This week in history: Tolpuddle Martyrs

On August 17, 1834 the Tolpuddle Martyrs arrived in Sydney after a four-month sea voyage, having been sentenced to seven years' transportation by a court in Dorchester, England. James Brine, James Hammett, George Loveless, James Loveless, John Standfield, and Thomas Standfield were arrested and marched in chains from Tolpuddle to Dorchester for forming a trade union for agricultural labourers in an attempt to resist the imposition of wage cuts by local farmers. The sentences caused outrage in England, and a public campaign of petitions and demonstrations forced the then Home Secretary, Lord John Russell, to grant the martyrs conditional pardons in June 1835, followed by full pardons in March 1836. The men were greeted with heroes' receptions on their return to England.

From Green Left Weekly, August 17, 2005.

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From GLW issue 638