Dramatic Interlude No. i
'The Dorsetshire Labourers'
A hundred years ago, when the worker, acting on his own, might as well have asked for the moon as for a rise of wages, it was discovered that acting together had a very different result. Trade Unions were formed throughout the country.
In the southern counties the weekly wage of the agricultural labourer was 10s. It was computed by those who didn't have to do it that such a man could support a family of six persons on 8s. 7}d. In Dorset, however, the standard wage was 7s.
Six farm labourers from the village of Tolpuddle, suffering hunger, cold, weariness, humiliation, and despair, after failing to get anything by asking for it, did what hundreds were doing-formed a Trade Union.
Panic seems to have seized the ruling class. It was discovered that though Trade Unionism was not against the law, an old mutiny act made the taking of secret oaths illegal.
The six simple, honest, religious men were arrested, and committed for trial. In a written statement from the dock, after the judge had summed up against them, George Loveless declared: 'We were uniting to preserve ourselves, our wives, and our children from utter degradation and starvation. We have injured no man's reputation, character, person, or property'. All six were found guilty and transported with convicts to Botany Bay.
The public outcry in England obtained their pardon, but it did not come through for two years - two years of chain-gangs and the lash. As the authors of 'The Tolpuddle Martyrs' write: 'The workers of today have stepped into a heritage battled and won for them by the valiant souls of yesterday'. These six are commemorated in Tolpuddle Church.
G.D.H. Cole tells the full story of the Dorsetshire Labourers in an article on page 89, and R.S. Lambert discusses this 'dramatic interlude' in this week's 'Background to the Broadcast' on page 85.