This year is the 185th anniversary of when six Dorset farm labourers were sent to an Australian penal colony, but their ‘crimes’ helped change the face of employment rights for generations to come – and it all began in the small village of Tolpuddle.
Tolpuddle is a village near Dorchester in Dorset. During the years leading up to the arrest of the six offenders, a great wave of trade union activity took place and a lodge of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers was established. Entry into the union involved payment of a shilling (5p) and swearing before a picture of a skeleton never to tell anyone the union’s secrets. The average wage for a farm labourer at the time was 10 shillings per week, but the Tolpuddle men had seen their wages dropped to 7 shillings (with threats of future cuts). The fact that the men sword an oath made their actions illegal. Therefore, the men were arrested. Their employers feared possible unrest, for the British populations had not forgotten the French uprisings.
On 24 February 1834, George Loveless and five fellow workers – his brother James, James Hammett, James Brine, Thomas Standfield and Thomas’s son John – were charged with having taken an illegal oath. But their real crime in the eyes of the establishment was to have formed a trade union to protest about their meagre pay. The jury was made up of 12 farmers, the exact same type of men the labourers had been accused of offending.
Lord Melbourne, the British Prime Minister at this time, openly opposed the Trade Union Movement, so when six English farm labourers were sentenced in March 1834 to 7 years transportation to a penal colony in Australia for trade union activities, Lord Melbourne did not dispute the sentence. The Whig government had become alarmed at the working class discontent in the country at this time. The government and the landowners, led by James Frampton, were determined to squash the union and to control increasing outbreaks of dissent.
According to the BBC Home, “They were tried before an all-male 12 jury. The jury men were farmers, and the employers of the labourers under trial. The farmers themselves rented their land from the gentry – but it was the gentry who had opposed the idea of the labourers uniting. The men on trial stuck to their view. Their leader was George Loveless, and in addressing the judge and jury, he wrote: ‘My lord, if we had violated any law it was not done intentionally. We were uniting together to save ourselves, our wives and families from starvation.’ Even so, after a two day trial, Judge Baron Williams found them guilty: ‘The safety of the country was at stake,’ he said. They were sentenced to seven years in a penal colony in Australia, where they would have been sold on as slaves. It was the maximum sentence they could have had. They had been made an example of.”
The offenders were to be transported to a penal colony in Australia. After the trial many public protest meetings were held and there was uproar throughout the country at this sentence, so the prisoners were hastily transported to Australia without delay. The working class rose up in response to this sentencing A massive demonstration of 30,000 marched down Whitehall through London in support of the labourers, and an 800,000-strong petition was delivered to Parliament protesting about their sentence.
After three years, during which the trade union movement sustained the Martyrs’ families by collecting voluntary donations, the government relented and the men returned home with free pardons and as heroes.
After three years, during which the trade union movement sustained the Martyrs’ families by collecting voluntary donations, the government relented and the men returned home with free pardons and as heroes.
When finally home and free, some of the ‘martyrs’ settled on farms in England and four emigrated to Canada.
Leave a Reply