Loughborough, Emmanuel Church c.1950

Photo ref: L197018

More about this scene

John Heathcoat and John Boden had a factory in Mill Street (now Market Street) making lace by powered machinery. This mill became the focus of the lacemakers' pent up anger in 1816. Heathcoat seems to have expected trouble. He had armed watchmen and some special constables at the mill. The intending attackers spent much of the day in the Duke of York on Nottingham Road, drinking and singing revolutionary songs. Unsurprisingly, they attracted a certain amount of attention. By midnight, the drunken and rowdy attackers had assembled on the corner of Green Close Lane, making no attempt at stealth. They kidnapped one woman they encountered and ordered another to blow out her candle before they blew out her brains! At the mill, shots were exchanged, resulting in a watchman being wounded. The gang overpowered the other watchmen and factory workers and then smashed over 50 machines. Strangely, they wanted to shake hands with the wounded watchman before they left but it is not clear whether in fact they did so. The gang escaped via the ferry at Zouch but forgot to remove the blacking used to disguise their faces. The alarmed ferryman remembered them and the leader, James Towle, was arrested shortly afterwards. He was tried and executed in Nottingham; six more of the attackers were later hanged in Leicester.