Journals of a Time Traveller

I have posted previously on the life of my Swing Rioter ancestor, Robert Smith of Attleborough, Norfolk, in The Man with the Mattock and The Man with the Mattock II.

In January 1831, my three-times great-grandfather, Robert Smith, stood at the bar of the Norfolk Quarter Sessions. At just 24 years old, he was convicted of spearheading a night of tumultuous rioting across the parish on the 4th and 5th of December 1830. The court records paint a vivid picture of his defiance: he led an assault on the local parish workhouse, breaking windows and terrorising its governor for bread and cheese; he systematically smashed agricultural machinery across neighbouring farms; and, most dramatically, he cornered the local rector, the Reverend Fairfax Franklin, holding him hostage inside his own church vestry for hours.

Brandishing a mattock in the face of the exhausted clergyman, Robert delivered a pair of truly revolutionary speeches to the crowd, declaring that "this is only the beginning, we have begun at the foot and will go up to the head," and triumphantly proclaiming that the working men "were the strongest party and would always be so." “that that devil was fled”

The AI reconstruction above visualises the scene in the vestry.

The British establishment’s response to the Swing Riots was famously brutal. Across the country, 19 men were executed and nearly 500 were transported to Australia, essentially a lifetime banishment under brutal conditions. My ancestor Robert Smith had:

1. Smashed machinery.
2. Attacked a workhouse. Threatened its governor with harm.
3. Cornered and threatened a member of the clergy with a weapon while giving speeches about starting at the foot and going to the head.
4. On the Sabbath (Saturday and Sunday)
5. A French tri-colour had been reported.

Yet he was not executed, not transported. Rather, the Quarter sessions held at Norwich were more lenient - two and a half years imprisonment. The stiffest penalty handed out to the Attleborough rioters, yet still, a mild punishment for the time.

But even that punishment was to be reduced.

Translation of the above letter (presented both sides in a Posthaven Gallery):

To the Visiting Justices of the County Gaol.

Gentlemen

I beg leave to recommend to your particular attention the cases of Robert Smith, Samuel Smith, and James Stacy, convicts in that Gaol, in consequence of Riots at Attleborough last December whose respective terms of Imprisonment I, as Prosecutor anxiously wish should be shortened, as soon and as much as you may think, consistent with the purposes of public Justice and Individual reformation –

When making this application to You, I will briefly state that tho’ these Men were amongst the most active on that occasion, I am quite convinced that they were greatly influenced by the instigation of others, and that the first and last of them, who are both Young had always before that time conducted themselves peaceably and that their friends and Relations have behaved with much propriety ever since their Convictions, and that the other Convict

[Page 2]

(Samuel Smith) has a Wife and Six Children, who, tho’ they have never yet been chargeable to the Parish, stand much in need of their Fathers exertions for their future support – I have reason to believe that Mr Johnson will certify to You the general good conduct of these Convicts –

I have the honor to remain Gentlemen Yours obdt G [obedient Servant] Fairfax Francklin

Attleborough July 25. 1831 –

As Committing Magistrate I beg leave to support the foregoing application. T. P. Slapp

As one of the witnesses I beg to do the same Henry Dover

Henry Dover Esq } Aylsham }

Whitehall 30 Novr 1831

Sir,

Viscount Melbourne having caused inquiries to be made into the case of Robert Smith, Samuel Smith and James Stacey who were convicted at the Quarter Sessions for the County of Norfolk in January last of Riot, and sentenced to various terms of Imprisonment, in whose behalf you transmitted some documents in your Letter of the 27 ultimo, I am directed to inform you that under all the circumstances his Lordship has felt himself warranted in advising His Majesty to grant James Stacey a Remission of the remaining part of his sentence, & proposes to pursue the like course with respect to the other Prisoners when they have undergone one Years imprisonment from the Date of their Conviction.

I am, Sir, Your obdt Servant

S. M. Phillipps

It reads like pure fiction. This was, after all, the very same Viscount Melbourne who routinely had men hanged to make an example of them, and who famously transported the Tolpuddle Martyrs merely for forming a friendly society. If I were to read in a novel that a radical rioter like Robert was simply 'let go' after a mere twelve months, I would dismiss the plot as entirely improbable. Yet, the archival evidence is right there on the page: it happened.

Continuing on from this post about my 3rd great grandfather Robert Smith, who was imprisoned at Norwich Castle Gaol for his part in a swing riot at Attleborough in 1831.

I'd uncovered a Robert Smith who took part in the riot in Attleborough, but a question always arises when researching an ancestor with a common name - was he / she my Smith, Brown, or Jones?.  So I need to look closer.  And I do see a problem:

His son, my 2nd great grandfather, Robert Smith (the junior), was born 15th December 1832.  Yet Robert Smith (the swing rioter), was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment in January 1831.  How did he do that?  Was Robert Smith the Swing Rioter NOT my 3rd great grandfather, Robert Smith of Attleborough, born there in 1807?

Then a few days ago, on the England & Wales, Prisons &Punishment, 1770-1935 collection at FindmyPast.co.uk, under correspondence, I find this Norfolk Court record, dated 30th November 1831:

I had problems reading even this copy that I had optimised with an image editor, so I had to get help on a Facebook genealogy group.  Apparently it is an appeal by James Stacey, one of the three imprisoned ring leaders, for sentence remission.  It also gives notice that the other two, Robert Smith, and Samuel Smith would also be appealing as soon as they had served one year in prison.  Did they receive remission?

I also found this under the same collection, dated to "1832" under Home Office Registers Of Criminal Petitions:

James Stacey, Robert Smith, and Samuel Smith are all still serving time.  I don't know how early in 1832 they are being recorded there - but, their sentence types are all recorded as "Rem" (remission), so it does look to me as though their original sentences were reduced.  If they were released on remission by late March 1832, then Robert Smith the Swing Rioter had just enough time to return to my 3rd great grandmother Lydia Smith (nee Hewitt), and to father Robert "Hewitt" Smith, the junior.  If so, do you see who the rector was at their son's baptism?  The Rev. Franklin himself.  The guy that Robert Smith held a mattock over, that with the thresher burning, attacks on the workhouse, and general rioting, landed him in Norwich Castle Gaol in the first place!  Two years later he's baptising Robert's son.

Also at FindmyPast.co.uk, I've found more newspaper reports of the case.  In my previous article, I reported:

Times were incredibly difficult for the poor.  I wonder if he was behind the voice that was reported during the Attleborough Riot by a witness:

Above the confusion of the voices one rang out, more stridant and confident than the rest 'We are the strongest party' the man cried. 'We always have been and we always will be.  This is only the beginning.  We have begun at the foot, and we will go up to the head.'.

Well.  One newspaper report stated that it was indeed our ancestor Robert Smith that said this:

Why did he do it?  What was Robert's status?  Around that time, he was recorded as a labourer.  Later, a hawker, and an umbrella maker.  Even later in life, after our 3rd great grandmother Lydia, died, he married Frances Saunders (nee Husk), and they moved up North on the railways, to work in the cotton spinning town of Sulcoates.

But I may have discovered another element to his story?  Why he was angry, and why he was accepted or identified as a ring leader of the riot?

Had Robert himself recently experienced a loss in status?  Did this finally drive him against the local Establishment?  In 1841, he was living with his wife Lydia, and six of their children, at his father-in-law's farm on the edge of Attleborough at Hill Common:

Maybe we can now understand him, just a little more.  Also on that 1841 census report - you can see his son Robert (Hewitt) Smith the junior, there aged eight years.  He's the guy that became the Attleborough bricklayer, and the victualler of The Grapes Inn, that was held up at gun point in 1879.  My 2nd great grandfather, and another story.