First Luddite memorial to be unveiled

The tumultuous events of April 1812 are to be remembered in a new park being created by Spen Valley Civic Society within yards of the inn where the Luddites swore their secret oaths and plotted against local mill owners.

The centrepiece of the new park, which is situated in Liversedge in the heart of the West Riding, will be an imposing sculpture depicting a cropper in a defiant pose with a small child tugging at his leather apron.

Croppers’ livelihoods were put at risk by increasing mechanisation in mills.

The croppers would use hand-held shears to trim the nap from cloth but a machine could do the work of four men.

They met at the Shears pub in Halifax Road to plot their campaign against mill owners and on April 12, 1812, a band of 150 Luddites attacked Cartwright Mills at Rawfolds with hammers and axes.

Two men were shot and the attack repulsed.

Escaping Luddites may well have fled past the site of the new Liversedge Sparrow Park which the society has created from a plot of derelict land.

At the subsequent trials at York Assizes 17 men were condemned to death and hanged.