Remembering the Tolpuddle Martyrs

 

On March 18th 1834, six farm labourers in Tolpuddle, Dorset England  were found guilty of taking an illegal oath and  attempting to form  a union, the friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers in a backdrop of  harsh working conditions. As they were barred from church halls or other indoor spaces, they sheltered under the spreading branches of the now world famous  sycamore tree in the heart of Tolpuddle,  to sign their oath. Under this tree in 1834,  exploited by their employers – paid just 9 shillings a week and living in dreadful poverty – they formed one of the first trades union in Britain to bargain for better pay and working conditions under the leadership of George Loveless. This tree is still growing strong and has become a symbolic birthplace of the Trade Unions movement. and a place of pilgrimage for trade unionists and socialists.

The life of an agricultural labourer in early nineteenth century Britain was a hard one. The Enclosure Acts, decreasing wages, rising unemployment, mechanisation and the poor harvests of 1828 and 1829 had led to widespread poverty and growing discontent amongst rural labourers.

 Loveless demonstrated the class politics than ran through those early struggles of the British labour movement. “Labour is the poor man’s property,” he said, “from which all protection is withheld. Has not the working man as much right to preserve and protect his labour as the rich man has his capital?” The fledgling union led by Loveless and his five comrades set out their demands to the local establishment: they would not accept any pay offer less than 10 shillings a week.

The landowners at this time, led by local squire James Frampton and supported by the government, were desperate to put a stop to the union and with  the bloody French Revolution and the wrecking of the Swing Rebellion https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-captain-swing-riots.html fresh in the minds of the British establishment, landowners were determined to stamp out any further outbreaks of dissent.

The Tolpuddle Six, George Loveless, James Loveless, Thomas Stanfield, John Stanfield, Joseph Brine and James Hammett  were arrested, sent to nearby Dorchester for Trial, and charged under the 1797 Mutiny Act. On the 19th  March they were convicted of administering secret oaths, however the real reason was because they had formed a trade union. To the likes of James Frampton, trade unionism was the thin end of a very dangerous wedge, but forming a union had not been illegal since 1824, when the Combination Acts had been repealed.The only option available to Squire Frampton was to invoke a law that actually applied to sailors in the Royal Navy and was designed to prevent mutinies. This made illegal the taking of secret oaths, which it was maintained had been done by the Tolpuddle unionists when recruiting new members. They were sentenced to the maximum penalty, seven years  penal labour and transported to Botany Bay,Australia as common criminals simply because they had made a stand against the poor treatment they received from their employees.

In sentencing the men the Judge Baron John Williams stated that their punishment was necessary for the ‘security of the country’ and would also serve as ‘an example and a warning’

.Lord Melbourne ensured the sentence was swiftly carried out.The Combination Acts may have been repealed but the ruling elite wanted to send a clear message and deter any would-be trade unionists. The six farm workers from Tolpuddle had been made an example of.and from their smoke-filled, stinking cell below the Crown Court in Dorchester, five of the convicted men were taken in chains to the prison hulks.

George Loveless later referred to the proceedings as having ‘a shameful disregard of justice’. James Frampton and his son Henry were both on the Grand Jury. The Foreman was Lord Melbourne’s brother-in-law William Ponsonby, wealthy landowner and the Whig MP for Dorset.

One of the chief witnesses called to give testimony in the trial was John Lock. Lock was the son of James Frampton’s head gardener at Moreton Hall and one of Frampton’s informers.

The Radical MP Thomas Wakley alleged in Parliament that the witnesses had been placed in gaol before the trial to ensure they appeared and gave the ‘required evidence’. Wakley also maintained that the men of the Petty Jury had been deliberately selected as those mostly likely to return a guilty verdict, which they duly did after little deliberation.

George Loveless wrote a short statement for the court ‘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.’

