Tuesday 8 April 2014

8th April 1814: The Sheriff of Nottingham accuses the Framework-knitters Union of working with Luddites

Elton, near Bingham Notts
April 8th: 1814—

My Lord,

I Have the Honor to enclose an examination which I think it my Duty to submit to your Lordship containing an account of the breaking of Several Stocking Frames belonging to Messrs Needham & Nixons most respectable Hosiers of the town of Nottingham:—from communications which I Have had with these and other Gentlemen and also with the Corperation of Nottingham, I am induced to believe that the Committees of Stocking Makers who are pressing for an advance of wages encourage these unlawful proceedings, or at least possess a power of controuling them, when it is certified to them, by the working Stocking Makers that any individual Hosier has submitted to the advance of price proposed by the Committees. Messrs: Needham and Nixons are desirous of offering a Reward of two Hundred Guineas to any Person that may inform concerning the transaction detailed in the enclosed examination so as to lead to the conviction of any one of the Offenders, and they have requested me to solicit of your Lordship that the Reward may be offered by His Majesty's Government, the responsibility of expence resting on Messrs Needham and Nixons who consider this method is the most likely to obtain the ends of Justice & also to prevent a repetition of the Offence.

I Have [etc]

W. J. N. Norton
Sheriff of the County of Nottingham

[To]
Right Honble
Lord Viscount Sidmouth
Secretary of State for the Home Department &c &c &c

This letter can be found at HO 42/138.

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