Now! Then! On a moonless night, “the army of General Ludd” attacks William Cartwright’s mill at Rawfolds (Cleckheaton) – later providing inspiration for Charlotte Brontë’s “Shirley”

11 April 1812: On a moonless night, “the army of General Ludd” attacks William Cartwright’s mill at Rawfolds (Cleckheaton) – later providing inspiration for Charlotte Brontë’s “Shirley”

Leeds Mercury. 1812/04/18. Riots. Leeds. Get it:

Excerpt

There was a firing heard from the north, which was answered from the south, and again from west to east, and in a few minutes armed men surprised the two sentinels without the mill, broke in the window-frames, and discharged a volley into the premises. The guard discharged a heavy fire of musketry upon the assailants, which fire was returned and repeated without intermission, voices crying continually, “Bang up! “Murder them! “Pull down the door!” The attempts to make a breach were repeated, but every attempt ended in disappointment, while the flashes from the firearms of the insurgents served to direct the guards in their aim. For about 20 minutes this engagement continued with undiminished fury, till at length the firing and hammering without began to abate, and soon after the whole body of the assailants retreated with precipitation, leaving on the field such of their wounded as could not join in the retreat. An attempt was made to rally their scattered forces, but it was in vain. During this spirited engagement 140 balls were discharged from the mill; what number of shots were fired by the mob, it is impossible to say, but the doors and windows were perforated with a vast number of pistol and musket balls, though not one of the guards sustained the least personal injury. During the principal part of the engagement the alarm-bell was rung, and large stones were hurled from the roof, which had an instantaneous effect, otherwise oil of vitriol [sulphuric acid] would have been poured down. On the cessation of the firing, the ears of the guards were assailed with the cries of two unfortunate men, writhing under the torture of mortal wounds. On the arrival of a detachment of the Queen’s Bays, about an hour after the attack commenced, these men were removed on litters from the field to the Star Inn, at Roberttown, and medical aid was called in. Neither of these victims of lawless violence manifested any sense of religion. Booth was interred at Huddersfield and Hartley at Halifax. They were both attended to their graves by a vast concourse of spectators. On the morning after the engagement a number of hammers, axes, false-keys and picklocks, with two masks, a power-horn, and a bullet-mould were found upon the field, which was stained in several places with blood. Traces of gore were distinctly traced in almost every direction, and in one place for four miles. The assailants have reason to rejoice that they did not succeed in entering the building, for had they effected an entrance the death of vast numbers of them from a raking fire would have been inevitable. [Justifiable homicide.]

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.
Abbreviations:

ER: East Riding
GM: Greater Manchester
NR: North Riding
NY: North Yorkshire
SY: South Yorkshire
WR: West Riding
WY: West Yorkshire

Comment

Rules is rules, but while the attack begins after midnight (12 April), archival research shows that the mob gathered before midnight (Luddite Bicentenary 2012/04/11), and so I’ve gone with 11 April.

From a report of the great trial in 1813:

Two greater outrages never were witnessed in a civilized country, than the attack made on the 11th of April upon the mill of Mr. Cartwright … and the burning of Messrs. Wroe and Duncuft’s manufactory at West Houghton in Lancashire, on the 24th of the same month. (Howell 1823)

Kevin Binfield quotes from a letter to Huddersfield magistrate Joseph Radcliffe from Colonel Thomas Norton describing the behaviour of Luddites hanged at York Castle during the first
two weeks of 1812:

You know how the three Murderers died, and the five Men for Rawfold’s Mill died precisely the same. The Chaplain told them it was his Duty to entreat them to confess. They were silent. He then told them he should take their Silence as confessions. They were still Silent on that Subject, but spoke Generally of their Sins. Thus in Fact tacitly allowing their Guilt as to the Offence they died for, but not doing so in Words…. Nor was one Word said by their People. (Binfield 2004)

There are great similarities with the assault on Robert Moore’s mill in Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley (Brontë 1857), in which Shirley is to a considerable degree based on local landowner Anne Lister, more recently mythologised as “the first modern lesbian” and “Gentleman Jack”:

All Stilbro’ Moor, alight and aglow with bonfires, would not have stopped them, nor would Calder or Aire thundering in flood. Yet one sound made them pause. Scarce had they set foot on the solid opposite bank when a shot split the air from the north. One second elapsed. Further off burst a like note in the south. Within the space of three minutes similar signals boomed in the east and west.

