Some additional info, from ingeb.org:

"Under the Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800, strikes and trade union organization were illegal (though by no means unknown), so the croppers secretly banded together to resist by smashing the offending frames or even by burning down the workshops in which they were housed. To carry out their work of destruction, they carried great hammers, known as Enochs, from the name of one of the partners of the firm that made them, Enoch and James Taylor of Marsden. Ironically, the same firm also made the shear-frames, which gave rise to the saying 'Enoch has made them and Enoch shall break them'. [...]

Despite the strong military presence, there were several attacks, including that on Foster's Mill, between Horbury and Ossett (near Wakefield), which took place on 9 April 1812. Three days later the croppers were less successful: their famous assault on Rawfolds Mill in the Spen valley was successfully repulsed by the owner, William Cartwright, and some workers and soldiers. Eight men later stood trial at York for their part in the attack, three others involved having already been hanged (and their bodies delivered to the surgeons to be dissected and anatomized) for the murder of the owner of another mill, William Horsfall. Five of the eight were found guilty, and hanged. They included John Walker, who had enlisted in the Royal Artillery at Woolwich to try to escape detection. He was remembered for many years afterwards at the Shears Inn (not far from Rawfolds, and still standing) for his singing of 'The Croppers' Song': 'Long before Walker had come to the end of his song the rollicking chorus was eagerly caught up by his delighted audience, and when the end was reached the refrain was twice repeated with extraordinary vigour, many of the men beating time on the long table with their sticks and pewter mugs.' The piece itself is clearly home-made, and is closely related to a song that tells of a conflict between keepers and poachers. On the other hand, the reverse might possibly be true, for I have come across no version of the poaching song dating from as early as 1812."


The song posted on this site is quite close to the Killens' version. Note, however, that this source claims only 8 men were hanged (and only 5 for the Rawfold's Mill incident), rather than the 16 asserted in McFarlane's song.


Some additional snippets about the mythical Ned Ludd from various web pages:
"The [Luddite] movement was believed to have been founded by Ned Ludd, but he was never identified, and may well be mythical. Some authorities claim his surname to be Ludlam. [...] The leader of the Marsden Luddites was George Mellor."

"The origin of 'Ludd' is unknown. There is no foundation for the story put out by The Nottingham Review on 20 December 1811, that an apprentice named Ned Ludd once smashed a machine of a master near Leicester and hence gave his name to the action. It is more likely that the local Nottingham speech had an expression similar to the one in Cornwall, where "sent all of a lud" meant "struck all of a heap", or smashed. More likely still, the name came from an historic King Lud who, as Milton wrote, gave his name to "Luds town, now London . . . [and was] buried by the GateWarr, in Peace a jolly Feaster," which sounds a lot like the Nottingham model."

[From Wikipedia:] "Ned Lud or Ned Ludd is the person that forms the basis for the character of "King (also known as Captain or General) Ludd" who was supposedly the leader and founder of the Luddites. He is supposed to have been feeble-minded.

No proof to his existence has been found, but he is often thought to have come from the village of Anstey, just outside Leicester, where he broke two stocking frames in a rage. The incident is identified as being in 1779, rather than at the time of the Luddites in the 1810s. The act was one of frustration, rather than an act of vandalism against the technology that the stocking frames represented: that technology had been in existence for almost two centuries. Lud was apparently annoyed by two children mocking his lack of intellect, and chased them into their house. Finding that they had escaped, he proceeded to break up their mother's frames. If this account is true then his action – carried through the years in folk memory – was thus mischaracterised by the Luddites. The character of Ned Ludd was commemorated in the folk ballad "General Ludd's Triumph." Chumbawamba recorded a version of it on their 1985 release, English Rebel Songs: 1381-1985."

Cheers!