Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?

Subject: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: Peter T.
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 09:48 AM

Anyone know any songs about the Tolpuddle Martyrs?
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 09:56 AM

Yes, there's a whole folk opera 'A Tolpuddle Man'. I'm sure there's someone here that can give you more details. If I can bring anything else to what I laughing call my mind, I'll be back.

Les

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 10:07 AM

Yes, written by Graham Moore (with some input from Mick Ryan I think). It seems that Roy Bailey has recorded the song 'Tolpuddle Man' - which is the big song of the play.

Les

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: Peter T.
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 10:13 AM

Interesting -- would make a great opera, especially the homecoming. Anyone have any songs contemporary with the period? (The DT has "Red Fly The Banners,O" one of the most hilarious songs in the repertoire, "5 for the years of the 5 Year Plan, 4 for the number of times the ice pick went into Trotsky's head, etc....). yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: AndyG
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 10:26 AM

You could start with this. How contemporary it is I can't say.

AndyG

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: Peter T.
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 10:31 AM

How is this song relevant, apart from its general politics? yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: AndyG
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 10:51 AM

Sorry if I mis-understood ... Anyone have any songs contemporary with the period? ... but I suspect this is one such song. I just don't know whether it's somewhat before, during, or subsequent to the struggle centered round the trial.

AndyG

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: karen k
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 12:32 PM

Peter,
If you put Tolpuddle in the filter box and refresh to 2 years you will come up with 4 other Tolpuddle threads.
k

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: MARINER
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 01:15 PM

I have Tolpuddle Man on cassette tape, it was presented in my home town about 5 years ago by a group from Bristol Univ. Let me have your home address and I'll send a copy on to you.

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: Peter T.
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 03:46 PM

thanks, karen, I tried that originally, but I don't seem to be able to make it work. Good to know they are there, I guess. yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: Peter T.
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 03:53 PM

Thanks, Mariner, I am really interested in songs about the Tolpuddle Martyrs from the period. I was able to get the Forum Search to work just now, but they are all about the same folk opera.
Original question reiterated: Anyone know any songs about the Tolpuddle Martyrs from the period?

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 07:16 PM

There weren't any, it was quite a local thing, and people were too busy starving to death to make up songs.

LTS

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 09:29 PM

As well as being one hell of a fine song writer, Graham Moore is also a strong devotee of the Digital Tradition. He carries a laptop around with it on, and at any oppportunity will enthuse about it and demonstrate how it works etc. I mmean how the DT works, not the laptop.

At Whitby Festival last summer he was down to give a workshop on the Internet and Folk Music. When he realised that Dick Greenhaus was in the room, he almost fell down on his knees. And, in effect, he promptly handed over the workshop to Dick instead, to tell everyone all about the DT, and sat tghere in rapt attention....

I'm sure that Graham has a lot of research he's done about all this - he's thorough and he's painstaking. And if Peter got on to him, via Dick, who's no doubt got contact details, think he'd be extremely helpful in the quest.

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: The Shambles
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 06:55 AM

Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: Peter T.
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 09:24 AM

Thanks McGrath, what a great idea. yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: GUEST,freda
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 03:34 AM

I'm trying to find the words to what I think is a Graham Moore song - Albion Shore, and can't find them anywhere. Does anyone have a copy they could post to this thread?

hopefully

freda

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 04:18 AM

Ossenflags, lead singer with Punch the Horse does a superb version of the Tolpuddle Man, try a PM to him for words

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: freda underhill
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 04:58 AM

thanks, raggyt!

Subject: Lyr Add: ALBION'S SHORE (Mick Ryan, Graham Moore)
From: jack halyard
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 09:28 AM

Here we are. I just got John to type the words out and I'm putting them on here.

(Jenny on John's computer)

Albion's Shore. Mick Ryan and Graham Moore.

The distant shore of England fades from sight.
Now all seems dark that once was pure and bright,
And now a convict serves me for a time,
To suffer hardship in a foreign clime.

My faith and union's stronger than these chains,
In pastures green he leads me once again,
Through death's dark valley, safely and secure,
return once more to stand on Albion's shore.

How wretched is an exile's state of mind,
By grief worn down, in servile chains confined,
While not one gleam of hope on Earth remains,
And not one friend to soothe his heartfelt pains

My faith and union...

Too true I know that man was made to mourn,
With anguish full my aching heart is torn
The heavy portion falls unto my lot,
Far from my friends, by all the world forgot.

My faith and union...

Farewell my mother, aged father dear,
for you I shed a sympathetic tear,
I pray before our lives have ceased to run,
You'll be united with your long lost son.

My faith and union..

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: freda underhill
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 10:07 AM

thanks so much, jennyo and john

x freda

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: The DeanMeister
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 10:22 AM

Yep, Raggy, Mick sings it beautifully.

