The Luddites: Fear of Technology in 19th Century Britain

AI? Robots? Machine Learning? Fear of technology is not new.  We go to 19th century Britain to meet the Luddites, a group who also experienced technological change. 

Transcript

The Luddites: Fear of Technology in the 19th Century 

July 2025

“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”

Albert Einstein

Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.” 

Christian Lous Lange

A recurring theme in both my podcast and Twitter feed is when, not if, AI will join an unholy alliance with robots and their human lookalike cousins, the androids, making the Terminator movies into a documentary.  We will be seeking out a John Connor (or several) to save us.  Will the robots make themselves look like Arnold Schwarzenegger just to mess with us? Will they resemble the Cylons from the 2000s Battlestar Galactica (well we hope) or the ones from the 1980s, with a pong-style eye bounce? Per androids, watching my golden doodle take on near-vertical cliffs in Billy goat fashion on our weekend walks, while I struggle along, why would sentient robots wish to go with bipedal structures anyway?  But then I am the guy who asks that if zombies need to feed on normal humans, what happens when none are available?  Do Zombies get hangry?  But I digress.  

Lately, vis a vis technology, I am a bit more sanguine about our fate.  For one, the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, which features the AI device HAL losing his cyber marbles, was made over 55 years ago.  Heck, even Terminator is now over 40.  The other basis for my optimism is seeing actual applications of AI.  We were promised massive advances in healthcare and even language by no less than Bob Dylan in IBM Watson commercials, the guy who never sells out but sold out for AI.  And so far, we have poorly written essays culled from Wikipedia and the Flintstones depicted as real people.  Of this latter, my conclusion is this must be what a 14-year-old male would consider was the Flintstones, rather than any sober rendering.   Check it out if you do not believe me.  And finally if the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, cannot figure out AI yet, then we a still a ways a away. How do I know this? Because his Grok recently starting spewing anti semitic remarks and called itself Mecha Hitler.  Still some bugs to work out.  

There are many and sundry disadvantages to aging.  Abandoning ski hills and 10Ks among them, and not being able to name all the Roman Emperors by memory.  However one of the pros is having seen, in real time, so-called, disastrous events.  Orwell’s 1984 is now 41 years in the past, and (so far) no Oceania or Ministries of Truth.  Every day, we may face a brave new world, but (so far) no Huxleyan soma drug to keep us all in line.  And in 2000, the Y2K predictions that whole computer systems and city-wide grids would shut down did not come to pass.  Though I decry the effects of social media on our children (no phones until 16, folks), technology has still been far more friend than enemy to our species.  

So all of this conjured up a group I mentioned in my previous podcast about protesters.  I am referring to members of a movement called the Luddites, and there historical reputation.  

The term “Luddite” is commonly used today to describe someone who resists technological change. But behind this shorthand lies a more nuanced and historically significant story about a group of English workers in the early 19th Century who responded to the Industrial Revolution with organized defiance. Yet the real Luddites were not irrational enemies of progress, but skilled artisans whose livelihoods were threatened by the sweeping technological and economic transformations of the time.  As Mark Twain may have noted, history does not repeat itself but it rhymes. The specter of AI displacement, or tech replacing our jobs, is not new.  

The Luddite movement emerged in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, a period of dramatic technological innovation and economic upheaval in Britain.  We discuss the pace of change today, and indeed, things have undergone significant alterations, especially with the aforementioned smartphones.  Yet consider the period between 1880 and 1940.  Vehicles ranging from cars to tractors, as well as airplanes, refrigerators, radios, and radar, were introduced.  Massive ships and even more massive buildings were erected.  The tallest building in the world in 1880 was the Cologne Cathedral, at 515 feet, with most of its height in the spires.  In 1940, it was the Empire State Building at nearly three times the height, all of it livable.  The basis for these achievements were laid down in the previous 100 years as machines of all kinds came online.  

Beginning in the late 1700s, new machinery—especially in the textile industry—enabled mass production, requiring fewer skilled workers. In particular, the invention and widespread use of devices such as the spinning jenny, power loom, and stocking frame revolutionized the production process.  

