After reading the book ‘A Shepherd’s Life’ by WH Hudson recently, I am very much looking forward to the forthcoming talk by Paul Sample.

Hudson’s account of the harsh treatment of farm labourers who were living on a pittance whilst wealthy landowners raised their rent is shocking.

In deep distress the common man took to poaching and sheep stealing – these crimes were dealt with rigorously and barbarously.

Thus, at the Assizes at Salisbury in 1827, the presiding judge remarked that, though the calendar was heavy the cases were not of a serious character.

Nevertheless, he passed sentence of death upon 28 persons, among them being one for stealing half-a-crown! A youth of 18 was sentenced to transportation for life for stealing a pocket handkerchief.

Of the 28 who were condemned, however, all but three were eventually reprieved, one of the fated being a youth of 19, who was sentenced to death for stealing a mare.

The labourers certainly attacked machinery, but they were rendered desperate by the smallness of their wages and the fear that machinery would wipe out even their starvation pittance.

Even in the height of their frenzy the men did nothing very outrageous. They smashed the threshing machines, burnt some ricks, and broke into a few houses, but they injured no man

Paul Sample’s talk at Salisbury History Festival will discuss the poverty of agricultural labourers in South Wiltshire, the emergence of machine breaking and the resulting battle at Pyt House.

It will also discuss the court cases against 339 defendants at Salisbury and the consequent death sentences for two men and transportation to Australia of 150.

‘The Causes, Course and Consequences of The Battle of Pyt House (1830)’ is on Saturday 31st August. Tickets are available from the Rocketship and History bookshops, Salisbury.