Threshing machine

Andrew Meikle's drum threshing machine, patented in 1788 Beating grain out with a flail kept a large part of the farm workforce busy for months, and it provided up to half of a rural laborer's winter earnings. The machine Meikle (pictured) perfected took that work away. The bill came due in 1830, when the Swing Riots brought more than 3,000 cases of arson, looting, attacks on authorities and machine-breaking across 45 English counties, with threshing machines a main target. Economists have since found that parishes with the machines were nearly twice as likely to riot. It earns its place as the clearest early case of a labor-saving gain whose cost landed squarely on rural workers.