This industrial shift deeply affected skilled textile workers, especially weavers, knitters, and artisans in regions such as Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire. Many of these workers had practiced their crafts for generations and depended on traditional modes of production that gave them a measure of autonomy and economic stability. The introduction of mechanized factories threatened not just their jobs, but their entire way of life. Employers increasingly sought cheap, unskilled labor, often hiring women and children to operate machines at lower wages.

From then until today, the disruptions wrought by technology have been deeply affecting.  But what makes this period unique is that Britain of that period was engaged in nearly 25 years of continuous war.  The seeming never ending conflict with first Republican, and later Napoleonic France, placed a heavy burden on the British population through taxes and rising food prices. Economic inequality was stark, and laborers had limited legal protections or political recourse. Trade unions were banned under the Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800, making collective action illegal. In this atmosphere of repression and hardship, resistance began to take shape.

The Luddite movement officially began in 1811 in Nottinghamshire and quickly spread across industrial towns in northern England. The name “Luddite” derives from a fictional figure, Ned Ludd, who supposedly smashed a knitting machine in a fit of rage. Whether or not Ned Ludd ever existed, his name became a symbol for the growing movement. Richard Byrne, writing in the Baffler, notes, “But in a sense, it doesn’t matter who Ned Ludd might have been, any more than it’s important to certify the corporeal bona fides of the Molly Maguires and Tom Joads and Joe Hills of American labor apocrypha (though for the record, they are fictional, fictional, and actual, respectively).” This apocryphal figure was only the departure point for a rich mythology that grew around Ludd, the elusive guerrilla commander, which drew deep on the legends of Robin Hood (letters were sent ‘from Sherwood Forest’), and whose achievements were soon being celebrated in songs and ballads.

Luddites engaged in direct action, most famously by breaking into factories and destroying machines. These attacks were typically carried out at night, with participants disguising themselves and using sledgehammers and other tools to destroy textile machinery. The goal was not random vandalism but targeted sabotage. Luddites wanted to pressure factory owners to restore traditional labor practices and pay fair wages. Their movement was organized, with some evidence of secret communications, regional leadership, and even a rudimentary form of hierarchy.

Historian Eric Hobsbawm notes:

“There can, of course, be no doubt of the great feeling of opposition to new machines—a well-founded sentiment, in the opinion of no less an authority than the great Ricardo. Yet three observations ought to be made. First, this hostility was neither so indiscriminate nor so specific as has often been assumed. Second, with local or sectional exceptions, it was surprisingly weak in practice. Lastly, it was by no means confined to workers, but was shared by the great mass of public opinion, including many manufacturers.”

Despite the violence, Luddites were not revolutionaries in the broader political sense. They were not trying to overthrow the government or abolish capitalism. Instead, they sought to preserve their rights and livelihoods in the face of unregulated technological change. In many ways, their struggle was conservative: a defense of a pre-industrial social order in which skilled labor held value.

Richard Conniff, writing for the Smithsonian, states, “But the Luddites were neither as organized nor as dangerous as authorities believed. They set some factories on fire, but mainly they confined themselves to breaking machines. In truth, they inflicted less violence than they encountered. In one of the bloodiest incidents, in April 1812, some 2,000 protesters mobbed a mill near Manchester. The owner ordered his men to fire into the crowd, killing at least three and wounding 18. Soldiers killed at least five more the next day.”

