Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival
This year’s Festival will be a diverse mix of music, politics and entertainment for all the family. Tolpuddle favourites, Billy Bragg and Tony Benn will join a lively range of musicians, performers and speakers from unions and politics.
On February 24th 1834, six farm labourers from Tolpuddle were arrested on a charge of taking part in an illegal oath ceremony. The real offence was that they had dared to form a trade union to defend their livelihoods. For this they were sentenced to seven years’ transportation to the penal colonies of Australia. The sentences provoked an immence outcry, leading to the first general mass trade union protest. The campaign won free pardons and the Martyrs’ returned to England. It was an historic episode n the struggle for trade union rights in Great Britain and around the world.
Check out latest Festival news, order campaign tags, learn more about the Tolpuddle story and browse the new on-line shop: www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk
