With years of war against Napoleon and blockades enforced to stop the cloth trade from England, near bankrupt mill-masters began to experiment with a new factory system of manufacturing and acquired machines to replace the men who worked in the former cottage industry.  These men and their families were reduced to penury by 1812.  Unrest was rife in northern England.

The story of Against the Machine follows one of these men, a young wool cropper and charismatic character named George Mellor who, enticed by various insurgents, is convinced to lead former workers in the West Riding, Yorkshire, against the mill-masters’ new enterprises.  When the owners will not listen, the Luddites, as they call themselves, begin to break into mills and smash the machines.

This brings England’s Parliament into the fray.  Blind to the common man’s plight, the government passes a bill legislating the death penalty for anyone caught breaking machines.  The legislation, of course, leads to increased violence, particularly involving George Mellor who begins to plan a vicious revolt and targeted assassinations.  With attacks on mills increasing, along with murders and assaults, Northern England falls under a kind of terrorism.

George Mellor also breaks other rules.  He begins an affair with Mary Buckworth, wife of a Curate who has sided with the Luddites. Their love story forms a significant subplot as, during a raid, the Curate is killed and when Mellor returns the body to his wife, Mary rejects George and turns him away despite her love for him.

Meanwhile government agents are busy attempting to suppress the rebellion.  Magistrate Joseph Radcliffe ignores the rules of law when he uses a sadistic, ambitious John Lloyd who tortures captives for information.  The army is also involved under General Maitland, making use of Captain Francis Raynes who devises a method of cavalry raids designed to kill or capture Luddites.  This Raynes also has an affair with the much older Radcliffe’s much younger wife, Fanny.

With increasing terror brought on by Mellor’s new tactics, more and more soldiers are posted north to prevent a potential rebellion.  Eventually, Mellor goes too far, murdering an owner named William Horsfall, which stirs Raynes and Lloyd into capturing him after a wild, week long chase across the moors.

Sent to York gaol with his cohorts, Mellor is to be hanged through the use of Special Commissions created by General Maitland.  Mary decides to visit the man she loves one last time. Having discovered she bears his child she wishes to give him some hope he will be remembered.  She finds Mellor a different man. 

Having rationalized his actions he has come to believe that war between the classes is perpetual, and war between those with and those without is inevitable.  Finally, if humans are not careful with what they make, their own machines might overcome them in a future war.  He considers himself a soldier in the fight to protect those yet to be born into this increasingly dangerous world.

Mellor endures a fabricated trial and is hanged two days later, admitting no offense.  Other Luddites are either hanged or transported.  Mary decides to leave the country for another York, this one in Upper Canada.