It is the second decade of the Nineteenth Century in early Industrial Revolution Nottingham. The emerging hosiery industry is the only means of livelihood for hundreds of refugees from the surrounding agricultural villages who have fled to the town in search of a less hazardous way of life. They are herded into hastily-built constructed slums, and grudgingly paid subsistence wages for a skilled product which is funding several private fortunes among the more wealthy entrepreneurs. The terms if international trade, blighted by the Napoleonic Wars, render the hosiery product hard to sell in Europe, while at the same time forcing the domestic food prices ever upward. Starvation and disease are rife in the festering courtyards of the resentful workers, who are desperate for a champion to their cause. Into the tinderbox someone throws a lighted fuse called Ned Lud...