The British government viewed the Luddite movement as a serious threat to public order and responded with overwhelming force. In 1812, the government passed the Frame Breaking Act, making machine-breaking a capital offense. In its own words,” An Act for the more exemplary Punishment of Persons destroying or injuring any Stocking or Lace Frames, or other Machines or Engines used in the Framework knitted Manufactory, or any Articles or Goods in such Frames or Machines”

Troops were deployed to industrial regions, and several Luddite leaders and participants were arrested, tried, and executed or transported to penal colonies. No less than George Gordon, better known to us as Lord Byron, spoke out against the suppression and in favor of the motivations of the Luddites: 

“The perseverance of these miserable men in their proceedings tends to prove that nothing but absolute want could have driven a large and once honest and industrious body of the people into the commission of excesses so hazardous to themselves, their families, and the community…I have been in some of the most oppressed provinces of Turkey, but never, under the most despotic of infidel governments, did I behold such squalid wretchedness as I have seen since my return, in the very heart of a Christian country. And what are your remedies? I have seen them meagre with famine, sullen with despair, careless of a life which your lordships are perhaps about to value at something less than the price of a stocking-frame.”

The government’s harsh response reflected a broader fear among the ruling classes: that the economic discontent fueling the Luddite movement could escalate into wider revolution, especially in the wake of the French Revolution. In 1813, a mass trial in York resulted in several hangings and numerous imprisonments. By the middle of 1813, 24 Luddites had been hanged publicly, two dozen were imprisoned, and 51 were transported to Australia, then serving as a penal colony. The Luddite protests ended as swiftly as they had begun.  By 1816, the movement had been largely suppressed, although sporadic acts of resistance continued for several more years.

Though short-lived, the Luddite movement has had a lasting legacy. At the time, it highlighted the social costs of industrialization, forcing the British public and policymakers to confront the consequences of rapid technological change. The movement also paved the way for future labor activism. In the decades that followed, workers gradually won the right to form unions, engage in collective bargaining, and participate in the political process through democratic reform.

The image of the Luddites as mindless machine-breakers is a product of later historical mythmaking. In reality, they were rational actors responding to very real threats to their economic survival. Their resistance was as much about economic justice and dignity as it was about machines.

As Kevin Binfield, the editor of the Writings of the Luddites, describes it, the protestors “were totally fine with machines… They just wanted machines that made high-quality goods, and they wanted these machines to be run by workers who had gone through an apprenticeship and got paid decent wages.”

“They weren’t fighting against machines – they were fighting for a way of life. And they did so with a sense of wit and symbolic potency that we can still learn from.” According to John Mitchinson of the BBC.  

Today, the Luddite movement has gained renewed relevance amid discussions about automation, artificial intelligence, and the gig economy.  Workers in many industries share similar concerns: that machines will replace human labor, that technological advancements will outpace regulatory measures, and that profits will be prioritized over people. In this sense, the Luddites can be seen not as enemies of progress but as early voices in a continuing debate about the ethical and social implications of technological innovation. Part of the Trump appeal is the feeling among workers, including traditional Democratic union members, that new technology is leaving them behind.  

And of course it is.  I started my business career working for a printing company.  Tens of thousands were employed in that industry as film producers, plate makers, print operators, and binders.  Almost all those jobs are gone, and we are only talking about 25 years ago. The consumption of information through digital means meant the elimination of all those roles.  Capitalism is the best form of economics ever conceived, but I am not blind to the fact that its “creative destruction” can be hell in many sectors.  And now we have AI threatening the traditional role of Writers, teachers, and even nee I say, historians.  

But what did not exist in the 1990s?  Hundreds of thousands of jobs at places like Microsoft, Facebook, Google and Amazon.  The issue is not the loss of a job but rather the changing nature of the jobs available.  

The positions of textile workers have morphed into something else in the past 200 years.  And just as we once had saddlers, silversmiths, and farmers growing hay all to support the horse industry, those workers became automobile plant workers.  And just as those workers are being squeezed out by robots, new jobs are being created all the time.  Disruption and displacement will exist even in my own patch of history.  Though I think that historians will be more affected by AI than by sentient machines taking over the world and hunting down humanity, I am not overly concerned.  AI may be able to summon facts about the Luddites, but can it conflate anything about Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a T-1000 made of liquid metal to a discussion of 18th century British workers? Uh, no!  Ok, if it does masters that, then everything I just said is wrong, all bets are off, and I am heading to the mountains with plenty of canned goods.  The robots will never find me there.