On November 9 1830, a hundred farm labourers descended on a farm in Kent in the south of England and destroyed a threshing machine with saws, hatchets and axes. At Burnham Overy in Norfolk, workers destroyed another machine as they shouted: “It keeps an honest man from getting work.” The country was in the throes of the Swing riots, where farm labourers smashed threshing machines, burnt barns, sent threatening letters to farmers and demanded higher wages. By the last 10 days of November, write historians Eric Hobsbawm and George Rudé, “virtually all of Southern England seemed in flames”.
1830年11月9日，100名農場工人蜂擁至英格蘭南部肯特郡(Kent)的一個農場，用鋸子、短斧和長斧損毀了一臺打穀機。在諾福克郡(Norfolk)的柏南•奧弗裏(Burnham Overy)教區，工人們在損毀另一臺機器的時候喊著：「它讓一個勤勞的男人找不到工作。」當時，斯溫暴動(Swing Riots)在英國正如火如荼，農場工人砸毀打穀機，燒燬穀倉，向農場主發送恐嚇信，並要求提高工資。歷史學家艾瑞克•霍布斯鮑姆(Eric Hobsbawm)和喬治•魯德(George Rudé)寫道，到11月的最後10天，「幾乎整個英格蘭南部都陷入了火海」。