Although contemporary to English Luddism, in its French incarnation, machine-breaking in the 19th century serves mostly to highlight the importance of what came earlier. Anglocentrism must not blind us to the importance of the wave of machine-breaking that took place in 1789–91. French machine-breaking was intertwined with growing popular militancy and the emergence of revolutionary politics, giving a decidedly different twist to labour relations in France that proved extraordinarily significant to the course of French industrial development. The “machinery question” investigated by Berg for the post-1815 period in Great Britain had, in large measure, been resolved a generation earlier in France.[76] On this point, see “Foreign Policy as Industrial Policy: the Anglo-French Commercial Treaty of 1786,” in Jeff Horn, The Path Not Taken: French Industrial Policy in the Age of Revolution 1750–1830 (forthcoming).

Carlyle opens his essay with the general diagnosis of "vaticination," stating that both individuals and societies concern themselves too much with the future. In what ways is this introductory technique similar to that of Samuel Johnson? The training standard required should be adequate in ensuring the health and safety of your workers and any people who may be affected by the work, so far as reasonably practicable. The term 'competent person' is also used in certain legislation, including LOLER and PUWER in the context of conducting a 'thorough examination' (eg of lifting equipment and power presses). Although 'competent person' is not defined in law, the ACOPs to PUWER and LOLER broadly describe the attributes of a competent person for undertaking thorough examinations: See Lefebvre, The Great Fear of 1789; and Émile Chaudron, La Grande peur en Champagne méridionale (Paris 1923).For those unfamiliar with this process, Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution is a fine English-language introduction.

Make sure that contractors and visiting drivers have clearly defined directions on where to park, load and unload and where to wait. This is particularly important if you are aware of public access routes across yards or if the delivery zone is adjacent to the farmhouse. The risks from animals An important recent article summarizes this view for Britain. Alessandro Nuvolari, “The `Machine Breakers’ and the Industrial Revolution,” The Journal of European Economic History, 31, 2 (2002), 393–426.

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cannot enter any yard or pen etc occupied by potentially dangerous animals. Remember that female animals, especially those with young, can kill or injure anyone, including children; keep children away from yards or places with vehicle movements and make sure they are returned to a responsible adult if they stray into transport areas. Yet historians have not confronted early textile engineering. As a research topic, it has not found its place. Various approaches have been tried: this is a ‘submerged sector’ with virtually no useable sources, so as an industry it is unknowable beyond the familiar great men and famous firms; or it is a matter of technology, a question in metal and wood, nuts, screws and bolts, a progression towards mechanical efficiency, in which those same great men represent human input; or it is a sideshow of the textile industry, whose energy fed it and led it; or it was essentially quite static, operating in almost the same way at the end of the transformative century as it had at the beginning. As lines of enquiry, none of these is sufficient. In a manner reminiscent of England, but not of Normandy, those directly affected by Sauvade’s innovations took swift action. In the early evening on 1 September, a group of artisans specializing in the making of forks gathered outside the workshop. Several municipal officers appeared in an attempt to forestall popular violence. Sauvade recognized the threat to his investment of 5,000 livres and promised the crowd that he would “delay perfecting his establishment until the people believed it offered some hope of employing workers, and if not, then desisting [from his innovations].” He even dismantled two cylinders essential to rolling sheet metal and handed them to the mayor for safekeeping. Appeased, the crowd dispersed. By the following morning, however, the crucial cylinders had disappeared, but that did not save Sauvade. A crowd dismantled the machines and waterworks, then burned the workshop. Perhaps by the design of the authorities, the troops sent to stop the destruction arrived too late to stop the pillaging. That evening some of the fork-makers threatened to beat up and burn the home of one of Sauvade’s mechanics should he help to rebuild the hated machinery.[55]

you consider whether it is reasonably practicable to temporarily fence rights of way so that cattle cannot access them.This litany of the activities of the popular classes that, taken together, transformed how France would be governed later, came to be termed by its critics: the “threat from below.” If the outline of popular activities in 1789 is well-known, one element, namely machine-breaking, is mentioned only in passing, if at all. However, the incidence and effect of French machine-breaking, both on entrepreneurs and the state, demands more attention, particularly in light of the parallel with English developments for understanding their divergent paths of industrialization and the potential importance of machine-breaking as a wedge for understanding the economic ramifications of revolutionary situations more generally. Dobson, Masters and Journeymen, appendix; Hobsbawm, “The Machine Breakers,” 11–4; Steven L. Kaplan, “Réflexions sur la police du monde du travail, 1700–1815,” Revue historique, 251 (December 1979), 35, 69–70; Frank E. Manuel, “The Luddite Movement in France,” Journal of Modern History, 10 (June 1938), 180–3; Allan Potofsky, “The Builders of Modern Paris: The Organization of Labor from Turgot to Napoleon,” PhD thesis, Columbia University, 1993; Rudé, The Crowd in History, 125 and Paris and London, 69; Michael Sonenscher, “Journeymen, the Courts and the French Trades 1781–1791,” Past and Present, 114 (1987), 77, 81. The quotation comes from the Rapport des Travaux de la Commission intermédiaire de Haute-Normandie, 200. See also Reddy, The Rise of Market Culture, 59–60. Georges Lefebvre, The Great Fear of 1789: Rural Panic in Revolutionary France, trans. Joan White (New York 1973 [1932]), 48; Charles Ballot, L’Introduction du machinisme dans l’industrie française (Geneva 1978 [1923]), 20; Jules Joseph Vernier, Cahiers de doléances des bailliages de Troyes et de Bar-sur-Seine, 3 vols. (Troyes 1909–11), I: 192–93; Guy Lemarchand and Claude Mazauric, “Le concept de la liberté d’entreprise dans une région de haut développement économique : la Haute-Normandie 1787–1800,” in Gérard Gayot and Jean-Pierre Hirsch, eds., La Révolution française et le développement du capitalisme (Lille 1989), 142–5. See also Roger Picard, Les cahiers de 1789 et les classes ouvrières (Paris 1910); and William Reddy, The Rise of Market Culture: The Textile Trade & French Society, 1750–1900 (Cambridge, UK, and Paris 1984), 58. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations use the term 'competent person' in relation to providing help in complying with health and safety law. See: A competent person for further information. The recently launched Occupational Health and Safety Consultants Register (OSHCR) can help businesses find competent help in managing their health and safety.