ON APRIL 24 1812 an angry, desperate crowd formed outside the Wroe and Duncough cotton mill in Westhoughton. They were working people, spinners and weavers, angry at falling wages and rising prices, angry with the war against France which was choking trade, angry above all with the machines, the water frames, the spinning Jennys and mules which put men out of work and glutted the market with cheap cloth.

The machines were the first targets. Men broke into the mill and smashed them to pieces.

Then the prepared cloth was shredded and set on fire. The mill was gutted.

Seven thousand pounds worth of damage was done, at a time when a weaver in work made 14 shillings (70p) a week.

The forces of law and order arrived. A magistrate read the Riot Act and the crowd was dispersed by cavalry from the Scots Greys.

The ringleaders were placed under arrest.

In all 14 people were indicted and tried at Lancaster later that year. Ten of them -- seven men, two girls, aged 19 and 16, and a 15 year old boy were acquitted. The other four were hanged.

They were John Fletcher, aged 34, James Smith, aged 31, Thomas Kerfoot, aged 26, and Abraham Charlton, aged 16. When Abraham Charlton stood on the gallows with the noose round his neck he cried out: "Oh mammy, mammy-" and then the trap door opened and he was gone

At this time the so-called "Black Acts" were in force throughout Britain.

Offences as petty as minor theft and defacing Westminster Bridge were punishable by death. Arson was certainly a hanging matter. And the government was fearful of revolution.

Just how fearful emerged later. Government agents had infiltrated the band that burned down Wroe and Duncough. It was alleged that these spies, known as "Black-faces" had egged on the people to riot and commit arson.

How had this state of affairs come about?

The distress of the working people stood in sharp contrast to their condition in 1795, when trade was booming.

In that year a weaver could make 33s 3d a week, a pretty handsome wage for the time. Weavers wore top boots and ruffled shirts, carried walking canes, smoked church warden pipes and frequently had a five pound note tucked into their hat-bands as an ostentatious display of wealth.

They took the stagecoach to Manchester and enjoyed playing hearty practical jokes on each other -- the practice was known as "trotting" and the people who did it were known as "Bolton Trotters".

In 1795 Bolton was booming. The population was up to 11,000 and was growing faster all the while.

The Bolton, Bury and Manchester Canal began in 1791. Travel on it was slow but cheap, and heavy loads could be easily shifted.

Boats left from Church Wharf and made the trip to Manchester within three hours.

James Thwaites had built the first spinning mill in Bolton in 1780. It stood on King Street. Other mills had joined it by 1795 and the first steam engines (or as they were then called, fire engines) had been constructed in 1792.

The first was at Peel, Ainsworth and Co. which stood on the banks of the River Croal on the site of the later Bridson Croft. Further down the river George Grime built another steam engine for his mill, and yet further down there was another built by Carliles.

These first steam engines did not directly power the spinning machinery. Instead they pumped the water which turned the wheels which powered the machines.

Independent small traders did most of the spinning and weaving in Bolton. They had a couple of spinning mules set up, either at home or in a rented room, or in a stall at one of the new mills.

When times were good they liked to strut their stuff, put a fiver in their hats and do a spot of trotting.

As the population grew there was a demand for reform. Bolton was still governed as if it was a tiny village in the middle of nowhere by the Manor Court and the Church Vestry. The lords of the manor appointed Churchwardens, Constables, Overseers of the Poor and Scavengers (to keep the dung heaps in order) and justice was done at the Court Leet. But by the end of the 18th century these medieval institutions were failing under the pressure.

In 1792 an Act of Parliament was procured to enclose Bolton Moor. In effect this meant that all the common land in the town was taken under the control of three commissioners -- Matthew Fletcher, Ralph Fletcher and David Claughton -- and then sold or rented out, the proceeds going towards improving the town's roads and amenities.

In 1795 the Pillory stood in the Market Place. The pillory was a set of stocks that imprisoned head and arms and was used to humiliate petty offenders, who would be insulted and perhaps pelted with mud by passers-by. There was a dungeon on Windy Bank -- that is Bank Street -- behind the Hare and Hounds Inn.

So Bolton in 1795 was a boomtown. What went wrong?

There is no simple answer. In 1793 Revolutionary France declared war on Britain, a war which was to last for 22 years. This affected business, especially when Napoleon tried to ruin Britain by strangling its trade with the Continental system, which closed Europe to British exports.

At the same time the very success of the machine powered spinning industries glutted the market. From being able to earn 33s 3d in 1795, a weaver's wage fell to 24s in 1794, and 14s in 1815.

Some people in Bolton thought the only cure was peace.

One such man, William Callant, was hanged in 1801 after he tried to spread agitation among men of the 17th Light Dragoons, then stationed in the town.

Others looked to see a French style revolution in Britain. Others just lashed out at the hated machines. These people became known as Luddites.

To set against this there were many examples of patriotism and patriotic fervour in the town at this time.

Clubs were formed -- the Lord Nelson Club, which met at the Ship Inn and which celebrated the memory of the dead hero.

Others included the Pitt Club, the Bolton Church and King Club, and the First Female Union society; all of them dedicated to the flag and the constitution.

Mass celebrations were arranged for King George III's fiftieth anniversary in 1810. Bolton raised a company of marines in 1793. The Bolton Loyal Volunteer infantry was formed in 1794, and the Light Horse Volunteers in 1798.

There was a sinister side to these displays of loyalty. In 1793 Tom Paine, the English author of the Rights of Man, which sought to justify the French Revolution, was burned in effigy in the Market Place. The overheated atmosphere of the war created an "us and them" mentality. Government spies were set to infiltrate working men's organisations.

It didn't end with the war. Napoleon was defeated in 1815 at Waterloo and Bolton held a service of Thanksgiving, and pretty soon a Waterloo Club was formed.

But still the slump continued, wages fell and the price of bread rose. There was agitation for reform and spies haunted the streets.

One of the most notorious was a Bolton man called Waddington.

One day in 1818 he was walking down a street in town when he was recognised by a young schoolteacher who cried out: "Oh thou black-face".

In reply Waddington produced a gun and shot the young man through the thigh. Waddington was subsequently bailed and disappeared, while the schoolteacher was indicted and convicted for riot at Salford Assizes.

Bolton politics have never been simple. In the early 19th century they were dirty and dangerous.