Stack firing

[RobinC]

A distant ancestor by the name of Thomas Desborough was convicted of this offence on 24th July 1880 in Cambridgeshire and was sentenced to 12 months h l (hard labour?).

Has anyone come across the term stack firing before?

[MarkJ]

Presumably it means setting fire to hay stacks. Firing is an older way of saying it.

[RobinC]

Presumably it means setting fire to hay stacks. Firing is an older way of saying it.

That could be true, however Thomas was 49 when he was imprisoned in Bedford during the 1881 census, I would have thought a younger person would have been more liable to set fire to haystacks for the purpose of mischief, unless he was paid to do it.....

[Coromandel]

I have seen the term rick firing in trial reports etc.: presumably the same thing. Newspapers may provide enlightenment? (get yourself that library ticket:))

[Peter Goodey]

purpose of mischief

More likely a bit of score settling.

[Hollytree]

Rick burning was a form of protest against the changes in the countryside........this article from the National Archives gives some idea of what was going on. Bit earlier than your case, but traditions of protest continued for quite a while, at least they didn't hang him:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/politics/g5/

Anne

[Jan1954]

It may well be connected to the beginnings of the agricultural labourers' unrest in that part of the country.

"When depression returned in the early 1870s, the countryside was again to witness burning barns and stacks."

From The Empty Fields (http://www.parishchest.com/index.php?cmd=viewproduct&cat=&id=P17364&pageOffset=0) by Roy Brazier.

Although the above mentioned book covered the Agricultural Strike of 1914, the rumblings started a lot earlier with militancy being quite rife in the 1870s and through to the early 1880s.