Short answers, pulled from the story.
Captain Swing was a fictitious figurehead who signed threatening letters to farmers and magistrates across southern England. No real person named Captain Swing ever existed, yet the name unified disparate rural worker groups into a single movement.
The first machine destroyed fell on Saturday night the 28th of August 1830 at Lower Hardres. This event marked the beginning of widespread destruction of horse-powered threshing machines that threatened farmworker livelihoods.
Authorities sentenced 481 prisoners to transportation to penal colonies in Australia following the trials between 1830 and 1831. Six hundred forty-four other prisoners received incarceration terms while only 19 individuals were actually hanged out of 252 death sentences.
Earl Grey suggested parliamentary reform was the best way to reduce ongoing violence during a House of Lords debate on the 2nd of November 1830. Before this legislation only about three percent of the English population could vote leaving newly industrial northern England without representation.
The name Captain Swing first appeared in a letter dated the 21st of October 1830 published by The Times. This fictitious figurehead signed threatening missives sent to farmers and magistrates across southern England before machines were destroyed or barns burned.