"Tolpuddle Martyrs The Tolpuddle Martyrs were a group of six 19th-century Dorset agricultural labourers who were arrested for and convicted of swearing a secret oath as members of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. The rules of the society show it was clearly structured as a friendly society and operated as a trade-specific benefit society. At the time, friendly societies had elements of what is now considered the predominant role of trade unions. On 18 March 1834, the Tolpuddle Martyrs were sentenced to penal transportation to Australia. Before 1824 the Combination Acts had outlawed ""combining"" or organising to gain better"
"of the organization agreed to only work for wages greater than a certain amount. In 1834 a landlord complained, and key members were charged and convicted under laws prohibiting the swearing of secret oaths. The sentence of seven years penal transportation to Australia prompted a movement to defend the members, known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs (referring to the village where the organization originated), who were eventually released in 1836 and 1837. Presently, UK labor laws are defined within the Employment Relations Act 1999 (ERA) and the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, and give workers no right to"
"however, and in 1832 a group of agricultural workers from Tolpuddle – eight miles north of Winfrith – formed a Friendly Society to protest against these same issues. In 1834 the same James Frampton who had read the Riot Act at Winfrith invoked an obscure law against oath-swearing to prosecute what became known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Winfrith Newburgh Winfrith Newburgh (), commonly called just Winfrith, is a village and civil parish in the Purbeck district of the English county of Dorset. It is about west of Wareham and east of the county town Dorchester. It was historically part of"
"by Judge Jeffreys in the Oak Room of the Antelope Hotel in Dorchester. In 1833, the Tolpuddle Martyrs founded the ""Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers"". Trade unions were legal but because the members swore an oath of allegiance, they were arrested and tried in the Shire Hall. Beneath the courtroom are cells where the prisoners were held while awaiting trial. Dorchester Prison was constructed in the town during the 19th century and was used for holding convicted and remanded inmates from the local courts until it closed in December 2013. Plans have since been made to erect 189 dwellings and"
"Friendly Society had done. James Brine, James Hammett, George Loveless, George's brother James Loveless, George's brother in-law Thomas Standfield, and Thomas's son John Standfield were arrested, found guilty, and transported to Australia. They became known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs. In the 1830s and 1840s, the Chartist movement was the first large-scale organised working class political movement which campaigned for political equality and social justice. Its ""Charter"" of reforms received over three million signatures but was rejected by Parliament without consideration. Working people also formed friendly societies and co-operative societies as mutual support groups against times of economic hardship. Enlightened industrialists,"
"largely by-passed Dorset, which has remained largely rural. The farming economy, however, provided the spark for the Trade Union movement when, in the 1820s a group of farm labourers formed one of the first unions. In 1832 unions were outlawed and the six men, now known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs, were transported, becoming national heroes to the working classes. In the 19th century the railways bought increased mobility and communications to the British people. Lines through Dorset include the South Western Main Line, from London to Bournemouth, Poole, Dorchester and Weymouth; the Heart of Wessex Line from Bristol to Sherborne,"
"R v Lovelass R v Lovelass and Others (1834) 172 ER 1380 is a formative case in the history of UK labour law. It saw the Tolpuddle Martyrs, who were farm workers that wished to form a union to prevent wage cuts, be convicted and deported to Australia. It triggered protests which led to the workers' eventual release. It stands as a symbol of the repression of freedom of association in the United Kingdom, which largely remained in place until the Trade Union Act 1871 and the Trade Disputes Act 1906. In Tolpuddle, a village in Dorset, George Lovelass (also"
"action, and an appeal was sent out to workers of three counties for aid for the Earl Shilton strikers to fight it. There is no doubt that the 1840s were wretched times, and sheep stealing, highway robbery and burglary were common. It was not safe to go out after dark. If a man was caught sheep stealing, he was sentenced to 14 years transportation. 14 years transportation was also the sentence for anyone who was driven by hunger to take a pheasant from the woods. ""See Church of SS Simon and Jude, Earl Shilton."" The traditional greeting of the Leicestershire"
