The Tolpuddle Martyrs

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30466, 13 June 1964, Page 5

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

{Specially w-itten for “The Press” by A. M. MENZIES) QNE of those small, sleepy, rural villages abounding in England, Tolpuddle, up till the 1830 s had remained just as insignificant as its name. A few miles from Dorchester, county town of the south-western shire of Dorset, it was a community of sober farm workers who did nothing to attract the attention of the world outside. Yet, when a young man called George Loveless arose at dawn on February 24, 1834, he was arrested in front of his wife and three children and, with five others, taken into Dorchester. •The next month they were sentenced to the dreaded transportation for seven years. ' ■

They became known as the Martyrs of Tolpuddle. By most standards there was no crime; they were victims of prejudice, fear and, finally, panic. They were made an example.

. The , French . Revolution, which opened partly as an agrarian rising, haunted the minds of • English ruling classes and England had had its own agricultural insurrection in 1830. Bands of farm labourers went from village to village throughout the south and south-west demanding higher wages, a protest against starvation conditions. Generally the revolt had little violence but the large landowners and the Government were highly alarmed so that when the disturbances were put down with more force than enough the punishments were ; savage. There was an almost national shudder as nine men were hanged, 457 men and boys transported, and hundreds goaled in England. Hungry Men These agricultural labourers had no unions. They were unorganised, weak with hunger and unused to asserting themselves. But the trade union movement had been gathering momentum in the town as Robert Owen called on all trades to organise themselves into lodges under his Grand National Consolidated Trades Union. Within a few months it had gained- the allegiance of an enormous number of town wofkers and, early in 1834, it had begun to attract adherents in the country districts as well. Middle and upper classes viewed all this with growing concern for the ■ name trade union had none of today’s respectability; it ■ conjured visions of all sorts of dangerous and sinister secret societies intent upon conspiracy and violence. Feared Disaster Lord Melbourne, the Whig Home Secretary, shared the disapproval. In 1830 he had been warned by the retiring Tory Home Secretary, Peel, of. the grave dangers of trade unionism. His love for liberty was outweighed by his fear of disorder. Melbourne opposed drastic new legislation for the suppression of unions recommended by a commisision under a noted economist but

he thought there might be existing legislation to achieve a. similar purpose. ■ Searching Crown lawyers discovered an a.ct passed in 1797 which made it an offence to administer secret oaths. These oaths were a feature of the early' unions so here was the weapon. “Perhaps you Will be able to make an example by such means,” Melbourne wrote to magistrates. Tolpuddle was selected. Tolpuddle farmers had promised Wages the same as those in other districts which meant a rise to 10s a week. But one shilling was deducted then another until the wages stood at 7s a week and the men were told a further reduction would be necessary. They “consulted together what had better be done, as they knew it was impossible to live honestly on such scanty means.” The Tolpuddle men wrote to the Grand National asking for advice. It sent two representatives with a copy of rules and instructions for organising unions. Loveless was one of those paid 7s a week yet he had managed to gather a collection of theological works as a Wesleyan and local preacher. With his brother James and four others he formed the Tolpuddle Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers, “to maintain the wages of farm servants.” Initiative They had not called a strike nor even asked for higher wages, but on that fateful day in Februrary they were arrested—they had adopted a ritual and initiation ceremony. The local farmers persuaded the magistrates to take action. At the spring assizes, Western Circuit, Dorchester, on Monday, March 17, they were tried before the newly appointed and ambitious Welsh judge, John Williams, on a charge of “administering unlawful oaths.” “The Times” of March 20. 1834, reported the evidence of one, John Lock: "We all went into Thomas Stanfield’s house into a roo.L upstairs. John Stanfield came to the door of the room I saw James Loveless and George Loveless go along the passage.

One of the men asked if we were ready. tVe said, yes. One. of them said, ‘Then bind your eyes,’ and we took out handkerchiefs and bound over our eyes. “They then led us into another room on the same floor. Someone then read a paper, but I don’t know what the meaning of it was.’ After that we we’re asked to knee’ down, which we did. Then there was some more reading; I don’t know what it was about. It seemed to be out of some part of the Bible. “Then we got up and off the bandages from our eyes . . . Then we were told to kiss the book . . . which looked like a little Bible. 1 then saw all the prisoners here and James Loveless had on a white dress . . . “They told us the rules, that we should have to pay one shilling and one penny a week afterwards, to support them when they were standing out from their work They said they were as brothers, that when we were to stop for wages we should not tell the masters .ourselves, but that the masters would have a note or a letter sent to them ” The only document discovered by the prosecution was a copy of the rules for the General Society of Lab-

ourers—subversive enough to prohibit drunkenness and obscenity at lodge meetings and to forbid violence or any breach of the law. Said George Loveless in a written statement handed in to the Court: “My Lord, if we have violated any law it was not done intentionally. We have injured no man’s reputation, character, person or property. We were meeting together to preserve ourselves, our wives and our childem from utter degradation and starvation. We chai: lenge any man or number of men to prove that we have acted, or intended to act, different from the above statement.” Open Prejudice It was of no use; nor was the testimony of some employers that they were “good labouring servants.” The .judge openly showed his prejudice, the jurymen were all farmers and millers, the sentence was seven years’ transportation—the long journey in appalling conditions, the bitter life in Australia for convicts. Before confirming the sentence, Melbourne asked the local magistrates what sort of men the prisoners were. He was relieved to be told they were thoroughly bad characters—in truth, sober respectable men. By the end of April they were on their way to Australia.

That was not all. Protest was widespread, involving the whole of the working class movement, the radical intelligentsia, an important section of the press. A petition for

pardon was signed by 250.000. and a procession, estimated by “The Times” at 30,000, by unionists at 150,000, led by a clergyman, marched with it to Whitehall. Melbourne refused to see men or petition. Put In Chains The brothers Loveless were landed at Hobart on September 4, and put to work with chain gangs: the others reached Botany Bay in August. However, agitation did not cease and in 1836 the remainder of their sentence was remitted. About £l3OO had been collected by the London Dorchestor Committee and this helped to provide the Tolpuddle Martyrs with small farms when they eventually reached home in 1838. Five settled in Essex, the sixth his native village. Melbourne had tbld local authorities after the event that trade unions remained perfectly legal as long as they did not administer secret oaths. He also asked farmers to keep wages at a just level but the very example of Tolpuddle gave the trade union movement a check from which it took years to recover.

The British Trade unionist and London bus conductor, Mr J. R. Hunt, began a controversy when he said In Christchurch. Federated Fanners would be tempted to stop the formation of a strong New Zealand farm worker union by repeating the case of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, one of the most notable incidents in the early history of English trade unionism.