Thanks for many positive and encouraging comments and information here folks.

Looking back on those times I agree that it is difficult to take sides and say whether you would support the Luddites or the masters/mill owners and who was to blame.

My mind says progress is progress and the fledgling industrial revolution could not be stopped but my heart feels for the croppers who became Luddites to save not only their livelyhoods but their ability to work or die from starvation. There was no over-indulgent 'benefits' state then!

These were very hard and troubled times and it is very difficult to imagine what we would have done if we had been around in 1812!

Chris