for their discipline, a tradition of popular protest that went back to the eighteenth century. The act of marching towards an offending farmer's homestead served not only to maintain group discipline, but also to warn the wider community that they were regimented and determined. Often they sought to enlist local parish officials and occasionally magistrates to raise levels of poor relief as well. Throughout England, 2,000 protesters were brought to trial in 1830–1831; 252 were sentenced to death (though only 19 were actually hanged), 644 were imprisoned, and 481 were transported to penal colonies in Australia. Who was Swing? Threshing machines had been contentious since the Napoleonic wars. Letters had been sent to farmers, in the Reading area, suggesting that they should get rid of their threshing machines as early as 1811, the following two were reproduced in The London Gazette: On Saturday night, 28 August 1830, in the Elham Valley, Kent a threshing machine was destroyed by rioters. The ringleaders were arrested on the 27 September 1830, nine days after the word 'Swing' was graffitied on unpainted walls between Canterbury and Dover. Also two threatening letters were sent to local farmers, signed SWING: The letters threatened violence. The intention was to terrify the farmers. The local paper reported that farmers who received the first two letters, were so terrified that they placed their machines in the open field inviting their destruction. Initially the authorities were not clear who was responsible for the wrecking of threshing machines and other farm equipment blaming it on poachers, smugglers or deer-stealers. However it wasn't long before it was realised that it was mainly local village labourers. The authorities tried to identify who this 'Swing' was and apprehend him, it took a while for them to realise that Captain Swing was probably an invented name. The origin of the name is not clear. But the word 'Swing' seems to have a deliberate double meaning. It could represent how the part of flail known as either a swing or a swingel, which the thrasher brings down in contact with the corn. It can also represent a swinging corpse on the gallows or gibbet. Possibly a more plausible explanation is that after a work party had stopped to sharpen their scythes and were ready to recommence work the leader would shout out 'Swing!', the leader was usually known as the Captain, hence 'Captain Swing'. The name