Review On the shelf
The women who changed our working world
The Ascott Martyrs. Why did the rural establishment imprison 16 women and two babies in 1873? By Keith Laybourn, published by Ascott Press £14.99 (available on Amazon and Jaffa & Neal. All proceeds to maintain memory of the Martyrs).
For many in Ascott the Martyrs story was just a “local difficulty” recognised on the village green by the planting of a tree 50 years ago and surrounded by seats with names of women sent to Oxford prison for picketing i.e. supporting their menfolk’s strike for more wages.
The book published in March, expands the story and fully recognises the national furore with many letters to the Times from lawyers, Union officials and the farmers themselves, notwithstanding
leading articles by the Observer and Spectator challenging the role of clerical/ stipendiary magistrates.
There was also a Union-organised demonstration of 5,000 in Hyde Park where the women were well supported, as well a major riot in Chipping Norton, and then questions in Parliament itself. At the end of their time in imprisonment even a
telegram arrived at Oxford Prison for a Royal Pardon to exempt them from hard
labour.The book pulls together the work of five academics together with five local historians including the Ascott Martyrs Educational Trust.
The rise and rapid fall of the agricultural union is examined by the Tolpuddle Radical History Group and the unsatisfactory role for rural women in the 19th century by leading Professor Nicola Verdon. The pressure the tenant farmer was under from absent landowners is not forgotten, as well as the growing import competition as a result of the repeal finally of the Corn Laws in 1846.
The role of the various religions was also important in maintaining or challenging the status quo, with new rival churches being built in Ascott as well as in surrounding villages. The leading players for change were the Primitive Methodists who built a close
relationship with the Union officials, even to a point of promoting emigration which at its peak was often 25 per cent of a village’s population.
Rural living conditions at this time were totally unacceptable. One has to reflect that the Wychwoods 150 years ago was one of the poorest areas in England and it is now one of the richest.
The law did get changed but was fudged by the establishment and it wasn’t really until the founding of the Labour Party in 1900 and the widening of the electoral franchise in the early 20th century that conditions improved for the underclass.
Did the “Chipping Norton Incident” change lives? It certainly was one, very unusually involving women, that eventually contributed to the better and more equal life we live today.
n By Paul Jackson
30 Unite buildingWORKER Spring 2024
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32