“I thought we were dead at the first explosion,” observed Shirley, drawing a long breath. “I felt myself hit in the temples, and I concluded your heart was pierced; but the reiterated voice was an explanation. Those are signals—it is their way—the attack must be near. We should have had wings. Our feet have not borne us swiftly enough.”

A portion of the copse was now to clear. When they emerged from it the mill lay just below them. They could look down upon the buildings, the yard; they could see the road beyond. And the first glance in that direction told Shirley she was right in her conjecture. They were already too late to give warning. It had taken more time than they calculated on to overcome the various obstacles which embarrassed the short cut across the fields.

The road, which should have been white, was dark with a moving mass. The rioters were assembled in front of the closed yard gates, and a single figure stood within, apparently addressing them. The mill itself was perfectly black and still. There was neither life, light, nor motion around it.

“Surely he is prepared. Surely that is not Moore meeting them alone?” whispered Shirley.

“It is. We must go to him. I will go to him.”

“That you will not.”

“Why did I come, then? I came only for him. I shall join him.”

“Fortunately it is out of your power. There is no entrance to the yard.”

“There is a small entrance at the back, besides the gates in front. It opens by a secret method which I know. I will try it.”

“Not with my leave.”

Miss Keeldar clasped her round the waist with both arms and held her back. “Not one step shall you stir,” she went on authoritatively. “At this moment Moore would be both shocked and embarrassed if he saw either you or me. Men never want women near them in time of real danger.”

“I would not trouble—I would help him,” was the reply.

“How?—by inspiring him with heroism? Pooh! these are not the days of chivalry. It is not a tilt at a tournament we are going to behold, but a struggle about money, and food, and life.”

“It is natural that I should be at his side.”

“As queen of his heart? His mill is his lady-love, Cary! Backed by his factory and his frames, he has all the encouragement he wants or can know. It is not for love or beauty, but for ledger and broadcloth, he is going to break a spear. Don’t be sentimental; Robert is not so.”

“I could help him; I will seek him.”

“Off then—I let you go—seek Moore. You’ll not find him.”

She loosened her hold. Caroline sped like levelled shaft from bent bow; after her rang a jesting, gibing laugh. “Look well there is no mistake!” was the warning given.

But there was a mistake. Miss Helstone paused, hesitated, gazed. The figure had suddenly retreated from the gate, and was running back hastily to the mill.

“Make haste, Lina!” cried Shirley; “meet him before he enters.”

Caroline slowly returned. “It is not Robert,” she said. “It has neither his height, form, nor bearing.”

“I saw it was not Robert when I let you go. How could you imagine it? It is a shabby little figure of a private soldier; they had posted him as sentinel. He is safe in the mill now. I saw the door open and admit him. My mind grows easier. Robert is prepared. Our warning would have been superfluous; and now I am thankful we came too late to give it. It has saved us the trouble of a scene. How fine to have entered the counting-house toute éperdue, and to have found oneself in presence of Messrs. Armitage and Ramsden smoking, Malone swaggering, your uncle sneering, Mr. Sykes sipping a cordial, and Moore himself in his cold man-of-business vein! I am glad we missed it all.”

“I wonder if there are many in the mill, Shirley!”

“Plenty to defend it. The soldiers we have twice seen to-day were going there, no doubt, and the group we noticed surrounding your cousin in the fields will be with him.”

“What are they doing now, Shirley? What is that noise?”

“Hatchets and crowbars against the yard gates. They are forcing them. Are you afraid?”

“No; but my heart throbs fast. I have a difficulty in standing. I will sit down. Do you feel unmoved?”

