THE LUDDITE NOVELS 10: BENTLEY, NED CARVER IN DANGER

 The Centres of Yorkshire Luddism

1] Almondbury & Castle Hill 2] Milnsbridge 3] Warren House 4] Rawfolds 5] Hartshead 6] Dumb Steeple 7 Three Nuns 7] The Shears 8] The Yew Tree 9] The Star 10] Brighouse and Raistrick 11] Bradley Woods 

Bentley, Phillis, Ned Carver in Danger, 1967 (London, Macdonald, 1967)

Geography and Names:

Bentley has a pre-existing code for the area, so many of the names are familiar from novels like inheritance for example  Marsden and Slaithewait are merged as ‘Marthwaite’.   In Chapter 2 Ned visits the forge of ‘Enoch Smith’, Bentley’s renaming of ‘Enoch Taylor’ at ‘Marthwaite’.  A lot of the action takes place in ‘Hudley’ that chapter 4 shows with a ‘Piece Hall’ (p 46) where cloth is sold and a ‘St Crispin’s Inn (p 51) where Luddites meet.  Hudley also has an ‘old parish church’ with a ‘painted wooden begging-figure… Old Tristram as people called him,’ (Chp 5, p 80). 

 Except for St Cripin’s inn which was demolished in 1844 http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~calderdalecompanion/p200_s.html  all these features still exist in Halifax, which is transformed by borrowing a bit of the name of ‘Huddersfield’. 

                   The Piece Hall undergoing restoration 2016                                                       Site of St Crispin's Inn      

                                 Huddersfield Minster                                                                              Old Tristram

    A view of the tower,  approaching from where St Crispin's used to stand.  

 ‘Huddersfield ‘ itself is ‘Annotsfield’. 

The geography becomes more confusing when trying to locate the hero’s village ‘High Hurst’.  The name is close to ‘Upper Hirst’, a hamlet on the north-east edge of Huddersfield near the road that becomes Outlane but ‘Hurstbridge’, which is close to ‘High Hurst’ contains the Shears Inn, a Luddite pub.  The cropping shop where Ned starts work in Chapter 3 is close to the Shears (‘nearby’ p 41) and from the windows of the cropping shop Robert looks down on ‘Thonghurst’ mill and can see the water where Ned and Charles nearly drown: ‘I looked out and saw you and Charles in the water,’ (p 40).  As ‘Thonghurst’  is ‘Cartwright’s mill’ (p 40) this means ‘Rawfolds’ and  so ‘High Hurst’ appears to be an adaptation of ‘Hightown’, the settlement on the ridge between Harthead Moor and Liversedge.  The situation is confused because Bentley seems to have given ‘Hurstbridge’ the bridge of Ellend, some 4 miles south-east:

  ‘but are we right that Hurstbridge is Elland? It has to be a town a couple of miles from Halifax with a three-arched bridge.’

  http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/news/opinion/letters/riddle-of-phyllis-s-towns-1-1904838

This would put 'Hurst' in a different place to The Rise of Henry Morcar .  Here Henry Morcar grows up in 'Hurst'.  This 'Hurst' is a fashionable area  next to 'Hursthead Park' which would appear to be Greenhead Park to the north east of Huddersfield town centre. 

More problematic is Bentley’s decision to inscribe the real events of 1812 into the fictionalisation established by Inheritance.   Mr Cartwright enters the narrative under his own name but the mill he owns is called ‘Thonghurst’ not ‘Rawfolds’.   George Mellor is the ringleader in the attack on Cartwright’s Mill and the assassination of a mill-owner but the shot man is not Horsfall but ‘Mr Oldroyd of Syke Mill in the Ire Valley,’ (Chp 7, p 113).  Continuing the fictional names established in Inheritance, Ned finds himself in York prison next to ‘Bamford’, who ‘though one of the three accused of murder, was one of the kindest, nicest men I have ever met,’ (Chp 10, p 142).  This is Jonathan Bamford who, in Inheritance, plays the role played by John Booth in Bond Slaves; the well-meaning, misled innocent.   

