The Luddites named themselves after a man who may never have existed.

The legend goes like this. In 1779 a weaver in Anstey, near Leicester, smashed two knitting frames in a fit of temper. In one version he had been whipped for idleness. In another, local youths had taunted him. Afterward, whenever a frame was broken, people would joke that "Ned Ludd did it."

There is no independent evidence for any of it. Wikipedia traces the story to an article in The Nottingham Review on 20 December 1811. Etymonline says instead that the story was first told in 1847. Either way, it surfaced decades after the supposed event, and it cannot be checked.

What is certain is the movement that borrowed the name. On 11 March 1811, in Arnold, Nottinghamshire, workers began breaking machines. The attacks spread to Yorkshire in early 1812 and to Lancashire after that. The frame-breakers sent threatening letters and proclamations signed by "General Ludd," "King Ludd" or "Captain Ludd." A fictional leader was useful. Nobody could arrest him.

The government's answer was harsh. Parliament made machine-breaking a capital crime in 1812. Wikipedia reports that about 12,000 troops were used to suppress the unrest. History.com says dozens of people were hanged or transported to Australia, and by 1813 the resistance had largely faded.

The modern meaning is unfair to the original Luddites. They were mostly skilled textile workers, and many operated machines themselves. Wikipedia says they were not opposed to machines as such. They attacked manufacturers who used machines to get around standard labor practices, at a time of hardship during the Napoleonic Wars.

The word outlived that context. Etymonline records the adjective from 1812. By 1961 it had been widened to mean modern opponents of automation and technology. History.com notes that the "technophobe" sense came into popular use only in the 20th century. Today calling someone a Luddite usually means they refuse to update their phone.

The Luddites were not the last rebels to invent a leader. In 1830, farmworkers in southern and eastern England smashed threshing machines and signed their threats "Swing." Captain Swing, like Ned Ludd, was a fictitious figurehead.