Stotfold
The Swing Riots
The Stotfold Riot by Mr Bert Hyde
Places > Stotfold > Agriculture
The cause of the unrest
For the sake of completeness we will end with a quick look at the cause of the unrest. In the four days between the riot on 2nd Dec .and the issue of the Times on the 6th a report had gained circulation that the affair had been caused by the severity of the parish system in use in the village. The Times denied the truth of this report. It said " We are induced to believe that the average pay to the labourers in this parish is equal to any in the neighbourhood, and that the allowance to paupers is fully equal to that given in the adjoining parishes. That the assistant -overseer 1 ( who was in charge of the parish system) was unpopular is evident, but this arose principally, if not entirely, from the abuse of the system heretofore acted upon in the parish. It had previously been the custom to pay the unemployed labourers their regular allowances whether they performed any work or not, which gave many of them the opportunity of receiving the parish allowance and then earning a considerable sum in some other way. This had induced the parish to appoint an assistant-overseer , and since that period their work had been let to them by the piece (where practicable) and if not, they have been confined to the regular working hours; which inasmuch as it has prevented many of them from having recourse to their former frauds has rendered the new office extremely unpopular; and we are assured that it is this, rather than any other circumstance, which has given rise to the reports alluded to, in proof of which it is worthy of remark that nine out of ten of the ringleaders in this affair were persons in regular work and earning none of them (even the youngest ) lower than 9s and some of the elder ones 12s and 14s per week."
In the context of the riot the above assessment of the situation by the Times seems too good to be true. Moreover, against the Times may be quoted the Rev. Fred. H. Neve who was Vicar of Southill and a magistrate at the time of the riot. He told the 1834 enquiry into the working of the Poor Laws that, "There was one agricultural riot at Stotfold in this neighbourhood where there is no gentleman nor at that time any clergyman residing and I believe that the parish system pursued there was such as would not improbably lead to great discontent" .2 In view of this statement by Rev. Neve can it be that, despite all that was urged so strenuously against it by the Times, the report which had gained circulation immediately following the riot was true and that one of the causes, if not the main cause, of the unrest was the harsh nature of the parish system operated in the village? A harsh parish system would also adequately explain the extreme unpopularity of the assistant overseer.
I .The Herts Mercury 4th Dec. 1830;Thc Cambridge Chronicle 11th March 1831 and the 1830 Jury list for Stotfold all refer to the unpopular officer as "the overseer".
2 .Nigel E. Agar, "Thc Bedfordshire Farm Worker in the Nineteenth Century" p.77 ,B.H.R.S vol.60,1981.
Page last updated: 4th February 2014