ABSTRACT
The acceleration of trade union activity in the late 1780s and 1790s is all the more remarkable, for it can no longer be explained in any simplistic way as linked to the 'take-off' of the industrial economy. Economic history's recent emphasis upon continuities and evolution requires a re-evaluation of the evolution of labour movements. The use of the tactics reached a dramatic and tragic climax in the Captain Swing movement of 1830. This chapter argues that oppression of agricultural trade unionism was the sole reason for Swing. The emergence of a jacobin dimension to trade unionism was therefore a building block in the making of working-class consciousness. Revolutionary France itself provides no model: the Le Chapelier Law of 1791 not only anticipated British anti-union legislation, but was considerably more draconian. The 1800 Combination Act which resulted tempered its predecessor by requiring at least two magistrates to hear cases, while the procedure for summons was tightened.
