The Hampshire Machine Breakers is a text created and edited by Jill Chambers. It comprises a collection of newspaper reports, legal documents, personal letters, records, pieces and poems that together give a history of the Swing Riots in Hampshire from 4 September 1830 through 31 December 1830.
A great part of The Hampshire Machine Breakers is given to reports on the Special Commission, also called the Grand Assize, held in Winchester Great Hall from 20 to 31 December 1830. The presiding judge was Baron John Vaughan. The organising force was Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington and Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire.
Over three hundred men, mainly from Hampshire, were charged with machine breaking and rioting. Their trials were swift. Mainly, several men were tried at a time. The courts ran in double shifts from early in the morning to late at night. They broke only for Christmas Day. At the end, some were condemned to death, some to imprisonment in England, many to transportation to Australia, some were acquitted.
The genius of The Hampshire Machine Breakers is that Jill Chambers allows the historical records to speak for themselves. A main voice is that of the London Times, reporting daily and at length because the Winchester Assize was the talk of England. The Hampshire Chronicle also has its say as do many other newspapers along with a rich accumulation of voices, high and low.
Jill Chambers has undertaken an enormous labour of archival search, collection, selection and ordering so that a mass of materials tells a clear and terrible story.
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The English Project is proud to present to the public The Hampshire Machine Breakers by Jill Chambers.