140 years ago . . .


UNDER THE spreading


CHESTNUT TREE F


February 7th 1872 was a grey rainy day, and when forty-six year old Joseph Arch set out that evening in his old cord trousers and flannel jacket to tramp the four miles or so from Barford to Wellesbourne in Warwickshire, the roads were wet and muddy.


Joseph wasn’t sure what to expect. For years he had been a self-confessed agitator, not in the sense of seeking to foment trouble for trouble’s sake, but because he had a fervent desire to improve his lot and that of his fellow agricultural workers, whose lives he felt were those of downtrodden slaves. He had long been an advocate of combination, in other words of forming a union, and now the call had come. He had agreed to address a meeting at 7 pm under the old chestnut tree in the centre of Wellesbourne with that very aim in mind. This was a moment Joseph Arch had been waiting for, but he couldn’t help wondering if the right time really had come. He and the men to whom he was about to speak had everything to lose if the venture failed; such was the stranglehold that the ruling classes had over them.


From an early age Joseph had seen labourers and their families being humiliated and ill-treated by the squires, the farmers and most shockingly of all, by the church. This attitude of the clergy and particularly that of the local parson’s wife, whom Joseph described as ‘a kind of lady pope’ had a profound influence on him, and in later life he became a Methodist preacher.


Maggie Chaplin talks about the life and times of Joseph Arch


26 FOUR SHIRES v MARCH 2012


He was particularly hurt by the way his family was ostracised because his father refused to sign a petition in favour of the Corn Laws, so he resolved to better himself in any way he could, and held the vision that one day he would be instrumental in improving the lot of his fellow agricultural workers.


Joseph had three years of very basic schooling, but left in order to make a contribution to the


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