Luddites200 May update

[Ned Ludd]

Huddersfield Luddites 200 Festival

On April 27th-29th Huddersfield celebrated the 
Luddites 200th anniversary in style. Highlights 
of the festival included two musical shows, 
poetry readings and competition awards, workshops 
on new technologies, films, exhibitions and talks 
on the local Luddite history.  My personal 
highlights included a fascinating discussion on 
computers and digital technology with Gail 
Chester and Ed Geraghty, 14 year old Theo Ayres' 
stunning prize-winning poem and Dave Douglass' 
barnstorming rescue of the Luddites (and other 
workers who used sabotage) from the condescension 
of official trade union histories.  Amongst Those 
Dark Satanic Mills was highly enjoyabIe, with 
stirring performances, (some of which we hope to 
include on a forthcoming Luddite music CD), and 
Saturday was wonderfully climaxed by a packed Red 
Sky Coven gig, with our very own James Bar Bowen 
as support.  I also heard rave reviews of the 
standing-room-only history talks and the 
rollicking folk music session at The Albert.

Unfortunately, we were prevented from staging a 
live machine smashing by Kirklees Council 
bureaucrats, who even tried to stop us from 
handing out leaflets to publicise the festival!! 
However, there is talk of a smaller annual event 
in Huddersfield, so this may be possible next year.

In order to promote the festival we produced some 
stunning merchandise, including t-shirts, mugs 
and badges. We still have some of these left 
which can be purchased via the Luddites200 
blog 
(<http://luddites200blog.org.uk/huddersfield-luddites200-festival/>http://luddites200blog.org.uk/huddersfield-luddites200-festival/). 
We also produced some badges with slogans not 
connected to the festival, such as 'Down With All 
Kings But King Ludd!' 'Off Your Computer And Onto 
The Streets!' and 'Down With Machinery Hurtful To 
Commonality!' These can also be purchased via the blog.

Special thanks for all their work in all their 
work in organising the festival to Bar Bowen, Ian 
Brooke, Claire Slack, Sam Lee and all the 
volunteer stewards, and to all our speakers/performers for giving their time

Some coverage of the festival can be found at 
<http://womenshistorynetwork.org/blog/>http://womenshistorynetwork.org/blog/
and 
<http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/not-hurtful-to-commonality-luddite-anniversaries-in-huddersfield/>http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/not-hurtful-to-commonality-luddite-anniversaries-in-huddersfield/, 
and The Huddersfield Examiner also covered the 
event (see attachment). Some video and audio 
recordings of parts of the festival will shortly 
be available on the Luddites200 website.

Other Recent Luddite Events

April saw a lot of other Luddite-related activity 
in both Yorkshire and Lancashire. On April 
21st/22nd the Westhoughton Local History Society 
staged a festival celebrating the destruction of 
the local mill in 1812, including a re-enactment 
of the actual fire. They have also produced an 
exhibition and booklet detailing their research, 
information about which can be found at 
<http://www.theluddites.org.uk/The_Luddites/Home.html>http://www.theluddites.org.uk/The_Luddites/Home.html.

In Yorkshire Mikron Theatre's excellent new play 
'Can You Keep A Secret?', was launched and will 
be performed throughout the summer on their 
annual canal boat tour.  In mid-April the Spen 
Valley Civic Society unveiled a statue of a 
cropper at Liversedge, in a miniature park that 
they have built. The unveiling ceremony was 
attended by some controversy, with certain 
Luddites200 supporters from the Huddersfield area 
protesting at what they saw as the Civic 
Society's depoliticised version of Luddite 
history. However, despite the differences both 
groups celebrated the occasion with some 'good 
ale that's brown' at The Shears, the pub at which 
the Luddites were said to have planned their 
attack on Rawfolds Mill. (The Hudds Ludds were 
excluded from the official celebration but were 
served in the garden, thanks to the pub's 
sterling landlord, Paul Black.)  Luddites200 
supporters proceeded from there to The Star at 
Roberttown, where injured men from the Rawfolds 
attack were brought, for further refreshment.

On the same weekend as the Hudds Ludds Festival, 
Huddersfield Local History Society commemorated 
the exact bicentenary of the assassination of 
chief Yorkshire anti-Luddite, William Horsfall, 
with a walk along his final journey. The Society 
has recently published an updated and revised 
edition of 'Liberty or Death: Radicals, 
Republicans and Luddites 1793-1823' by Alan 
Brooke & Lesley Kipling, which can be obtained 
from Luddites200 for £9.  We also have copies of 
a facsimile version of the Luddite novel 'Ben'O'Bills, the Luddite', for £12.

Horrible Luddite Histories

In April History Today and BBC History magazines 
published articles by a Cambridge University 
research student, Richard Jones, which has proved 
an angry response from historians of the 
Luddites. Despite his claims to be presenting a 
nuanced version of Luddite history, Jones ends up 
falling back on popular stereotypes, such as the 
claim that the Luddites rebellion was an attempt 
to block progress by small groups of 'privileged' 
workers. The Luddites Bicentenary blog, 
Huddersfield local historian Alan Brooke and 
Luddites200 have now published a detailed 
response to Jones's article, which can be found 
at 
<http://ludditebicentenary.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/at-war-with-facts-rebuttal-of-richard.html>http://ludditebicentenary.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/at-war-with-facts-rebuttal-of-richard.html, 
a version of which will shortly appear as a letter in History Today.

A more amusing and, actually, factually more 
accurate version of the Luddite story, produced 
by Horrible Histories can be found at 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgBiGrpWNQU>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgBiGrpWNQU. 


Upcoming events

On Sunday May 27th anti-GM food campaigners Take 
the Flour Back 
(<http://taketheflourback.org/>http://taketheflourback.org/) 
are planning to decontaminate a trial plot of GM 
wheat at Rothamsted Research in Harpenden.  The 
crop has been genetically engineered to repel 
aphids. The campaigners say that there is a 
significant risk that the engineered genes will 
escape into surrounding wheat crops and that 
losses to wheat crops due to aphids are 
minimal.  The meet-up point for the event is in 
Rothamsted Park and people are encouraged to come 
and show their support even if they don't want to 
take part in the decontamination.

The Campaign Against Climate Change, who helped 
run a workshop at our Huddersfield festival, have 
created a Climate Jobs Caravan to support their 
One Million Climate Jobs campaign. The caravan 
will be touring the country (for dates see 
<http://www.campaigncc.org/climatejobscaravan>http://www.campaigncc.org/climatejobscaravan), 
and there will be a final rally in London on May 
25th. Luddites200 supports the campaign because 
it is an attempt, in the Luddite tradition, to 
challenge existing economic and technological 
paradigms, and at the same time to safeguard workers' livelihoods.




















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