Tolpuddle

The small village of Tolpuddle is a peaceful little place today but in the early 19th century, Tolpuddle was far sleepier than it is now. Not the kind of place you would expect to foment a social revolution, but it was here that six ill-paid agricultural labourers helped lay the foundations of the British Trade Union Movement. In 1833, they formed the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers in an attempt to have their subsistence wages improved. The full rigour of the landowner-friendly law of the time was immediately invoked. All six were found guilty of taking illegal oaths and sentenced to transportation to New South Wales, Australia, for seven years. Even the judge in their case was forced to say that it was not for anything they had done, or intended to do, that he passed such a sentence, but ‘as an example to others’. Rather surprisingly, public opinion sided with the illegal ‘confederation’. Vigorous and sustained protests eventually forced the government to pardon the men after they had served three years of their sentence. They all returned safely to England in 1838, honoured ever afterwards in Trade Union hagiography as the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Only one, James Hammett (1811-1891), returned to Tolpuddle. His grave, with a headstone designed by Eric Gill, is in Tolpuddle churchyard. The Martyrs’ Museum at Tolpuddle tells their inspiring story using innovative interactive touch screens.