"the Unlawful Oaths Act 1797, an obscure law promulgated in response to the Spithead and Nore mutinies, which prohibited the swearing of secret oaths. James Brine, James Hammett, George Loveless, George's brother James Loveless, George's brother in-law Thomas Standfield, and Thomas's son John Standfield were arrested and tried before Sir John Williams in ""R v Lovelass and Others"". They were found guilty and transported to Australia. When sentenced to seven years' penal transportation, George Loveless wrote on a scrap of paper lines from the union hymn ""The Gathering of the Unions"": God is our guide! from field, from wave,<br> From"
"was assigned to the Queanbeyan farm of Edward John Eyre, and James Loveless was assigned to a farm at Strathallan. In Hobart, George Loveless was assigned to the viceregal farm of Lieutenant Governor Sir George Arthur. In England they became popular heroes and 800,000 signatures were collected for their release. Their supporters organised a political march, one of the first successful marches in the UK, and all were pardoned, on condition of good conduct, in March 1836, with the support of Lord John Russell, who had recently become home secretary. When the pardon reached George Loveless some delay was caused"
"plough, from anvil, and from loom;<br> We come, our country's rights to save,<br> And speak a tyrant faction's doom:<br> We raise the watch-word liberty;<br> We will, we will, we will be free! James Loveless, the two Standfields, Hammett and Brine sailed on the ""Surry"" to Sydney, where they arrived on 17 August 1834. George Loveless was delayed due to illness and left later on the ""William Metcalf"" to Van Diemen's Land, reaching Hobart on 4 September. Of the five who landed in Sydney, Brine and the Standfields were assigned as farm labourers to free settlers in the Hunter Valley. Hammett"
"(1) utter and publish seditious libels; (2) to incite persons to commit breaches of the Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797; and (3) to endeavour to seduce from their duty persons serving in HM Forces to whom might come certain publications, to wit ""Workers Weekly,"" and others, and to incite them to mutiny"". After an eight-day trial at the Old Bailey they were all convicted, with Gallacher, Hannington, Inkpin, Pollitt, and Rust being given sentences of twelve months imprisonment, while Campbell and the others received terms of six months. Those receiving the lesser term had all refused an offer by the"
"has been replaced with four benches surrounding the tree listing the names of the martyrs and those who supported them. Ascott Martyrs The Ascott Martyrs were 16 women from the village of Ascott-under-Wychwood in Oxfordshire, England who were imprisoned in 1873 for their role in founding a branch of the National Union of Agricultural Workers. Following an appeal to Queen Victoria, the women were all pardoned. The National Union of Agricultural Workers was founded in Warwickshire in 1872, led by the Primitive Methodist preacher Joseph Arch. Support spread to other parts of the country, and in 1873 the men of"
"Acquisition Orders. Those who had refused were threatened with legal action. Legal action was taken which eventually culminated in four farmers and their former teacher, who had joined them in blocking Shell workers coming on their lands, being jailed on 29 June for civil contempt of court (at the request of Shell) after refusing to give an undertaking not to interfere with Shell's workers. They became known as the Rossport Five. 24-hour pickets on the Shell sites at Rossport, Bellanaboy and Glengad began after their jailing. Rallies in support of the men's stance were held in major towns and cities,"
"care and correction, might be reclaimed from their evil course""; they then passed ""An act to authorize.. the punishment by hard labour of offenders who, for certain crimes, are or shall become liable to be transported to any of his Majesty's colonies and plantations. For the ensuing decade, men were instead sentenced to hard labour and women were imprisoned. Finding alternative locations to send convicts was not easy, and the act was extended twice by the Criminal Law Act 1778 (18 Geo. 3 c. 62) and the Criminal Law Act 1779 (19 Geo. 3, c. 54). This resulted in a"
"stands at high. The five men commemorated—two from Scotland and three from England—were imprisoned for campaigning for parliamentary reform under the influence of the ideals of the French Revolution. Specifically, their support of Palmer's 1793 address that advocated for universal suffrage and annual parliaments was considered incendiary. The five were accused of sedition in a series of trials in 1793 and 1794, and sentenced to terms of penal transportation in the British colony of New South Wales. All but Gerrald travelled together on the convict transport ""Surprize""; Gerrald left later on the transport ""Sovereign"". Only Palmer and Margarot served their"
