Look out for our forthcoming events
The Captain Swing Riots were a brief but highly significant moment of social and political crisis across the whole of southern rural England – not least in Hampshire. It brought to the fore the deep economical and social divisions within society and also showed how riot and violence can metastasise, often via language, radically changing people’s lives in tragic ways. (Examples of which are still highly relevant today).
Despite their significance the Captain Swing Riots have been largely ‘written out’ of the county history. This has become an embarrassing gap in the collective knowledge which needs to be remedied if we are properly to understand our history.
Our purpose, then, is to provide a hub of information and activity for everything connected with the riotous events of 1830 – from the causes through to the riots themselves, the subsequent trials and above all the key participants. We intend either to include the information here or, very often, connect you to other sources.
This is both a work in progress and it is a collaborative endeavour. We are aware that many local history groups and individual local historians are already very active in following up their particular parish stories or field of activity. We now invite them to share their research with us so as to provide a common ground in which all this study can be shared.
In due course, we hope this website will become the ‘go-to’ place for anyone interested in Captain Swing-related matters. But we also ask for patience. We are starting with almost a clean screen – but we hope that it will rapidly start filling up!
Invitation to get involved
The BICENTENARY COMMEMORATION Project hopes to
encourage activities in many different shapes and sizes. These will range from lectures to local history groups, to exhibitions and expositions, and all kinds of performances which are inspired by the events of the Captain Swing era. Local research will be critical to its success.
And then in 2030, the actual Bicentenary Year, we hope to host a high quality dramatised re-enactment and re-imagining of the CAPTAIN SWING story - including the Winchester Grand Assize of December 1830 - along with ambitious exhibitions in and around the County
So we are looking for partners to contribute to the website or to co-host events with us.
If this appeals to you then please contact:
We look forward to you joining us in this fascinating and worthwhile endeavour.
The Committee,
The Captain Swing Riots (in Hampshire), Bicentenary Commemoration
The English Project
Explore further
The Hampshire Swing Rioters and their Genealogy
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Hampshire Machine Breakers by Jill Chambers
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