Swing Activity in the Havant Area

Notes from research undertaken by the Havant Group, ‘Captain Swing Bicentenary Commemoration’ Project presented at the  Winchester Heritage Open Day 14/9/2024.

 

1. Although it has been reported in both  Captain Swing* and Hampshire Machine Breakers** that a Swing letter was received and a fire occurred in Gosport as early as 11th November, rick fires were not unusual. However, there seems to be very little doubt that the actual contagion, in terms of illegal machine breaking actions, most probably entered Hampshire on 17th November 1830 when disaffected farm labourers probably from Westbourne, just over the border in Chichester Rape, in West Sussex, crossed the natural boundary of the River Ems and headed into Warblington Parish to smash up a thrashing machine at Emsworth, having already broken others at Westbourne and Funtington and then retired back across the border, perhaps believing that the authorities might not follow them across into a different jurisdiction.
   
   This was reported in The Times on 23 November which also contains a complex description of a mob crossing the border north of Gosport on the 18th which makes little sense geographically and deserves further exploration. The Westbourne group certainly crossed the border on the night of the 18th causing further damage to Hampshire property. The geographical ‘routes’ quoted in The Times newspaper appears to reflect London-based reporters who had little or no genuine geographical understanding of SE Hampshire. We all know the London-centric approach of our media today and some of the quoted ‘marches’ by the rioters are simply physically impossible within the times reported. Either, and most probably, different groups, or the same groups on different dates, have been connected into apparently singular events and we want to try to unpick some of these by actively comparing the court information with the newspaper reports and retracing some of them on the ground.
    

2. We looked firstly into the Havant “convicts”: 8 men were arrested in Havant, among them bricklayers, carters, labourers, ranging in age from 19 to 25. After the events described above, the men dispersed and rewards were offered to local people who gave them up to the authorities, a share of £50, a considerable sum. One of those arrested, George Tadd (mentioned also by the Hampshire Genealogical Society’s presentation) was sentenced to 12 months hard labour in Bridewell Prison and the rest to transportation for a period of 7 years, being first imprisoned on the prison hulk York in Portsmouth Harbour and then transported on the Eliza (1804).
   
   There were two brothers, William and George Jenman. George, the younger of the brothers, died of consumption a few months after arriving in Van Dieman’s Land. Most were subsequently pardoned and lived long and successful lives in Australia (we have uncovered a lot about the subsequent fate of one in particular…see 4 below).
    

3. A very well known and quite wealthy Emsworth and Warblington family, the Holloways, have, for various historical reasons, been studied in the past by three members of our research group and feature in some relatively unconnected but interesting research held in Emsworth Museum. We are recreating a more complex and hopefully complete Holloway family tree to put all of this research into a common format and hence to reflect the precise status of one of our farmers whose machinery was destroyed. This is Mrs Sarah Holloway, a recent widow at the time of the riots. Studying this family has raised interesting questions in our group as to who precisely do we mean by the term ‘victims’, a question that most definitely reflects the politics of the reporter - something we dare not ignore if we are to do justice to all the personalities involved.
    

4. What happened to the convicts in Australia? Through Ancestry we have contacted the great-great-great granddaughter of James Sandle Ford. She has sent from Australia a short biography of James written and published by her mother (his great-great granddaughter) James (incidentally the “Sandle” seems to have been added later in Australia, origin to be further investigated) was the fourth of 11 children, and at the age of 19 he was arrested as a machine-breaker, convicted and transported for 7 years to VDL. He was pardoned in 1835, married in 1841 and became very successful. He left VDL for the mainland and founded a settlement called Portsea which is now known as Millionaires Row in Melbourne. Samuel Morey, another Havant man, was transported with James and they appear to have remained friends for life.
    

5. The research group wanted to understand what a threshing machine would have looked like; size, materials: in 1830 these appear to have been made of wood, with later versions made of metal, and the group plans to contact the Museum of Rural Life at Reading University and also to visit the Threshing weekend at the Weald and Downland Museum 28-29 September 2024 where threshing with be demonstrated. We are also hoping to commission a local artist to make a working model for Havant Museum.
    

6. Havant local history group have already carried out a short walk which happened to coincide with, and allowed reflection upon, the earliest event that we can discover that can fairly be described as ‘machine breaking in Hampshire’ however, this was far from exhaustive. A longer guided walk, trying to establish just exactly what could be considered a reasonable distance plus activity that a mob of relatively fit farm labourers could have achieved in a single night to try to prove or disprove some of the reported distances achieved and to visit as many of the places within the two or three parishes mentioned in the literature is already outline planned. Following this it is hoped to create a small exhibition specifically focusing upon Swing in Warblington, Emsworth and Westbourne to be displayed in Emsworth Museum in 2025. If successful, this exhibition, possibly further augmented to show activity in Havant Parish will then be displayed at the Spring Arts and Heritage Centre in Havant in 2026.
    

7. One group member has investigated climate, wondering whether there might have been extreme weather at the time (as we have been experiencing in the 21st Century) which might have made life even more difficult for farm labourers. In 1829, there was a wet summer followed by snow in October and a very cold winter. This would have exacerbated frustration at the use of threshing machines to limit employment opportunities during this period.
    

References

 

*Captain Swing by Eric Hobsbawn & George Rudé published by Versi 2014 ISBN 978-1-78168-533-4

 

**Hampshire Machine Breakers: The story of the 1830 Riots by Jill Chambers published by Dillons 1990 ISBN 9780951595978

 

Images are available from from:-

1.Royal Museums Greenwich Prison-ship York in Portsmouth Harbour www.rmg.co.uk/rmg-object-13696

2.Convict Ship Eliza 1829 www.freesettlerorfelon.com