"Tolpuddle Tolpuddle () is a village in Dorset, England, on the River Piddle east of Dorchester, the county town, and west of Poole. The estimated population in 2013 was 420. The village is famous as the home of the Tolpuddle Martyrs who were sentenced to be transported to Australia after they formed a friendly society in 1833. A row of cottages, housing agricultural workers and a museum, and a row of seated statues commemorate the martyrs. The annual Tolpuddle Martyrs festival is held in the village in the third weekend of July. An ancient sycamore tree on the village green,"
"to take the Abjuration Oath renouncing the Covenant. On the following Sunday Margaret McLachlan was arrested, and also put into the ""thieves' hole"" with the Wilson girls, along with a servant woman. They were taken before the ""local assizes"" of the Government Commissioners for Wigtownshire. On 13 April 1685 they were indicted as being guilty of the Rebellion of Bothwell Bridge, Aird's Moss, 20 Field Conventicles and 20 House Conventicles. The Assizes session took place and a guilty verdict was brought. The three main protagonists were found guilty on all charges, and sentenced to be ""tied to palisades fixed in"
"benefit society. But at the time, friendly societies had strong elements of what are now considered to be the principal role of trade unions, and wages were at issue. The Tolpuddle Martyrs were sentenced not to death but to transportation to Australia, a harsh form of exile. The Belfiore martyrs (in Italian, ""Martiri di Belfiore"") were a group of Italian pro-independence fighters condemned to death by hanging in 1853 during the Italian Risorgimento. They included Tito Speri and the priest Enrico Tazzoli and are named after the site where the sentence was carried out, in the valley of Belfiore at"
"guilty on the grounds that he had prepared the text for publication and circulated it, and sentenced him to 14 years penal transportation. Other persons arrested in relations to the political activities of the Edinburgh Society of the Friends of the People and associated groups like The Dundee Friends of Liberty were Thomas Muir, William Skirving, Maurice Margarot and Joseph Gerrald. These five were transported to Australia in 1794 and 1795 and were collectively known as the Scottish Martyrs to Liberty. Mealmaker continued his radical activities and became involved in the Society of the United Scotsmen. He continued to write"
"house. Opposite her kitchen door, the constabulary found a still that had been used for illicit distillation. A month later, at the Malin Petty Sessions, she was fined £6. The Land League, which campaigned for agrarian reform, was active on the Isle. In 1880, John Mooney, a process-server, was attacked by a large crowd while he was serving a writ for a debt. Mooney took refuge in the local school but was forced out and made to swear on his knees that he would never serve any writs again. Five local men were subsequently arrested and tried at Carndonagh Magistrates."
"Ascott Martyrs The Ascott Martyrs were 16 women from the village of Ascott-under-Wychwood in Oxfordshire, England who were imprisoned in 1873 for their role in founding a branch of the National Union of Agricultural Workers. Following an appeal to Queen Victoria, the women were all pardoned. The National Union of Agricultural Workers was founded in Warwickshire in 1872, led by the Primitive Methodist preacher Joseph Arch. Support spread to other parts of the country, and in 1873 the men of Ascott-under-Wychwood formed a branch of the new union. Mr Hambidge of Crown Farm, Ascott sacked his men who had joined"
"John Frost and others transported during the Chartist struggle for adult male franchise, The broadside ""The Cotton Spinners Farewell"" (Roud V15587) concerns some Scottish cotton spinners sentenced to seven years transportation for trades union activities. Most transportation ballads either accept transportation or deplore its cruelty. This ballad praises the practice and lists classes of people the author feels should be transported. It doesn't seem to have been printed often, and hasn't been collected from traditional singers. Transportation Ballads Transportation Ballads are a genre of broadside ballad some of which became an important part of the folk song traditions of Britain"
"Gill for Veck. Somerset paid the legal fees. By this time, Somerset had moved on to Hanover, to inspect some horses for the Prince of Wales, and the press was referring to ""noble lords"" implicated in the trial. Newlove and Veck pleaded guilty to indecency on 18 September and the judge, Sir Thomas Chambers, a former Liberal Member of Parliament who had a reputation for leniency, sentenced them to four and nine months' hard labour respectively. The boys were also given sentences that were considered at the time to be very lenient. Hammond escaped to France, but the French authorities"
"fined men for minor reasons, disallowed wages on false pretexts and victimised perceived radicals. Bonds were used to enforce discipline. Miners protested about poor wages in 1757 when bread prices rose and some marched from Kersall towards Manchester in protest but were turned back. When trouble flared, the Home Secretary ordered troops to be ready to quell the unrest. Long strikes were unsustainable as the miners had no organisation or finances to back them up. The first miners' association was the ""Brotherly Union Society"" formed in Pemberton, Wigan in 1794. It was described as a friendly society to avoid prosecution"