Conflict/Politics

David’s political outlook, that closes Inheritance, finds a more natural home in a book addressed to boys of approximately his age.   The hero Ned is  is 13 when the book starts and some of his first words are ‘evil means should never be employed, even for good ends,’ (Chp 1, p 7).   As in Mary Barton and Inheritance the solution to economic misery appears to be explanation rather than syndicalism: ‘Why could the two sides, masters and men, not sat down together and discussed the frames?’ (Chp 11, p 165).     At the end of the book Ned observes the psychological damage the conflict has caused Mr Cartwright.  The first object Ned sees in the room is the commendation drawn up by other owners which stirs Ned’s anger.  This disappears when he sees that Mr Cartwright is ‘stooped, his shoulders hunched forward as he sat; ... In a word his aspect was most miserable,’ (Chp 11,p 163).   A price for confrontation has been paid by each side, though Ned does not remark that Cartwright is still master of his mill whilst his enemies have been hanged, transported or silenced.

Nevertheless, where Inheritance dramatizes the masters’ perspective, Ned Carter gives the Luddite point of view.  Where David imagined himself smuggling machines past Luddites, Ned runs onto the moors to join the Luddite smashing frames (Chp 4).  Ned is equally determined to be in on the attack on Cartwright’s Mill and joins the men assembled at the Dumb Steeple (Chp 5, p 94).  

Bentley follows Sad Times in having her Luddites draw up 'in rows, thirteen in a row' but they march 'two by two' .

Though the actual night was moonless this takes place under  'a nearly full moon...behind the clouds' ( Chp 6, p 95).

Luddites marching past Hartshead Church in the light of Bentley's imagination.  

Ned is posted as a look-out not an attacker and looks on with a strange detachment.   His response to the ferocity of the attack is oddly genteel: ‘I own I was rather taken aback,’ and aesthetic ‘an exciting but awe-inspiring din,’ (Chp 6, p 97).   After the panic-stricken repulse of the attackers: ‘an anguish of rage and fear,’ (Chp 6, p 98) his commitment is expressed through finding and saving the wounded Robert. 

As the book is addressed to children a sociological/historical interpretation replaces the pattern of sexual domination and triumph of the will that informs Inheritance.   The closest Ned Carter comes to this pattern is the rivalry between George and Robert ‘standing facing each other on the hearth, looking very angry and obviously quarrelling, ‘(Chp 5, p82).   Robert’s macho behaviour does not seem to impress Rose, who spends most of the book worrying about the trouble he is getting into.   She is right to be worried.  Where Robert is shown to be well-meaning, albeit hot headed, the authorities are shown as sly.  M’donald appears as in this book as ‘McDonald’, a magistrate's spy.   He persuades Ned to lead him to Mr Stead, who administers the Luddite oath but afterwards McDonald betrays them to the authorities.  The oath itself is sworn on the Bible as M'donald reported but Bentley does not introduce the Satanic apparatus and associations created by Lodge and Banks. 

Mr Stead is the equivalent of Bank’s John Baines, a spokesman for ‘the glorious triumph of democracy!’ (Chp 3, p 50).   Banks is writing to a society whose ruling classes had been dragged reluctantly through the Reform Bills of 1832, 1867 and 1884, and she expects some kind of approval for her denunciation of Baines.  By contrast  Bentley is writing to a fully-enfranchised  Britain of the late 1960s to children who are being brought up to think that democracy is their right.  Consequently Mr Stead is allowed to echo some of the radical voices emerging amongst the young of 1967, though these thoughts are given a tone aptly reminiscent of Shelley’s ‘The Masque of Anarchy’ from 1819.

