page_title: Threshing machine
section_title: Early social impacts
hierarchical_section_title: Threshing machine / Early social impacts
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Batteuse 1881 Deutsch: Zeichnung einer göpelbetriebenen Dreschmaschine aus einem technischen Lexikon des Jahres 1881 English: Drawing of a horse-powered thresher from a French dictionary (published in 1881)
context_page_description: A threshing machine or a thresher is a piece of farm equipment that threshes grain, that is, it removes the seeds from the stalks and husks. It does so by beating the plant to make the seeds fall out.
  Before such machines were developed, threshing was done by hand with flails: such hand threshing was very laborious and time-consuming, taking about one-quarter of agricultural labour by the 18th century. Mechanization of this process removed a substantial amount of drudgery from farm labour. The first threshing machine was invented circa 1786 by the Scottish engineer Andrew Meikle, and the subsequent adoption of such machines was one of the earlier examples of the mechanization of agriculture. During the 19th century, threshers and mechanical reapers and reaper-binders gradually became widespread and made grain production much less laborious.
  Michael Stirling is said to have invented a rotary threshing machine in 1758 which for forty years was used to process all the corn on his farm at Gateside. No published works have yet been found but his son William made a sworn statement to his minister to this fact. He also gave him the details of his father's death in 1796.
context_section_description: The Swing Riots in the UK were partly a result of the threshing machine. Following years of war, high taxes and low wages, farm labourers finally revolted in 1830. These farm labourers had faced unemployment for a number of years due to the widespread introduction of the threshing machine and the policy of enclosing fields. No longer were thousands of men needed to tend the crops, a few would suffice. With fewer jobs, lower wages and no prospects of things improving for these workers the threshing machine was the final straw, the machine was to place them on the brink of starvation. The Swing Rioters smashed threshing machines and threatened farmers who had them.
  The riots were dealt with very harshly. Nine of the rioters were hanged and a further 450 were transported to Australia.
caption: Threshing machine from 1881
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