"three months after the first transportation sentences were pronounced at the Old Bailey, his suggestion was proposed again, and the Treasury contracted Jonathan Forward, a London merchant, for the transportation to the colonies. The business was entrusted to Forward in 1718: he was paid £3 (£5 in 1727) for each prisoner transported overseas. The Treasury also paid for the transportation of prisoners from the Home Counties. The ""Felons' Act"" (as the Transportation Act was called) was printed and distributed in 1718, and in April twenty-seven men and women were sentenced to transportation The Act led to significant changes: both petty"
"Potter; Abasolm Watkin; Mark Philips, John Shuttleworth, John Benjamin Smith, and brothers, Edward and William Baxter (all cotton merchants); Fenton Atkinson (Manchester attorney); William Harvey; John Edward Taylor. The group supported social reform issues closely but discreetly: Taylor survived a trial for libel; Shuttleworth organised the defence of plebeian reformers accused of administering an illegal oath. The group initially proposed that the seats of rotten boroughs convicted of gross electoral corruption should be transferred to industrial towns, citing and targeting example boroughs including Penryn and East Retford. But when Parliament refused to take action, in 1831 Absalom Watkin drew up"
"and Collins were later found guilty of seditious libel, and were sentenced to twelve months imprisonment in Warwick Gaol. They were released in July 1840. While in prison Lovett, with Collins, wrote ""Chartism, a New Organisation of the People"", which focused on Chartist Education. Once released Lovett retired from politics, and in 1841 formed the National Association for Promoting the Political and Social Improvement of the People, an educational body. The body was to implement his New Move educational initiative, through which he hoped poor workers and their children would be able to better themselves. The New Move was to"
"lieutenants, William O'Brien, John Dillon, Michael Davitt, Willie Redmond, went into a bitter verbal offensive and were imprisoned in October 1881 under the Irish Coercion Act in Kilmainham Jail for ""sabotaging the Land Act"", from where the ""No Rent Manifesto"" was issued calling for a national tenant farmer rent strike which was partially followed. Although the League discouraged violence, agrarian crimes increased widely. In April 1882 Parnell moved to make a deal with the government. The settlement involved withdrawing the manifesto and undertaking to move against agrarian crime, seeing militancy would never win Home Rule. The so-called ""Kilmainham Treaty"", a"
"by announcing a pay cut. He had previously strained relationships with them by banning the use of the Welsh language underground. Two days later, after a meeting at the pithead, miners attacked Young before frogmarching him to the police station. Seven men were arrested and ordered to stand trial on 2 June. All were found guilty; and the convicted ringleaders, Ismael Jones and John Jones, were sentenced to a month's hard labour. A large crowd had assembled to hear the verdict, and the Chief Constable of Flintshire had arranged for police from all over the county and soldiers from The"
"£10 each. He lived in Rossport House even though the Bournes family in London did not want him there. He had found the property in ""the Field"" magazine but he never paid the Bournes a penny of rental. Finally the law caught up with him and he was sentenced to seven-years' penal servitude for horse stealing and other offences. He pleaded guilty to all the charges. It was disclosed in court that he had received a legacy of over £4,000 and had squandered the lot on horses and gambling. Rossport came to national prominence in 2005 when five local men"
"adherents killed without restraint. Following a conventicle (an illegal religious meeting of Covenanters) on the lands of Harelaw, in the Parish of Loudoun, on 1 June 1679, According to tradition, the Puddleford in Irvine, was the site of a skirmish between Wallace and the English – there is no evidence that Wallace was present, but the tradition gained credibility when repeated as fact in the 1920s. In 1826, a severe drought forced farmers to collect water from the Monk's Well in Kilmaurs, a spring never known to be dry. They drove their carts along the dry bed of the Carmel"
"outlawed the blackening or disguising of faces while in the forests) was enacted to deal with such problems. Deer stealing was a domestic offence that was judged not in civil courts, but before Justices of the peace; it was not until 1737 that the more severe penalty of seven years' transportation was introduced. However, in 1731 seven verderers became so concerned by the increase in activity that they signed an affidavit which demonstrated their worries. The statement was lodged with Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, who responded by offering a £10 reward to anyone who helped identify the thieves,"