Shelley’s poem ends: XXXVIII

'Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number,

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you -

Ye are many - they are few.’ http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/poetryperformance/shelley/poem3/shelley3.html

Stead’s version is: ‘Oh that the long-suffering people of England would rise up in their strength and crush their oppressors in the dust!’ (Chp 3, p 50).  He tries to defend the right to protest when he is on trial: ‘this is a free country.  A man is entitled to think as he likes,’ (Chp 10, p149) but he is suppressed by the judge.  ‘So speaks the voice of tyranny!’ retorts Mr Stead, (Chp 10, p 149).  However his eloquence does not save him from transportation.   Where Banks inserts a voice complaining that Baines is getting off lightly with such a sentence, Bentley shows the severity of deportation.  Mr Stead dies in the Bay of Biscay: ‘the continual drenching from the waves and the painful stress of seasickness, proved too much for his frail body,’ (Chp 12, p 166).     

Nevertheless the text draws back from endorsing the shooting of ‘Mr Oldroyd’ and, like other novels, sees this act as alienating many Luddite supporters.  Though the attack on Cartwright’s Mill failed Ned’s comment is that the textile workers ‘respected and even admired the Luddites for their bold stand,’ (Chp 7, p 112).  He sees the killing as changing this: ‘I think that most of the Luddites (mistakenly) felt, like myself, that they had not done anything very wrong so far.  But murder was a different matter,’ (Chp 7, p 113).  The bracketed word ‘mistakenly’ tries to bridge the gap between Ned the participant and Ned the sadder but wiser narrator.    

Ecology

The book exposes a strange omission of the 19th century Luddite novels; they never show the insides of factories.   The text does so swiftly.   On page 12 of chapter 1 Ned, who is under 13 at the time, looks into Cartwright’s Mill: ‘There were children, as young as myself and younger, working there, standing at machines which were turned by a shaft’.   This is Ned’s first glimpse of a world in which he will work.   He is not an owner, unlike Ben O’ Bills or Henty’s Ned, but a mere ‘piecener’ (Chp 7, p 110).  He’s at the mercy of the ‘slubber’ who ‘would shout and curse at the children, and sometimes beat them,’ (Chp 7, p 111.  Though the text does not state the brutalising effect of this treatment, the incident shows Bentley is more concerned at the damage industry does to the psychology of people, not the physical damage to the environment.    When the slubber discovers Ned’s Luddite links, he does not denounce him but treats him differently: ‘My slubber treated me with respect and even kindness for the next few days, ‘ (Chp 7, p 113).  Here Bentley shows local sympathies as lying with the Luddites, though the chapter ends with the realisation that Mellor has probably shot Oldroyd and allows Uncle Amos to comment: ‘Once begin with violence, you don’t know where it will end,’ (Chp 7, p 114).

Initially Ned works in a cropping shop so readers are allowed to experience work before and after industrialisation.   An essential tool for the croppers is a brush made out of the wild flower the teasel.   Ned’s  job in the cropping shop involves cleaning the teasels used to raise the nap of the cloth before it is cropped:

           Clean out these teasels with this comb.  It’s like preening a bird’s feathers you see.  That’s why

           you’re called a preemer boy.  (Chp 3, p 36) 

                           A dry teasel ready for use.                                                  Teasels growing near Almondbury Woods.

                                                                                                                            The heads are first green then purple. 

Because the Fuller’s Teasel was so important to the clothing industry they were grown commercially. http://archive.bsbi.org.uk/Proc7p377.pdf  There are still plenty growing wild around the Calder and Colne valleys

The work is neither demanding nor satisfying but it allows Ned the chance to work at a human rhythm amidst men he likes.  The mill works at the pace of machinery and offers no similar comradeship.   Bentley does not idealise manual work.   Neds finds out how heavy the cropping shears are and Robert explains

          How the shears were worked, and how continually pressing the “nog” or lever at the top edge of the blades raised a lump on the 

          cropper’s wrist. (Chp 3, p 35)

This is the ‘croppers’ hoof’ many contemporary observers and novelists mention.

The rear view of the Luddite Statue shows the strain of lifting heavy cropping shears.  

