Note 156 — Chapter II

The Town Labourer, 1760-1832, by J. L. and B. Hammond, 1917, p. 15. Whether Gravener Henson, the bobbin-net maker of Nottingham, subsequently author of a History of the Framework-Knitters(1831), who had long been a leader of the Framework-knitters, was the “King Lud” under whose orders the machine-breakers often purported to act, is yet unproven (Life of Francis Place, by Prof. Graham Wallas, revised edition, 1918). The Report of the House of Commons Committee on the Framework-knitters’ petitions (1812) affords evidence of the all-pervading misery of the time. For other glimpses of the Luddite organisation, see An Appeal to the Public, containing an account of services rendered during the disturbances in the North of England in the year 1812, by Francis Raynes, 1817 (in Home Office Papers, 40); Report of Proceedings under Commission of Oyer and Terminer, January 2 to 12, 1813, at York, by J. and W. B. Gurney, 1813; Digest of Evidence of Committee on Artizans and Machinery, by George White, 1824 (see p. 36, Richmond’s evidence as to the appeals of the Luddites to the Glasgow cotton-spinners); and Annual Register, 1812.