Commemorating the annual Tolpuddle Martyrs' Festival which takes place each July in Dorset we recall the story of the martyrs from whom it takes its name

We raise the watch-word liberty;
We will, we will, we will be free!

- George Loveless after being convicted of forming a trade union in 1834

In 1834, six agricultural labourers from Tolpuddle, Dorset, were deported to Australia by the British government for the crime of forming a trade union.

The Tolpuddle Martyrs – George and James Loveless, John and Thomas Standfield, James Brine, and James Hammett – have since become, through their sacrifice, giants of working-class history in Britain.

See the Tolpuddle Martyrs tea towel

Rural Dorset isn’t especially known for radical politics these days, but that wasn’t true in the early nineteenth century.

Back then, when most people in Britain were still living and working outside of cities, the countryside of southern England was a hotbed of radical agitation.

Wages for agricultural labourers had been declining, especially during the recession which followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.

That economic downturn was the context of famous protests by urban workers in the British isles, including the Peterloo Massacre of 1819.

But it also led to popular protest in rural England, too.

In 1830, southern England was swept up by the ‘Swing Riots,’ in which agricultural workers, following the model of resistance pioneered by the Luddites, destroyed new farming equipment which threatened to impoverish the rural working class even further, by mechanising their jobs.

The working class in Dorset was involved in this wave of popular protest, and it learned important lessons from the experience.

The Swing Riots had gained some wage concessions from rural landowners, but these were immediately rolled back once the rioters demobilised.

Rural workers needed a more permanent institution through which to demand their social rights and dignity – they needed a trade union.

Jeremiah Brandreth and two other Luddites were the last people to be sentenced to beheading by axe in Britain

See the Jeremiah Brandreth Luddite tea towel

Britain’s aristocratic and industrial ruling classes, terrified of the new model of social liberation pioneered by the French Revolution during the 1790s, criminalised trade unions through the Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800.

The British elite recognised how effective an organised working class could be in the struggle for social justice and equality, and so, through Parliament, it tried to stop that from happening.

But the working class in Britain wouldn’t have it.

The Combination Acts were deeply unpopular, and continued agitation during the 1800s and 1810s eventually forced Parliament to repeal them in 1824. A (small) legal space was reopened for trade union activity.

But the rule of law is one thing, the ruling classes’ ruthless pursuit of their own self-interest is another…

In 1833, as landowners in England continued to undermine their workers’ wages, the Tolpuddle Six created the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers, a de facto trade union.

The union immediately went to work, as its members refused to continue selling their labour for less than 10 shillings a week. They needed more money to survive and live the good life which all people, not just landowners, have a right to.

But the Dorset ruling class wouldn’t tolerate this powerful new form of working-class organisation.

A local magistrate wrote to the Home Secretary in London, to express his concerns.

The Movements for Change coaster collection commemorates the Tolpuddle Martyrs and five other 19th century British movements for change

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Although trade unions had now been partially decriminalised, the government advised the Dorset elite to make use of another piece of reactionary legislation from the years of the French Revolution.

The Unlawful Oaths Act of 1797 had been passed in response to the Spithead and Nore Mutinies, launched against woeful labour conditions in the Royal Navy.

This law forbade secret oath-taking and now, in Dorset, landowners made use of it to claim the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers admitted members through a covert oath.

Unsurprisingly, the employers won in court and the six trade union men were convicted.

The Tolpuddle Martyrs were sentenced to penal transportation to the British colonies in Australia, where they would be forced to work as indentured labourers.

For the British ruling class, this was a matter of ‘out of sight, out of mind.’

But they were wrong.

Back in Britain, the people saw the Tolpuddle case for what it was: a vicious piece of lawfare against the working class.

Mass protests followed.

Drawing on resistance strategies pioneered during the abolition movement, 800,000 people signed a petition against the Tolpuddle convictions.

And the Tolpuddle solidarity campaign created new political strategies, too, including the first mass protest march in British history – on 21 April 1834, 50,000 people marched through London in support of the Dorset workers.

Ultimately, the pressure worked.

In March 1836, the British government was forced to back down and pardon the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

It was not the end of the fight for the democratic right of workers to form trades union in Britain – it was only the beginning.

But the courage of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, and the mass solidarity shown in response to their plight, was a promising sign – the working class was strong, brave, and ready for anything.

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