Features
(John Harris / reportdigital.co.uk) |
Next time you ask for a pay rise, be glad you aren't living in the 1830s when it was a criminal offence. We tell the story of the pioneers who fought for our working rights
Martyrs to the cause
You’re miles away from home, friends and family; the sun is beating
down on your blistered back, your shoulders throb and the only other people
in sight are brutal criminals or prison officers; the view will be the
same for the next seven years. Your crime? Organising a union.
No, this is not an alternative 2005 where the Tory party have just won
a general election, but the fate of six brave pioneers from the 1830s
called the Tolpuddle Martyrs.
Workers in 21st-century Britain enjoy many rights, including the right
to come together in trade unions to defend their interests. And since
2000 there has been a legal right to have those unions recognised so they
can bargain collectively and represent members when problems arise at
work.
For this, you can thank the men from the Dorset village of Tolpuddle who
were transported to Australia in the early 19th century for daring to
form a union to protect their wages.
George Loveless, James Loveless, James Brine, James Hammett, John Standfield
and Thomas Standfield were agricultural labourers. In 1830, their work
attracted a wage of nine shillings a week. But agriculture was in a state
of depression and landowners increasingly offered less money for the same
work. By 1833, the weekly wage had dropped to seven shillings.
Worried the situation was spiralling out of control towards poverty, the
Tolpuddle men founded a Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers, which
grew rapidly through the winter of 1833-4. So when spring 1834 came around,
bringing with it the start of a new working year on Dorset's farms, they
decided to make a stand.
Faced with attempts by landowners to cut the weekly wage still further
to just six shillings, the men agreed they would not accept any work for
less than 10 shillings a week.
But this was the 1830s. Trade unions were a new concept, and a dangerous
one as far as the employers were concerned. The six were arrested and
charged with administering an illegal oath – under an 18th-century
Act designed to quash mutinies in the navy.
Tried by a jury of landowners in 1834, the six men were found guilty -
even though the youngest, James Hammett hadn't even been at the meeting
where the oath was sworn - and sentenced to seven years hard labour in
Australia.
This harsh injustice had the opposite effect from what was intended and
caused an immediate outcry – the public was up in arms and England's
fledgling union movement galvanised.
On 21 April, one month after the trial, a procession of 30,000 people
– including members of 35 unions – marched to Whitehall (illustration
far left) to present Home Secretary Lord Melbourne with a huge 200,000-signature
petition calling for the men to be pardoned and the sentences to be quashed.
He refused.
But a year later the campaign had grown in support and power. Lord Melbourne
became prime minister following the election of a new government, and,
eventually, was obliged to sanction the move he had previously shirked.
In March 1836, two years after the trial, the new home secretary, Lord
John Russel granted free pardons to all six men. That was not the end
of the matter, though. There was a further delay before the government
offered the men free passage back to Britain.
George Loveless arrived back in the country in the summer of 1837. James
Loveless, James Brine and Thomas and John Stanfield came home the following
spring and James Hammett arrived in August 1839.
The Loveless family then became involved in the Chartist campaign for
democracy, but the men found it difficult to settle back in society and,
in 1844, all of them emigrated to Canada, except Hammett who stayed in
Dorset till his death in 1891, and is buried in Tolpuddle churchyard.
The tale of the Tolpuddle Martyrs is a cautionary one: their treatment
at the hands of the landowners and courts showed the risks of standing
alone against powerful forces. But it is also an inspiring one. The public
outcry
and solidarity that saw their sentences overturned shows us what can be
achieved when we are united.
30,000 people marched on Whitehall in 1834 to protest against the imprisonment of the Tolpuddle martyrs (Mary Evans Picture Library) |
THE TOLPUDDLE MARTYRS Trade unions commemorate the Tolpuddle Martyrs every year in July.
Rallies – held in Tolpuddle since Victorian times –
have evolved into a weekend-long music and arts festival attended
by families and young people as well as union stalwarts. |
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