Transportation to Australia was brutal. Few ever returned from such a sentence as the harsh voyage and rigours of slavery took their toll. Hulks were condemned ships. There were usually three decks, each containing between 500 and 600 prisoners, issued with coarse convict clothing and fettered with heavy irons riveted to their legs. Disease was rampant. Epidemics of cholera, dysentery and smallpox swept through the packed masses, resulting in a tragic number of deaths on these voyages in such fetid ships.

The harshness and injustice of their treatment caused massive public outcry which led to enormous support for them with people across the country  rallying together and campaigning for their release.

On the 24 March 1834, 10,000 people attended a meeting held by Robert Owen’s Grand National Consolidated Trades Union.

Then on the 21 April up to 100,000 people assembled at Copenhagen Fields, near King’s Cross. Led by Robert Owen the demonstrators marched through London to Kennington Common.

They brought with them a petition of over 200,000 signatures calling for the Tolpuddle Martyr’s to be pardoned, but the Home Secretary Lord Melbourne refused to accept it due to a large number of people present.

The London Central Dorchester Committee was formed to campaign for the release of the six men and to raise funds for their families.

Questions were asked in Parliament. The first of several petitions calling for the men to be pardoned was presented to the House on the 26 March. The Radical MP Thomas Wakley and William Cobbett MP for Oldham were vociferous campaigners for the men’s release.

In June 1835 the new Home Secretary Lord John Russell proposed to give the men conditional pardons, but this was rejected. In the face of continued pressure, the Government finally granted a full pardon on the 14 March 1836.George Loveless arrived back from Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) in June 1837. Thomas and John Standfield, James Loveless and James Brine returned from Australia in March 1838 and James Hammett in August 1839, with all of the free men returning home as heroes.Their victory became a symbol to a working-class movement of the power of combination, not only in the matter of wages but in the achievement of democratic power through a charter of political rights.

However, they did not return to their old lives, although James Hammett spent most of the rest of his life in Tolpuddle, working as a builder’s labourer. He had always been the outsider of the group and it is possible that he had not actually been at the meeting witnessed by Edward Legg but had accepted arrest to protect his brother John, whose wife was about to give birth.

The other five continued to be active in the workers’ movement, including during the early years of Chartism, which campaigned for parliamentary reform. They all wrote about their experiences in Australia, particularly George Loveless who had a gift for eloquent writing as well as speaking.

The London Dorchester Committee, which had been formed to campaign for the Martyrs’ pardon and return, raised funds that allowed the men to take leases on farms in Essex, which they used as the base for their continuing political activity. While in Essex, James Brine married Thomas Standfield’s daughter, thus uniting the five men as an extended family. The Committee had also done what they could to support the families of the Martyrs during the latters’ time in Australia.

However, the opposition of local landowners in Essex persuaded the men to take another long journey, this time in somewhat greater comfort. All the families emigrated to Canada at various times during the 1840s, settling in Ontario and, except for James Loveless, buying farms of their own. The Lovelesses were active in Methodism in the Siloam area. More children were born, and they lived contented lives, all five Martyrs reaching old age. The last to die was James Brine in 1902, at the age of 90.

It would appear that, once in Canada, they sought to leave their old lives behind them, even to the extent that their Canada-born children were told nothing about the events of the 1830s.However, England had no intention of forgetting the Martyrs, who became symbols of the working-class movement.

Whilst in prison, George Loveless wrote a short poem: 

 

From field, from wave,
From plough, from anvil and, from Loom;
We come, our country’s rights to save,
And speak a tyrant faction’s doom:
We raise the watch-word liberty;
We will, we will, we will be free!; 

 

These words have inspired generations of people to fight injustice and oppression. The Tolpuddle martyrs story is about how ordinary working  people combined together to defend their lives.They  are commemorated every year at the Tolpuddle Martyrs festival every July, I have been planning to make a pilgrimage for years. Here is a link http://www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/ 

The idea of solidarity as a basic human right is now an international demand. The act of solidarity works. We need dissent and action in this land, now more than ever, to help shape and build into a better fairer place for all.

The Martyrs tree