Before the Arrest

Enclosed in Poverty

Wages of Despair

Captain Swing

Formation of Unions

The Man Who Framed
the Martyrs

The six Tolpuddle Martyrs were all farm labourers, paid 9 shillings a week and lived in dreadful poverty.

Their leader George Loveless, decided to set up a Union in Tolpuddle to give the labourers bargaining strength.

The landowners, led by James Frampton and supported by the government, were determined to squash unions and to control increasing outbreaks of dissent.


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