“Hardly that; but I am glad I came. We shall see what transpires with our own eyes. We are here on the spot, and none know it. Instead of amazing the curate, the clothier, and the corn-dealer with a romantic rush on the stage, we stand alone with the friendly night, its mute stars, and these whispering trees, whose report our friends will not come to gather.”

“Shirley, Shirley, the gates are down! That crash was like the felling of great trees. Now they are pouring through. They will break down the mill doors as they have broken the gate. What can Robert do against so many? Would to God I were a little nearer him—could hear him speak—could speak to him! With my will—my longing to serve him—I could not be a useless burden in his way; I could be turned to some account.”

“They come on!” cried Shirley. “How steadily they march in! There is discipline in their ranks. I will not say there is courage—hundreds against tens are no proof of that quality—but” (she dropped her voice) “there is suffering and desperation enough amongst them. These goads will urge them forwards.”

“Forwards against Robert; and they hate him. Shirley, is there much danger they will win the day?”

“We shall see. Moore and Helstone are of ‘earth’s first blood’—no bunglers—no cravens——”

A crash—smash—shiver—stopped their whispers. A simultaneously hurled volley of stones had saluted the broad front of the mill, with all its windows; and now every pane of every lattice lay in shattered and pounded fragments. A yell followed this demonstration—a rioters’ yell—a north-of-England, a Yorkshire, a West-Riding, a West-Riding-clothing-district-of-Yorkshire rioters’ yell.

You never heard that sound, perhaps, reader? So much the better for your ears—perhaps for your heart, since, if it rends the air in hate to yourself, or to the men or principles you approve, the interests to which you wish well, wrath wakens to the cry of hate; the lion shakes his mane, and rises to the howl of the hyena; caste stands up, ireful against caste; and the indignant, wronged spirit of the middle rank bears down in zeal and scorn on the famished and furious mass of the operative class. It is difficult to be tolerant, difficult to be just, in such moments.

Caroline rose; Shirley put her arm round her: they stood together as still as the straight stems of two trees. That yell was a long one, and when it ceased the night was yet full of the swaying and murmuring of a crowd.

“What next?” was the question of the listeners. Nothing came yet. The mill remained mute as a mausoleum.

“He cannot be alone!” whispered Caroline.

“I would stake all I have that he is as little alone as he is alarmed,” responded Shirley.

Shots were discharged by the rioters. Had the defenders waited for this signal? It seemed so. The hitherto inert and passive mill woke; fire flashed from its empty window-frames; a volley of musketry pealed sharp through the Hollow.

“Moore speaks at last!” said Shirley, “and he seems to have the gift of tongues. That was not a single voice.”

“He has been forbearing. No one can accuse him of rashness,” alleged Caroline. “Their discharge preceded his. They broke his gates and his windows. They fired at his garrison before he repelled them.”

What was going on now? It seemed difficult, in the darkness, to distinguish; but something terrible, a still-renewing tumult, was obvious—fierce attacks, desperate repulses. The mill-yard, the mill itself, was full of battle movement. There was scarcely any cessation now of the discharge of firearms; and there was struggling, rushing, trampling, and shouting between. The aim of the assailants seemed to be to enter the mill, that of the defenders to beat them off. They heard the rebel leader cry, “To the back, lads!” They heard a voice retort, “Come round; we will meet you.”

“To the counting-house!” was the order again.

“Welcome! we shall have you there!” was the response. And accordingly the fiercest blaze that had yet glowed, the loudest rattle that had yet been heard, burst from the counting-house front when the mass of rioters rushed up to it.

The voice that had spoken was Moore’s own voice. They could tell by its tones that his soul was now warm with the conflict; they could guess that the fighting animal was roused in every one of those men there struggling together, and was for the time quite paramount above the rational human being.

Both the girls felt their faces glow and their pulses throb; both knew they would do no good by rushing down into the mêlée. They desired neither to deal nor to receive blows; but they could not have run away—Caroline no more than Shirley; they could not have fainted; they could not have taken their eyes from the dim, terrible scene—from the mass of cloud, of smoke, the musket-lightning—for the world.

“How and when would it end?” was the demand throbbing in their throbbing pulses. “Would a juncture arise in which they could be useful?” was what they waited to see; for though Shirley put off their too-late arrival with a jest, and was ever ready to satirize her own or any other person’s enthusiasm, she would have given a farm of her best land for a chance of rendering good service.

The chance was not vouchsafed her; the looked-for juncture never came. It was not likely. Moore had expected this attack for days, perhaps weeks; he was prepared for it at every point. He had fortified and garrisoned his mill, which in itself was a strong building. He was a cool, brave man; he stood to the defence with unflinching firmness. Those who were with him caught his spirit, and copied his demeanour. The rioters had never been so met before. At other mills they had attacked they had found no resistance; an organized, resolute defence was what they never dreamed of encountering. When their leaders saw the steady fire kept up from the mill, witnessed the composure and determination of its owner, heard themselves coolly defied and invited on to death, and beheld their men falling wounded round them, they felt that nothing was to be done here. In haste they mustered their forces, drew them away from the building. A roll was called over, in which the men answered to figures instead of names. They dispersed wide over the fields, leaving silence and ruin behind them. The attack, from its commencement to its termination, had not occupied an hour.

Day was by this time approaching; the west was dim, the east beginning to gleam. It would have seemed that the girls who had watched this conflict would now wish to hasten to the victors, on whose side all their interest had been enlisted; but they only very cautiously approached the now battered mill, and when suddenly a number of soldiers and gentlemen appeared at the great door opening into the yard, they quickly stepped aside into a shed, the deposit of old iron and timber, whence they could see without being seen.

It was no cheering spectacle. These premises were now a mere blot of desolation on the fresh front of the summer dawn. All the copse up the Hollow was shady and dewy, the hill at its head was green; but just here, in the centre of the sweet glen, Discord, broken loose in the night from control, had beaten the ground with his stamping hoofs, and left it waste and pulverized. The mill yawned all ruinous with unglazed frames; the yard was thickly bestrewn with stones and brickbats; and close under the mill, with the glittering fragments of the shattered windows, muskets and other weapons lay here and there. More than one deep crimson stain was visible on the gravel, a human body lay quiet on its face near the gates, and five or six wounded men writhed and moaned in the bloody dust.

Miss Keeldar’s countenance changed at this view. It was the after-taste of the battle, death and pain replacing excitement and exertion. It was the blackness the bright fire leaves when its blaze is sunk, its warmth failed, and its glow faded.

“This is what I wished to prevent,” she said, in a voice whose cadence betrayed the altered impulse of her heart.

“But you could not prevent it; you did your best—it was in vain,” said Caroline comfortingly. “Don’t grieve, Shirley.”

“I am sorry for those poor fellows,” was the answer, while the spark in her glance dissolved to dew. “Are any within the mill hurt, I wonder? Is that your uncle?”

“It is, and there is Mr. Malone; and, O Shirley, there is Robert!”

“Well” (resuming her former tone), “don’t squeeze your fingers quite into my hand. I see. There is nothing wonderful in that. We knew he, at least, was here, whoever might be absent.”

“He is coming here towards us, Shirley!”

“Towards the pump, that is to say, for the purpose of washing his hands and his forehead, which has got a scratch, I perceive.”

“He bleeds, Shirley. Don’t hold me. I must go.”

“Not a step.”

“He is hurt, Shirley!”

“Fiddlestick!”

“But I must go to him. I wish to go so much. I cannot bear to be restrained.”

“What for?”

“To speak to him, to ask how he is, and what I can do for him.”

“To tease and annoy him; to make a spectacle of yourself and him before those soldiers, Mr. Malone, your uncle, et cetera. Would he like it, think you? Would you like to remember it a week hence?”

“Am I always to be curbed and kept down?” demanded Caroline, a little passionately.

“For his sake, yes; and still more for your own. I tell you, if you showed yourself now you would repent it an hour hence, and so would Robert.”

“You think he would not like it, Shirley?”

“Far less than he would like our stopping him to say good-night, which you were so sore about.”

“But that was all play; there was no danger.”

“And this is serious work; he must be unmolested.”

