The Tolpuddle Martyrs went down today in 1834. George and James Loveless and five of their farm labourer mates were sentenced to seven years' transportation to Botany Bay in Australia. Their crime? They joined a branch of the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union in an attempt to improve the pitiful wages paid to labourers. Local Dorset farmers connived with the county's magistrates to find a way to punish the men because, technically, joining a Trade Union was not illegal.
They came up with administering (taking) of illegal oaths, which was a crime under the 1797 Mutiny Act. According to the law at the time, the Martyrs had no opportunity to defend themselves in court and could not afford a lawyer. ~one of them died in Australia before public outrage brought the survivors back. It would be forty years before anybody tried to set up another union for farm workers and the conspiracy of landowners and magistrates would continue for much longer.
In other news ...
Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan of the Apes, died today in 1950. His 70 novels had been translated into 56 languages and more than 100 million copies had been sold. On his gravestone they wrote Tarzan's immortal words - 'AAAAAAAAARRGHHYYAAAAAA!'
Who could ask for a finer epitaph?
