Early protest: Luddism, Peterloo, and Chartism

Luddism was a movement of British textile artisans who destroyed machinery between 1811 and 1816, concentrated chiefly in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire, and named after the mythical "Ned Ludd," a supposed artisan said to have smashed knitting frames. Luddites protested against the mechanical looms and knitting frames that were replacing skilled labor and driving down wages; they were not opposed to technology itself, but to its use in eliminating jobs and degrading working conditions without compensation. The British government responded with the Frame Breaking Act of 1812, which made the destruction of machinery a capital offense, and deployed as many as 12,000 soldiers to suppress the movement, at some points more troops than were fighting in the Peninsular War. Several Luddite leaders were executed or transported to Australia following trials held in York in 1813, and the movement had largely faded by 1816-17.