ABSTRACT
When Ned Ludd announced his arrival upon the scene of industrial protest in Nottinghamshire in an 8 November 1811 letter threatening to destroy stocking frames owned by Edward Hollingsworth of Bulwell, he began a record of the life of a movement that came to be named after him and identified with him:
Mr H[illegible]
at Bullwell
Sr,
Sir if you do not pull don the Frames or stop pay [in] Goods onely for work extra work or m[ake] in Full fashon my Companey will [vi]sit yr machines for execution agai[nst] [y]ou—Mr Bolton the Forfeit—I visitd him—
Ned Lu[d]
Kings [illegible] (Binfield 74).
This essay is an experiment in understanding the life of the Luddite movement through the words written by those participating in it, laborers in the framework knitting trade who adopted a common identity through the pseudonym, later eponym, “Ned Ludd.” The Luddite writers did not intend to produce an autobiography of Ned Ludd when they began to write threatening letters, proclamations, verses, and satires in protest against the wage, hiring, and manufacturing practices in the framework knitting trade. Nevertheless, their writings might be read as chapters in the life-story of the eponym through which the movement expressed itself and upon which the movement was structured. 1