge, and despite the scarcity both of work 

 and food, the population was steadily increasing: in 1801 it numbered 

 a trifle over 140,000 ; in 1811, i62,ooo. 268 Hence the pressure of poverty 

 was yearly increasing ; and combined as it was with the recollection of past 

 prosperity it served to excite the working classes to violence. 



From the beginning of the French war there had been a recurrence 

 of outbreaks: in 1791 there had been a riot by the 'stockinners': in 1795 

 a bread riot occurred, and again in i8oo. 269 During the next decade the 

 hostility to the machines was growing. As early as 1788 the government 

 had endeavoured to check it by an Act making frame-breaking punishable 

 by transportation. But the Act proved ineffective to protect the machines ; 

 and coupled with the popular hatred of them was the desire to keep down 

 the number of the workers. In 1805 a man was prosecuted for working 

 himself at the stocking frame and teaching others without having been 

 apprenticed. 270 What the Association of Framework Knitters endeavoured 

 to do by law, the Luddites 271 tried to effect by force. In one of the earliest 

 outbreaks of these famous rioters in 1811, they smashed a set of frames at 

 Kimberley on the pretext that their owners had worked at the trade with- 

 out being apprenticed. Frames were also destroyed during this year and the 

 next at Arnold, Bulwell, Lambley, 272 and elsewhere to the number of about 

 624, and the Luddites are said to have terrorized the neighbourhood. A 

 committee was formed in Nottingham, with a fund of 2,000, to check 

 them, and a statute was passed (which was repealed two years later) making 

 frame-breaking punishable with death. Neither course was effectual. The 

 Luddites could neither be terrorized nor bribed, and they expressed their 



10 Blackner, Hist, of Notts. 392. "* T. Tooke, Hist, of Prices, i, 237. 



MS -yy Felkin, Hist, of Machine-wrought Hosiery, &c., 231-4. ** Ibid. 231. 



167 The practice of inoculation, then novel, was used during this epidemic by Dr. Attenburrow an 

 :arly instance of its being tried on a large scale. It was believed to be successful. Edinburgh Medical and 

 Surgical Journal, iv, 422 ; J. Clark, Medical Report for Nottingham. 



168 Official Census Tables, 1861. " Blackner, Hist. o/Nott. 385, 395. " Ibid. 217. 



171 The name ' Luddite ' was said to be taken from that of a certain ' Ned Lud,' a Leicestershire frame- 

 work knitter, who smashed his father's frame instead of working it. 

 171 J. Russell, ' The Luddites ' (Thoroton Soc. Trans, x). 



300 



