R v Lovelass
Open-knowledge reference entry
R v Lovelass and Others (1834) 172 ER 1380 is a formative case in the history of UK labour law. It saw the Tolpuddle Martyrs, farm workers who wished to form a union to prevent wage cuts, convicted and deported to Australia. It triggered protests, which led to the workers' eventual release and return to Britain.
Facts
In Tolpuddle, a village in Dorset, George Lovelass (also spelled "Loveless" in a different report of the trial, and sometimes "Lovelace") and James Lovelass, James Brine, James Hammett, and John Standfield, had met in Thomas Standfield’s house, and had taken an oath to combine to attempt to raise wages for agricultural workers. They formed the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. A witness, Edward Legg, had also taken the oath which included an undertaking to reveal nothing. Under the Unlawful Oaths Act 1797, passed in response to naval mutinies following the French Revolution, it was illegal to make an oath, and a further offence to not reveal the oath.
Lock (also spelled as Lark in the case report) gave evidence as a witness. Edward Legg as a witness said the following.
I went with the last witness; they told us something about striking, or that they meant to strike, and that we might do the same if we liked.
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This entry incorporates text from “R v Lovelass” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.