Swing Rioters and the Luddites 1)The Swing rioters were a bunch of farmers in 1830 that were scared of losing their jobs

2)The Luddites wre hundreds of workers in 1811-12 that were afraid the new machinery would take over their jobs. Because of this they attacked factorys and smashed up machines (the machines that took over their job). They also burned down factorys and mills which kept some of the new machines in them. The main weapon they used to help them smash things up with (mainly machines) was a sledge-hammer which they called the 'Great Enoch'. Although they tried not to show it the goverment and the factory owners were afraid of the Luddites. A weaving factory near Middleton in Lancashire caught on fire by a large group of rioters. The damage was estimated at £6,000 (a very large amount at that time). This was because the factory held steam driven power looms. This was thought to have been a very dumb thing to do as then the workers had no were else to work they were unemployed. The Luddites were named that because they followed a man called Ned Ludd no one really knows whether he is real or not he was thought to have been fictitious and made up to scare the masters of the factorys. The Luddites warned them about things like "if you don't get rid of your new machines we will trash the place and burn it down". But the govermaent took a firm hand on the matter and passed a law which said that people would be hanged if they were caught smashing machines.

3)Simalarities

:The Luddites and the swing rioters both were scared of losing their jobs this was because of the new machinery.

:They both had the same aim and used the same methods of force to attack the machinery.

:They both had a name that they followed which both were probably fictitious they also both used their name to sign warning letters with.

:The location of both the groups were in the same sort of area the East of Britain although the swing rioters also went down to the South of Britain too.

:Both groups had their main support from the workers that got sacked.

:They got the same sort of punishment if they smashed a building or machine up; death

Differences

:The name they used for their letters were different.

:The machines they smashed were diferent the Swing rioters smashed up threshing machines and burned hayricks. The Luddites smashed up factorys and burnt down mills.

:The groups were in a different era the Luddites 1811-12 were earlier than the Swing rioters at 1830.

4)Both the groups failed because of unrealistic aims and ineffective methods they shouldn't of thoughtthat if they started smashing things up that the goverment or masters of the machines would listen to them: it would have just got them mad which it did. They failed because of poor organisation and goverment actions aswell they didn't really stop to think about what they were doing and how it wouldn't help. Also they didn't get together and think about how they could legally and realistically get round the problem. They had to make it legall because with both groups there was a law made of a death penalty to anyone caught smashing up machines. But the fact was they couldn't easily get toghether and chat because the goverment had passed another law saying that there was only to be 3 or less people allowed to meet at once The goverment was making it as hard as possible for the people to start a roiot or what they where scared of a revouloution. This meant that they couldn't disscuss anything very well and that their actions weren't planned out. The final reasons of failment was limited support and lack of leadership the groups only had workers that had been sacked to back them up, there were quite a lot of peple sacked as every machine took up several workmens jobs but there still wern't enough people to overpower the rest. They also needed a real leader the fake leaders they used were fine for a while but I'm sure the victims or the letters cracked the secret. As the people following the name had no proof of the man and the leader had never been seen or showed before the fake leader secret thing wasn't a good idea.