Rights, Rebellion and Resistance - the fight for the Commons - talk followed by conversation and discussion with Danny Budzak

In 1830 the industrial revolution became more obvious in Kent with the opening of the Canterbury to Whitstable railway. Steam power, railways, machines, new industrial processes created ongoing revolutions in the means of production.

This new world was one of Romantic opposition, of Frankenstein and gothic horror, of William Godwin's philosophy of anarchism, Mary Wollstonecraft's advocacy of feminism and women's rights, of Tom Paine's support for the French Revolution and the Rights of Man.

Technical change, the notion of rights and class struggle came together in the Kent countryside with the Captain Swing Riots of 1830 and beyond. The enclosure movement which began at the end of the eighteenth century smashed up the traditional village way of life. Labourers were forced into destitution, hunger and poverty. Land that had been held in common for centuries, ancient rights to the use of wastes and woods, meadows and hedges were stolen from the mass of people. Even the right to own a cow, a pig, a dog was taken from the labourers.

Labourers organised in the local villages, met in the local pubs, marched in large groups with fiery torches to break the machines that took their work and made them poor. By night others moved silently through the darkened fields, their only mark the sudden bright burning of barns, straw and hay ricks.

These desperate actions were met with fierce repression. Labourers were fined, imprisoned, deported and hanged. In the process, a village way of life which had been known through customs, practice and traditions was destroyed. A world of community and basic solidarity was replaced by one of alienation and grim competition. The historians JL and Barbara Hammond pointed out that what the labourers lost in the way of their rights were never compensated for by promises and paltry money payments.

This loss of the Commons continues. Since the Kent labourers fought and lost their battles to retain access to the Commons, more and more land has been taken from people around the world. Over the past 200 years peasant and farm working communities on a global scale have lost access to land, access to the free resources of the earth, lost the rights to till their own gardens, plots of soil and allotments, lost the democracy of communal farming methods.

The implications are felt by people, communities and the very land itself and the struggle for Rights and the Commons continues today. We are often told of what change and technology can do, but hear less about what they un-do. There will be plenty of time for discussion and debate. We should take the opportunity; for with the power of giant media organisations with populist right-wing agendas, even free and speak easy conversation seems to be under threat.

Danny Budzak is fascinated by the idea of history being a process involving people, classes, technologies and changes in the means of production. He is as interested in the medieval graffiti in Kent churches as in the container ships and oil and chemical tankers which sail through the channel. Read more of his essays on his blog.

With regard to Covid-19, although restrictions have been eased, please do not take part if you are experiencing or displaying any Covid-19 symptoms such as a continuous cough, high temperature, loss of taste or smell.

The event is part of The DAD Digital Festival (DDF21) made possible by funding from Arts Council England.

Photo: Fields and footpaths about to be covered by a lorry park near Dover