“I only wish to go to him because he is my cousin—you understand?”

“I quite understand. But now, watch him. He has bathed his forehead, and the blood has ceased trickling. His hurt is really a mere graze; I can see it from hence. He is going to look after the wounded men.”

Accordingly Mr. Moore and Mr. Helstone went round the yard, examining each prostrate form. They then gave directions to have the wounded taken up and carried into the mill. This duty being performed, Joe Scott was ordered to saddle his master’s horse and Mr. Helstone’s pony, and the two gentlemen rode away full gallop, to seek surgical aid in different directions.

Caroline was not yet pacified.

“Shirley, Shirley, I should have liked to speak one word to him before he went,” she murmured, while the tears gathered glittering in her eyes.

“Why do you cry, Lina?” asked Miss Keeldar a little sternly. “You ought to be glad instead of sorry. Robert has escaped any serious harm; he is victorious; he has been cool and brave in combat; he is now considerate in triumph. Is this a time—are these causes for weeping?”

“You do not know what I have in my heart,” pleaded the other—”what pain, what distraction—nor whence it arises. I can understand that you should exult in Robert’s greatness and goodness; so do I, in one sense, but in another I feel so miserable. I am too far removed from him. I used to be nearer. Let me alone, Shirley. Do let me cry a few minutes; it relieves me.”

Miss Keeldar, feeling her tremble in every limb, ceased to expostulate with her. She went out of the shed, and left her to weep in peace. It was the best plan. In a few minutes Caroline rejoined her, much calmer. She said, with her natural, docile, gentle manner, “Come, Shirley, we will go home now. I promise not to try to see Robert again till he asks for me. I never will try to push myself on him. I thank you for restraining me just now.”

“I did it with a good intention,” returned Miss Keeldar.

“Now, dear Lina,” she continued, “let us turn our faces to the cool morning breeze, and walk very quietly back to the rectory. We will steal in as we stole out. None shall know where we have been or what we have seen to-night; neither taunt nor misconstruction can consequently molest us. To-morrow we will see Robert, and be of good cheer; but I will say no more, lest I should begin to cry too. I seem hard towards you, but I am not so.”

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Original

We have made it our business to collect a faithful narrative of the sanguinary contest that last Saturday night took place at Rawfolds, between the men calling themselves the army of General Ludd and the persons employed in guarding the property of Mr. Cartwright, in order to place upon record the particulars of an event that will survive in local remembrance the present generation; and we can undertake to say, that the following narrative may be implicitly relied upon:-

It is known to our readers that the use of machinery for raising and dressing woollen-cloth has of late become very unpopular amongst the shearmen in this part of the country; and that all mills where machinery of this kind is in use have been marked out for destruction, and that in several of them the obnoxious machines have been destroyed.

At Rawfolds, near Cleckheaton, a place at an equal distance from Huddersfield and Leeds, from each of which it is about eight miles, a gentleman of the name of WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT has a mill used for the purpose of dressing cloth in the way objected to by the men; on this mill it was understood that an attempt was to be made, and on Thursday night, the 9 h. inst. the centinel at the mill observed several signals that were supposed to indicate an approaching attack, though both that and the following night past over without molestation. On Saturday night, about half-past twelve o’clock, there was a firing heard from the north, which was answered from the south, and again from west to east; this firing was accompanied by other signals, and in a few minutes a number of armed men surprised the two centinels without the mill, and having secured both their arms and their persons, made a violent attack upon the mill, broke in the window-frames, and discharged a volley into the premises at the same instant. Roused by this assault, the guard within the mill flew to arms, and discharged a heavy fire of musketry upon the assailants; this fire was returned and repeated without intermission during the conflict, the mob attempting all the time to force an entrance, but without success, a number of voices crying continually “Bang up! “Murder them! “Pull down the door!” – and mixing these exclamations with the most horrid imprecations. Again and again the attempts to make a breach were repeated, with a firmness and constancy worthy a better cause; but every renewed attempt ended in disappointment, while the flashes from the fire-arms of the insurgents served to direct the guards in their aim. For about 20 minutes this engagement continued with undiminished fury, till at length, finding all their efforts to enter the mill fruitless, the firing and hammering without began to abate, and soon after the whole body of the assailants retreated with precipitation, leaving on the field such of their wounded as could not join in the retreat. An attempt was made to rally their scattered forces, to carry off their wounded, but it was in vain; the fire from within had been kept up with so much steadiness and perseverance as to produce universal dismay: during this spirited engagement 140 balls were discharged from the mill; what number of shots were fired by the mob, it is impossible to say, but the doors and windows were perforated with a vast number of pistol and musket balls, though none of them took effect, not one of the guards having sustained the least personal injury. During the principal part of the engagement the alarm-bell was rung, and a quantity of large stones were hurled from the roof, which had an instantaneous effect, otherwise a quantity of oil of vitriol, in reserve, would have been poured down.

