November 1830, John Benett, the MP for Wiltshire, was woken with the news that his house was about to be attacked.
400 farm labourers were approaching, armed with hammers and crowbars.
They smashed their way into the barns and broke up the threshing machines used on his farms.
This was just one incident in the Swing Riots that raged across the south of England late in 1830. There were 1500 such incidents of machine-breaking, arson and riot in just four months.
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