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: Daniel Kelly
Date: 22 Feb 20 - 07:46 PM

Wow, this is outrageous.

Those lyrics posted for 'Albion's Shore' are directly lifted from a convict poem by James Porter (written in 1844).

I just finished my own setting after reading Porter's autobiography.

Links to the original source in the video description.

Don Brian also did a setting of this song on his album of convict songs, 'The Convict Voice'.

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 23 Feb 20 - 07:54 AM

https://books.google.ca/books?id=1vwnAPEY5JsC&pg=PA218&lpg=PA218&dq=O+cease+my+troubled+aching+heart+to+beat,+Since+happiness+so

The book implies that the poem lyrics were written prior to or in 1837 (see paragraph just following the poem lyrics).

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 23 Feb 20 - 12:28 PM

Tolpuddle Man · Roy Bailey

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 23 Feb 20 - 07:38 PM

Tolpuddle Man 16 songs by Graham Moore

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: GUEST,Daniel Kelly
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 12:47 AM

Away from my account, but thanks for the link Starship. The book correctly attributes the lines to James Porter. 1837 matches the date of the convict’s return after escaping to Chile on the Frederick in 1834. The source I link to was not written down until 1844 while James was on Norfolk Island.

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 07:58 AM

Thanks for writing, Daniel. Please keep us in the loop. Mistakes in attribution do occur, and sometimes for the weirdest reasons.

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 05:21 PM

The Tolpuddle martyrs apparently received only a passing reference in a single ballad; Roy Palmer, The Sound of History.

See 'A New Song on the Birmingham Election', street ballad printed by Taylor and Company, Birmingham [1837].

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: GUEST, henryp
Date: 25 Feb 20 - 03:38 PM

The story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs TUC booklet ISBN 978 1 8500 793 1
We will be free
On leaving the court after his conviction, George Loveless threw to the crowd a paper on which he had written the following verses. He is not the author but they were sung at meetings arranged during the campaign for the release of the Martyrs.

"God is our guide! From field, from wave,
From plough, from anvil and from loom;
We come, our country's rights to save,
And speak a tyrant faction's doom;
We raise the watchword 'Liberty'
We will, we will, we will be free!

God is our guide! No swords we draw,
We kindle not war's battle fires,
By reason, union, justice, law,
We claim the birthright of our sires;
We raise the watchword 'Liberty'
We will, we will, we will be free!"

God is our Guide The Tolpuddle Martyrs and their Methodist Roots
This booklet is published by the Dorchester Circuit of the Southampton District of the Methodist Church

The Song of Freedom
Tune Madrid 8.8.8.8.8.8.

http://folkstream.com/643.html
Come! chanting the song of the "GATHERING OF THE UNIONS;" and shew the spirit by which your fathers and brethren have achieved REFORM.

Lo! we answer! see, we come!
Quick at Freedom's holy call,
We come! we come! we come! we come!
To do the glorious work of all;
And hark! we raise from sea to sea,
The secret watchword Liberty.

God is our guide! from field, from wave,
From plough, from anvil, and from loom.
We come, our country's right to save
And speak a tyrant faction's doom:
And hark! we raise from sea to sea.
The sacred watchword Liberty

God is our guide ! no swords we draw,
We kindle not war's battle fires ;
By union, justice, reason, law,
We claim the birthright of our sires,
We raise the watchword Liberty.
We will, we will, we will be free.

Notes; From the Tasmanian Newspaper the Colonist and Van Diemen's Land Commercial and Agricultural Advertiser 27 May 1834 p. 2. The song "The Gathering of the Unions" is a reworking of the famous Tolpuddle Martyrs' song written by their leader George Loveless as on 18 March 1834 they were being sentenced to Transportation to Australia for uttering illegal oaths.

https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/god-our-guide-field-wave
God is our guide! from field, from wave by George Loveless

God is our guide from field and wave,
From plough, from anvil, and from loom;
We come to liberate the slave,
And speak the factious despot's doom:
And, hark! we raise from sea to sea,
The watchword—“ GOD AND LIBERTY !”

We draw no devastating sword,
No war's destructive fires we light,
By reason and the living word
Of God, we put our foes to flight:
And, hark! &c.

We come with blessings in our train,
To spread them with a bounteous hand;
To wipe away the guilty stain
Of slavery, from this much-lov'd land:
And, hark! &c.

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: GUEST,SB
Date: 25 Feb 20 - 06:39 PM

An ideal topic for a Radio Ballad?!!

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 25 Feb 20 - 07:07 PM

Something really close from 1832 I think:

https://books.google.ca/books?id=sX8QAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA397&lpg=PA397&dq=%22God+is+our+guide!+From+field,+from+wave,+From+plough,+fro

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 25 Feb 20 - 07:19 PM

A blue click link of Starships link above
https://books.google.ca/books?id=sX8QAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA397&lpg=PA397&dq=%22God+is+our+guide!+From+field,+from+wave,+From+plough,+fro

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 25 Feb 20 - 08:29 PM

Thought I'd done that. Thank you, Geoff.