As in other texts a manufacturer predicts the future.  Mr Cartwright claims ‘You can’t turn back the tide of progress, Ned.   Machinery is here to stay.  It will benefit us all, in the long run,’ (Chp 11, p 164).  Ned asks the pertinent question:  ‘How long must it be?’ (Chp 11, p 164) but he does not remain in Yorkshire to find out.  Robert, Tim and Mr Stead are transported whilst Tim’s wife, Robert’s fiancé and Ned sail to Australia on the same ship as freemen.   Pessimism in the human cost of industrialism is offset by optimism in the prospect of a new life in Australia.   Traditional songs are not as sanguine. 

A verse which occurs in more than one song about transportation points out that the first convicts were used as beasts of burden before horses and similar European domestic animals had been imported:

 Where the judges they stand with their whips in their hands,

They drive us like horses to plough up the land.

You should see us poor young fellows, working in the gaol-yard,

Oh, how hard is the life in Australia.

‘Australia’

Come all you young fellows where some'er you may be,

Come listen awhile to my story.

For when I was a young man, my age seventeen,

I ought to be serving Victoria, our Queen.

But those hard-hearted judges, oh, how cruel they be

To send us poor young lads to Australia.

I fell in with a damsel, she was handsome and gay,

I neglected my work more and more every day,

And to keep her like a lady, I went on the highway,

And for that I was sent to Australia.

Where the judges they stand with their whips in their hands,

They drive us like horses to plough up the land.

You should see us poor young fellows, working in the gaol-yard,

Oh, how hard is the life in Australia.

Australia, Australia, I would ne'er see thee more,

I'm worn out with fever, cast down to Death's door,

But if I live to see, say, seven years more,

I would then bid adieu to Australia,

I would then bid adieu to Australia.

Bob Hart

https://mainlynorfolk.info/steeleye.span/songs/australia.html

Though this particular song is rare, songs recounting the suffering of transports are amongst the most common songs collected even as late and the 1950s-70s in England.  Walter Pardon had one of the most detailed: ‘Van Diemen’s Land : https://mainlynorfolk.info/peter.bellamy/songs/henrythepoacher.html

By 1812 the original settlements of Australia had been in existence some 29 years whilst Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) had had few transports.  Any prisoners sent there in 1812 would have faced more brutal circumstances than on the mainland.

Heartland

Unlike all the other Luddite novels Ned Carter does not attempt to reassure its readers that there is still an unchanging, rural England.   Ned regrets saying farewell to the Yorkshire landscape; ‘the purple heather, the grey clouds racing, the lapwings sharply wheeling,’ but is excited this will be replaced by a landscape of Australia with ‘great mountains, huge foaming rivers, tremendous trees,’  and ‘rich farm land,’ (Chp 12, p 166).  Australia becomes the new ‘timeless’ landscape of natural and man-made beauty; there is no hint it will be industrialised like the Yorkshire Ned leaves behind with the same optimism as the ‘£10 Poms’ of the 1940s-80s. When Ned Carter in Danger was written, the scheme was at the height of its popularity.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7217889.stm

Heather growing on Harden Hill road south of Meltham  

Dissent

There is no demonisation of Luddites or of dissent.    Mc Donald is sworn in over a Bible and addressed in Quaker-like tones: ‘What is thy name?’ (Chp 8, p 121) but there is no suggestion that this is blasphemous nor are there any of the theatrical trappings of other fictions.    As in M’donald’s original account all ‘twissing in’ requires is a man to administer the oath and two witnesses.   In Chapter 9 Mr Stead asks to be given a Bible in prison and comforts Tim and Ned: ‘Morning and evening we had prayers, and readings from the Bible,’ (Chp 9, p 134).  Stead turns the Bible to practical use and continues Ned’s education: ‘I read from the Bible every day, ‘ ‘I practised writing too,’ (Chp9, p 134).   As Ned is in prison when the executions are carried out the text does not mention the singing of ‘Behold the Savour of Mankind’ but the importance of dissent and its link with the demand for democracy has been established.

 Rocking Stone Hill to the west of Lower Hirst shows 'the purple heather, the grey clouds racing'  of Ned's Yorkshire.