ABSTRACT
About nine months after the Peterloo massacre it was shown that the Luddites in this neighbourhood had not forgotten their old place of meeting. The labouring classes were still suffering great privations, and a disposition to tumult still prevailed. On the night of Friday, the 31st of March, 1820, another simultaneous rising was appointed to take place throughout the West Riding. Emissaries from the various clubs and other political and trade organisations had been flitting about for a long time previously, most of them hailing from Barnsley and the neighbourhood, which may be regarded as being the headquarters of this rising. It was arranged that the meeting place for Dewsbury, Heckmpndwike, Birstall, Brighouse, and other towns and villages round Mirfield should be the old Luddite meeting place, near the Dumb Steeple, Cooper Bridge. The capture of the town of Huddersfield seems to have been one of the first objects of this rising, and it was arranged that the detachments from the surrounding places should approach the town simultaneously. In order to prevent their plans from being prematurely divulged, all the stage coaches were stopped, and horsemen and pedestrians were prevented from continuing their journey. Toward the hour of midnight considerable bodies of men marched in small detachments towards the appointed place and committed 308some excesses on a few pedestrians who refused to stop when ordered and fall into rank. After waiting some time for the signal to maroh agreed upon, the leaders became apprehensive that something had gone wrong and they advised the men to disperse. The be paid spies like Oliver, were busy flitting about on the day following. They explained that the central body had found that owing to unexpected difficulties the united movement could not take place 011 that evening, but it had been arranged that the various bodies should meet on Grange Moor on the Wednesday following and maroh on Huddersfield in a compact army. The malcontents in this immediate locality being either disgusted with their failure or afraid of the consequences of their rash action, do not appear to liave mustered in large numbers, and when the “grand army” as it had been beforehand named was assembled, it was found to consist of a mere handful of men, principally from Barnsley and its neighbourhood, many of them workmen out of employment and none above the rank of labourers. The little frightened band waited some hours in the momentary expectation of reinforcements”, but when morning approached and they found that the triumphant “army of the north,” which was to march on London, did not appear, they began to disperse to their homes. The Huddersfield authorities who were duly apprized of the state of matters on the moor sent out a few soldiers to reconnoitre, but when they arrived they found nothing to tell of the whereabouts of the rebel army, except a few score pikes and sticks which the insurgents had abandoned in their flight, for fear of being compromised if they were captured before they reached home.