On the cessation of the firing, the ears of the guards were assailed with the cries of two unfortunate men, weltering in their blood, and writhing under the torture of mortal wounds:- “For God’s sake,” cried one of them, “shoot me – put me out of my misery!” – “Oh!” cried the other, “help! help! – I know all, and I will tell all.” On the arrival of a detachment of the Queen’s Bays, which took place about an hour after the attack commenced, these ill-fated men were removed on litters from the field to the Star Inn, at Robert-Town, and medical aid was called in with all possible dispatch. One of them proved to be a cropper, of the name of Samuel Hartley, formerly in the employment of Mr. Cartwright; a fine-looking young unmarried man, about 24 years of age, and a private in the Halifax Local Militia, in which regiment Mr. Cartwright is a Captain. The other was John Booth, a youth about 19 years of age, son of a clergyman in Craven, and an apprentice to Mr. Wright, of Huddersfield, tinner. Hartley had received a shot in his left breast, apparently while making a blow at some part of the mill, which, passing through his body, ledged beneath the skin at the left shoulder, from whence it was extracted with a portion of bone. In this situation he languished till about three o’clock on Monday morning, when he expired. Booth’s wound was in his leg, which was shattered almost to atoms; it was found necessary that he should submit to have the leg amputated, but, owing to the extreme loss of blood before the surgeons arrived, spasms came on during the operation, and he died about six o’clock on Sunday morning; having previously observed, that if he should recover, “he would never be brought into such a scrape again.” It was observed that neither of these victims of lawless violence manifested any sense of religion. Booth was interred at Huddersfield, on Thursday morning, at six o’clock, and Hartley at Halifax, on Wednesday; and they were both attended to their graves by a vast concourse of spectators.

On the morning after the engagement a number of hammers, axes, false-keys and picklocks, with two masks, a power-horn, and a bullet-mould were found upon the field, which was stained in several places with blood; and it is evident that many others besides those left on the field were wounded, as traces of gore were distinctly traced in almost every direction, and in one place to the distance of four miles. The assailants have much reason to rejoice that they did not succeed in entering the building, for we speak from our own observation when we say, that had they effected an entrance, the death of vast numbers of them from a raking fire which they could neither have returned nor controlled, would have been inevitable. It is unnecessary to speak of the heroism of the little band that guarded these premises, there is not perhaps upon record a more distinguished instance of cool intrepidity; but it may be proper to add, that the number of military in the mill was very small, and one of that number conducted himself in so unsoldierlike a manner, that he was on the following morning placed in confinement, and awaits the issue of a Regimental Court Martial.

A number of reflections arise out of this narrative, but we shall content ourselves with one remark: we have of late frequently felt it our duty, from the regard we feel to the labouring classes, and to the laws of our country, to warn those that are engaged in those violent proceedings, of the fatal consequences that await them in the unequal contest in which they are now waging with the civil and military power of the country. – Let them reflect deeply on the fate of Hartley and Booth – let them recollect that they themselves may be the next victims, and let them stop in this desperate career before it is too late. – On Monday a Coroner’s Inquest assembled upon the dead bodies, and returned a Verdict of – Justifiable Homicide. None of the wounded men except Hartley and Booth have yet been discovered.

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