Walterp
Member
- Location
- Pembrokeshire
Dorset has always been a backward and reactionary sort of place.
In 1834, shortly after the English reformed their Parliamentary system to include a few more well-off men (if you were a woman, you could go home and cook the tea instead) on the electoral roll - Scotland and Ireland enlarged their electorates by a huge margin - farmers prosecuted six farm labourers with the crime of pledging loyalty to a union.
On their side the farmers had the law - loyalty to anything except the Crown was unpatriotic (an echo you hear today, in some of the foreign-owned UK Press). On the labourers’ side was justice - the farmers were cutting their pay, repeatedly, so that farm workers were forced onto the Parish in order to supplement their niggardly pay: six shillings a week - the equivalent of £26 today.
No one who has read Cobbett's 'Rural Rides' can forget the utter destitution in which English farmers maintained their labourers during this time - pauper scarecrows look up piteously from hearth and plough.
The farmers were determined to stamp out organised protests against their economy measures; in Tolpuddle, the local squire was appalled that his workers were forming a union to demand better wages and conditions, and had them prosecuted.
Seven year’s transportation was the brutal result.
The working class protested, en masse, and after three years of demonstrations and petitions the government pardoned the union martyrs for being prepared to stand up and be counted.
Does this episode explain why English farmers remain, even today, quite so antipathetic to labour unions?
In 1834, shortly after the English reformed their Parliamentary system to include a few more well-off men (if you were a woman, you could go home and cook the tea instead) on the electoral roll - Scotland and Ireland enlarged their electorates by a huge margin - farmers prosecuted six farm labourers with the crime of pledging loyalty to a union.
On their side the farmers had the law - loyalty to anything except the Crown was unpatriotic (an echo you hear today, in some of the foreign-owned UK Press). On the labourers’ side was justice - the farmers were cutting their pay, repeatedly, so that farm workers were forced onto the Parish in order to supplement their niggardly pay: six shillings a week - the equivalent of £26 today.
No one who has read Cobbett's 'Rural Rides' can forget the utter destitution in which English farmers maintained their labourers during this time - pauper scarecrows look up piteously from hearth and plough.
The farmers were determined to stamp out organised protests against their economy measures; in Tolpuddle, the local squire was appalled that his workers were forming a union to demand better wages and conditions, and had them prosecuted.
Seven year’s transportation was the brutal result.
The working class protested, en masse, and after three years of demonstrations and petitions the government pardoned the union martyrs for being prepared to stand up and be counted.
Does this episode explain why English farmers remain, even today, quite so antipathetic to labour unions?
Last edited:
