Near the giant textile factory, row upon row upon row of squalid terraced houses huddle together as if to fend off the biting cold of a winter's night in December 1811. The dark night lo narrow streets of the industrial village of Holmeside as the hesitant morning light filters through the canopy of gloomy clouds. Inside the factory the workers work hard for hours. They got out of bed early and put on their work clothes. The luckiest ones ate a crust of bread and drank the remains of the previous day's milk before heading out into the freezing darkness to head to the mill. They brought the younger children. The older children trudged sleepily as if they had just been resurrected from the dead and not yet accustomed to walking. The eldest son is the lantern bearer. The lantern is a tallow candle remnant in a pickle jar with a rope handle. It would have been difficult for them to find their way before dawn without the light. Few of the plodding souls speak. Sleep possesses their limbs and minds in a disturbing pantomime that they are condemned to repeat every morning, from Monday to Saturday. The almost lifeless creatures are the working poor whose lives are ruined by the demands of industry. Their prospects do not improve with the passage of time. Some villagers do not work in the mill, but go around on errands. They get up long after the workers and do their best to prevent the bitter winter cold from forcing them into sick beds and coffins. They hope that the weather will not worsen and that no more rain, snow or frost will fall on the village and nearby settlements before their errands are completed, when they rush back home. After the workers leave their homes, those who are at home come or 'off the collar', the term for the unemployed... middle of paper... no. Despite having a learned ability to endure hardship, few did not want to escape. If anyone remembered what happened fourteen years ago, when a group of alienated and struggling workers took matters into their own hands to make up for having been fired from a new factory with machinery that made the workers, both skilled and unskilled, surplus to requirements. to their needs in one fell swoop, leaving them at the mercy of hunger. The following report was published in a local newspaper: During the night of November 20, 1797, there was a very scandalous riot at Beeston, near Leeds, and a large body of workmen vented their enmity towards machinery, by completely destroying a used mill for lifting cloth, by Messrs. Johnson, of Holbeck near Leeds. None of the rioters were later identified, as the night was dark and they did not allow lights to be brought to the scene..