ON November 27, 1830, the Hampshire Advertiser reported: “Basingstoke and its vicinity was this week in considerable alarm, owing to nearly 200 persons of the worst and most ignorant of the population having congregated, in order to extort money from gentlemen, farmers, etc.”
The panic was caused by the Swing Riots which quickly spread across the south of England as rural labourers protested against the introduction of mechanisation that threatened their livelihood, farmers lowering their wages, enclosure reducing their rights to the common lands, and poverty caused by an oversupply of labour in an area where there was little alternative employment.
They were called the Swing Riots because of the threatening letters that some farmers received that were signed by the mythical “Captain Swing”.
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Edmund Portsmouth of Eastrop Farm and Robert Buxton of Monk Sherborne received letters threatening to set fire to their premises if they did not remove their threshing machines.
Despite the report in the Hampshire Advertiser, the only incidents within Basingstoke happened on the far edge of the parish.
On November 19, a group of around 50 labourers visited Down Grange, the home of Mrs Cassandra Hankey, demanding money and higher wages.
George Brown, Mrs Hankey’s bailiff, said it was impossible to speak to all of them but he would be happy to speak to a spokesman.
John Gold and William Astridge, two labourers from Cliddesden, stepped forward and went into the kitchen where they met Mrs Hankey.
Mrs Hankey gave Gold and Astridge one or two gold sovereigns and told Brown to give whisky and water to the men outside. After which, Astridge and Gold led the men away.
At 10 in the morning on November 22, Down Grange was visited again, this time by a gang of around 150 armed with bludgeons and sticks.
Gold and Astridge were in the crowd, but the main actor seems to have been Thomas Bennett of Basing who was encouraging the men throughout the proceedings.
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Mrs Hankey spoke to the men through the kitchen window and tried to appease them by giving them a sovereign and ordering John Childs, her footman, to give them bread and beef. The men broke down the doors of the blacksmith’s forge and stole three sledgehammers which they used to break the winnowing machine to pieces.
Later that morning, they visited Worting where they demanded money from various householders and destroyed a threshing machine.
They then moved on to Wootton St Lawrence, starting at Manydown Park where they demanded money from Harris Bigg Wither who gave them a sovereign because he was afraid they would attack his house with their sledgehammers.
At around half-past two they arrived at Tangier Park, the home of William Lutely Sclater. Sclater said the men surrounded him and demanded money. He thought that they were going to break down the door, so he gave them two sovereigns.
The next day some of them took four shillings and sixpence from John Follett, a farmer at Pamber. They then descended on the hamlet of Salters Heath where they took a guinea from Thomas Chandler at Woodgate Farmhouse and a five-pound Basingstoke and Odiham banknote from William Hooper, another farmer.
In the evening, they went to the White Lion at Salters Heath to divide their spoil. While they were there, the pub was surrounded by a party of Grenadier Guards and the 9th Lancers commanded by Sir Claudius Hunter, who ordered them to surrender. The Guards marched 57 rioters to Basingstoke and lodged them in a large outhouse during the night.
The next morning, the local magistrates interrogated them and committed 24 of them to Winchester jail. At about four o’clock that afternoon, a company of Lancers escorted them to Winchester.
The Special Commission was held at Winchester in the week beginning December 20 to try the 345 prisoners who had been charged with taking part in the Swing riots in various parts of Hampshire.
Gold, Astridge and Bennett’s cases were deferred to a later date as Mrs Hankey was too ill to prosecute.
They appeared at the Lent Assizes charged with robbery but found not guilty. Of the remaining 21 sent from Basingstoke, James Baker, John Batten, Charles and John Bullpit, William Burgess, George Clark, James Cook, John and Richard Keens, Charles Pain, Richard Rampton, Thomas Warwick and William Wearham were found guilty and sentenced to death, later commuted to transportation to Australia.
This article was written by Bob Clarke
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