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Fate of six decent men
• UNDOUBTEDLY, Councillor Greg Foxsmith means well but his account of the ordeal of the Tolpuddle Martyrs is sadly incorrect and does a disservice to those brave six trade unionists whose nobility is being rightly commemorated here in Islington (A lesson for those in power today from Martyrs protest, April 17).
Contrary to Cllr Foxsmith’s belief, the six were not released by the government rather than being deported. In fact, they were deported in March 1834, a few days after they were sentenced to seven years’ deportation, shorn and trussed up in chains in prison hulks. They arrived in the penal colony of Botany Bay after a terrifying voyage some 111 days later. There they were put to hard labour and brutally treated for some four years before returning to England.
The mighty demonstrations on April 21, 1834, began a great swell of protests at their treatment, but it was not until March 12, 1836, that Lord John Russell, the Home Secretary, advised the King to remit the sentences, and it was not until March 1838 that all were back in England. Five of them settled near Epping Forest on farms provided by the trade union movement, later emigrating to Canada. The sixth, James Hammett, returned to Tolpuddle, where he is buried.
Lord Denning, the great jurist of our age, condemned the men’s trial as a blot on our legal landscape because it was not an offence to be a member of a trade union. Acts of Parliament in 1824 and 1825 entitled workmen to combine together to raise wages. And that is what the Tolpuddle Six had lawfully done.
A preamble to the 1797 Mutiny Act was wrongfully used to convict them. That law’s purpose was the punishment of sailors and marines who administered oaths so as to prevent the disclosure of plans for mutiny and sedition. The six, who were existing on starvation wages, established a union with members swearing an oath of loyalty to each other in the manner of Freemasons. It was not illegal for members of a combination whose objective was to raise wages to take an oath.
The judge at the men’s one-day trial incorrectly ruled otherwise. His conduct was disgraceful. He cross-examined reluctant prosecution witnesses to extract from them evidence against the six. Then he misdirected himself on the sentence, thinking he had no alternative but to give a seven-year sentence. In fact, seven years transportation was the maximum allowance.
George Loweless, leader of the six, wrote a pamphlet, Victims of Whiggery, much quoted at Chartist meetings. Three of the Six wrote The Horrors of Transportation.
The six were decent men, followers of Wesleyan Methodism, whose selfless dedication, like that of the founders of the Labour Party, is an example to some in today’s Labour movement.
ROY ROEBUCK
Brooksby Street, N1
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