(p. 240) Not only was Richard Hargreaves’s original spinningjenny destroyed in 1767, but so also was his new and improved version in 1769.
Nor was the phenomenon exclusively British. Machine breaking in France was at least as frequent. and probably even more consequential, though it can be hard to tease out whether the phenomenon contributed to, or was a symptom of, some of the uglier aspects of the French Revolution. Normandy in particular, which was not only close to England but the most “English” region of France, was the site of dozens of incidents in 1789 alone. In July, hundreds of spinnigjennys were destroyed, along with a French version of Arkwright’s water frame. In October, an attorney in Rouen applauded the destruction of “the machines used in cotton-spinning that have deprived many workers of their jobs.” In Troyes, spinners rioted, killing the mayor and mutilating his body because he had favored machines.” The carders of Lille destroyed machines in 1790; in 1791, the spinning jennies of Roanne were hacked up and burned. By 1796, administrators in the Department of the Somme were complaining, it turns out presciently, that the prejudice against machinery has led the commercial classes . . . to abandon their interest in the cotton industry.
Source:
Rosen, William. The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention. New York: Random House, 2010.
(Note: ellipsis in original.)