The Tolpuddle Martyrs were six agricultural labourers from the village of Tolpuddle in Dorset, England, who, in 1834, were convicted of swearing a secret oath as members of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. They were arrested on charges under an obscure act during a labour dispute over cut wages before being convicted in R v Loveless and Others and sentenced to penal transportation to Australia. They were pardoned in 1836 after mass protests by sympathisers and support from Lord John Russell and returned to England between 1837 and 1839.
Traditionally an oath is either a statement of fact or a promise taken by a sacrality as a sign of verity. A common legal substitute for those who conscientiously object to making sacred oaths is to give an affirmation instead. Nowadays, even when there is no notion of sanctity involved, certain promises said out loud in ceremonial or juridical purpose are referred to as oaths. "To swear" is a verb used to describe the taking of an oath, to making a solemn vow.
"Captain Swing" was a name that was appended to several threatening letters during the rural Swing Riots of 1830, when labourers rioted over the introduction of new threshing machines and the loss of their livelihoods. The name was made-up and it came to symbolise the anger of the poor labourers in rural England who wanted a return to the pre-machine days when human labour was used.
Commonwealth v. Hunt, 45 Mass. 111 (1842), was a case in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on the subject of labor unions. Prior to Hunt the legality of labor combinations in America was uncertain. In March 1842, Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw ruled that labor combinations were legal provided that they were organized for a legal purpose and used legal means to achieve their goals.
William Orr was an Irish revolutionary and member of the United Irishmen who was executed in 1797 in what was widely believed at the time to be "judicial murder" and whose memory led to the rallying cry “Remember Orr” during the 1798 rebellion.
The Profane Oaths Act 1745 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1746, in effect from 1 June 1746, and formally repealed in 1967. It established a system of fines payable for "profane cursing and swearing".
Rookes v Barnard [1964] UKHL 1 is a UK labour law and English tort law case and the leading case in English law on punitive damages and was a turning point in judicial activism against trade unions.
Oskar Gröning was a German SS Unterscharführer who was stationed at the Auschwitz concentration camp. His responsibilities included counting and sorting the money taken from prisoners, and he was in charge of the personal property of arriving prisoners. On a few occasions he witnessed the procedures of mass killing in the camp. After being transferred from Auschwitz to a combat unit in October 1944, Gröning surrendered to the British at the end of the war; his role in the SS was not discovered. He was eventually transferred to the UK as a prisoner of war and worked as a farm labourer.
The Grand National Consolidated Trades Union of 1834 was an early attempt to form a national union confederation in the United Kingdom.
Unlawful Oaths Act is a stock short title used for legislation in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland relating to unlawful oaths.
The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement or labor union movement on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other.
The Unlawful Societies Act 1799 was an Act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain in 1799, as part of measures by Pitt the Younger to suppress republican opposition. It is also sometimes referred to as the Corresponding Societies Act.
In politics, a martyr is someone who suffers persecution and/or death for advocating, renouncing, refusing to renounce, and/or refusing to advocate a political belief or cause.
Shire Hall is an 18th-century courthouse in Dorchester, Dorset. The building was the centre of law, order and government, and served as the county hall for Dorset until 1955. It has been Grade I listed since 1950. In 2018, the hall opened as the Shire Hall Historic Courthouse Museum.
There are several cottages associated with the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Most are in Tolpuddle in Dorset while one is in Essex.
Hounga v Allen [2014] UKSC 47 is a UK labour law case, concerning the right to equal treatment, wages, and the illegality principle.
George Loveless was a British Methodist preacher and a leader of a group of six agricultural workers who became known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs.
The Tolpuddle Martyrs' Tree is a sycamore tree in the village of Tolpuddle, Dorset. The tree is approximately 336 years old. It has become associated with the birth of the trade unionist movement.
Thomas Standfield was an English agricultural worker, Methodist and trade union organiser.
Eleven articles of impeachment against United States President Andrew Johnson were adopted by the United States House of Representatives on March 2 and 3, 1868 as part of the impeachment of Johnson. An impeachment resolution had previously been adopted by the House on February 24, 1868. Each of the articles were a separate charge which Johnson would be tried for in his subsequent impeachment trial before the United States Senate.
