The Dorchester Labourers and Swing's Aftermath in Dorset, 1830-8
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4493410 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tom Scriven (0000-0003-0776-7514, University of Manchester, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 82 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-23 |
| Publication date | 2016-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History Workshop Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1363-3554 • E-ISSN: 1477-4569 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/hwj/dbw020 |
| OpenAlex | W2495109322 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 16 |
The case of the Dorchester Labourers, the six agricultural labourers arrested and transported in 1834 for establishing a trade union among farmworkers in the vicinity of Tolpuddle in Dorset, remains one of the best remembered aspects of labour history. Nevertheless, study of the Labourers and their union, the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers (FSAL), has overlooked their role within a longer context of labour unrest and political activism within the region. This article argues that the FSAL was rooted in the Swing Riots of 1830, when labourers across the south of England protested against low wages and mechanisation, and was perceived by its leadership as being a means of both continuing the objectives of Swing and overcoming its failed methods. It was resurrected upon the Labourers’ return to Dorset in 1838, and illustrates a series of agitations in the region initiated by Swing and culminating in Chartism. This case study therefore suggests that the current emphasis on the Swing protests as a series of parochial and isolated disputes should be aware of a longer context in which these isolated protests led to a movement organised inter-parochially along class lines, and in response to national events.
Archaeology · Context (archaeology) · Development economics · Economic growth · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Swing · Unrest · Cultural History and Identity Formation · Engineering · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law
Making of the English Working Class
A lasting and salutary warning’
An Agenda for Historical Studies of Rural Protest in Britain, 1750–1850
Wood and Crop Theft in Rural Herefordshire, 1800–60
What happened to class? New histories of labour and collective action in Britain
Pauper protests
Swing, Speenhamland and rural social relations
Captain Swing
Finding Captain Swing
Swing, Swing Redivivus, or Something After Swing? On the Death Throes of a Protest Movement, December 1830–December 1833
Resistance from the Margins
British Trade Unionism, 1750-1850
The Violent Captain Swing
What Happened to Class
Tolpuddle Martyrs and Trade Union Oaths
The development of the English rural proletariat and social protest, 1700-1850
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,11 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2017 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |