Tolpuddle 2015
by southwestfbu
The FBU at the 2015 Tolpuddle Festival.
The South West FBU has always been very active in supporting and assisting in the running of the TUC Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival held annually in Dorset. The Festival is a celebration and commemoration of the events In 1834, when six farm workers from the tiny village of Tolpuddle in Dorset were sentenced to seven years’ transportation, a massive protest swept across the country. Thousands of people marched through London and many more organised petitions and protest meetings to demand their freedom.Their ‘crime’ was to take an oath of solidarity in forming a trade union.
The protest campaign proved successful and they returned home in triumph.
Their story is now part of the development of a free and democratic society. It is celebrated in the small museum in Tolpuddle and at the Festival on the weekend of the third Sunday in July. The FBU has had many highlights at the Festival but our proudest moment came in 2010 when our Regional Secretary John Drake hosted the festival in his role as Chair of the South West TUC.