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 04:47 AM

From historyhome.co.uk; It took eighteen months for the Reform Act to go through parliament; the legislation came after public meetings, demonstrations, riots and potentially a revolution. The Whig government under Earl Grey was opposed by the Tories led by the Duke of Wellington who, ultimately, allowed the Bill to pass by telling the Tory Lords not to oppose the Bill any longer. The campaign was long and drawn out.

1831. On 1 March 1831, the Reform Bill was introduced to the Commons by Lord John Russell who bored MPs almost into falling asleep, until the announcement of Schedule A - the list of boroughs that were to be disenfranchised. This came as a shock to Whigs and Tories alike. Peel failed to kill the Bill by forcing a division. This pushed him back towards the die-hard Tories. The vote was taken at 3.03 a.m. on 23 March 1831. The Bill passed by one vote - because an opposition MP missed the division by mistake.

The debate began in the Lords on 7 May. The government made it clear that if they were defeated they would either secure the creation of peers or resign. The opposition still carried the amendment postponing the disenfranchising clauses of the Bill by 151:116 because - as Le Marchant said, 'The Peers with few exceptions - as usually happens when a question is imperfectly understood and the House is taken by surprise - voted according to Party.' Grey decided not to stay in office without the creation of the fifty or sixty peers. He needed the creations as a matter of principle and also to defend the government's standing with the reform movement. Grey expected the king to refuse, and most of the government hoped that he would.

Also on 7 May a meeting attended by 100,000 (said Attwood) was held on Newhall Hill, Birmingham in support of the Bill. It was a "Gathering of the Unions" which existed in the Midlands. It was mis-timed because reports of the meeting were not available in London on 9 May, the day on which William IV accepted the resignations of the Cabinet after refusing to create the peers needed to pass the Bill, although he wanted a government which could pass an 'extensive' Reform Bill. The following day, the news of Grey's resignation reached Birmingham and prompted another mass meeting, which assembled spontaneously.

1832. The Bill's third reading in the Lords passed by 106 votes to 22 on 4 June, mainly because the Tories failed to turn up for the vote; on 7 June it received the Royal Assent. The king refused to announce this in person and his assent was declared by commission. The Act, as finally passed, was not greatly different from the original Bill which had been introduced to the Commons in March 1831.

Today, it's hard to imagine how the whole country could be held in the spell of a controversial proposal and the passage of a bill through Parliament!

1834. The Tolpuddle Martyrs convicted of swearing secret oaths and sentenced to transportation to Australia.

From wikipedia;
1836. In England they became popular heroes and 800,000 signatures were collected for their release. Their supporters organised a political march, one of the first successful marches in the United Kingdom, and all were eventually pardoned in March 1836 on the condition of good conduct, with the support of Lord John Russell, who had recently become Home Secretary. When the pardon reached George Loveless some delay was caused in his leaving due to no word from his wife as to whether she was to join him in Van Diemen's Land. On 23 December 1836, a letter was received to the effect that she was not coming and Loveless sailed from Van Diemen's Land on 30 January 1837, arrived in England on 13 June 1837.

1837. In New South Wales, there were delays in obtaining an early sailing due to tardiness in the authorities confirming good conduct with the convicts' assignees and then getting them released from their assignments. James Loveless, Thomas and John Standfield, and James Brine departed Sydney on the John Barry on 11 September 1837, reaching Plymouth (one of the departure points for convict transport ships) on 17 March 1838. A plaque next to the Mayflower Steps in Plymouth's historical Barbican area commemorates the arrival. Although due to depart with the others, James Hammett was detained in Windsor, charged with an assault, while the others left the colony. It was not until March 1839 that he sailed, arriving in England in August 1839.

Subject: RE: Tolpuddle Martyrs, any songs?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 11:37 AM

There is certainly a song in this story! In his post working for Major William de Gillern, James Loveless had the opportunity to read the London Dispatch. And there he read of his free pardon!

From the Australian Dictionary of Biography;

James Loveless, the two Standfields, Hammett and Brine sailed in the Surry to Sydney, where they arrived in August 1834. George Loveless was separated from his companions and sent to Van Diemen's Land in the William Metcalfe, reaching Hobart Town on 4 September. Lieutenant-Governor (Sir) George Arthur appreciated his sterling qualities and exemplary character and sent him to work on the domain farm at New Town as a shepherd and stock-keeper.

Later he was employed by Major William de Gillern at Glen Ayr, near Richmond; there he read in the London Dispatch of the great campaign that had been conducted in London for the prisoners' release and of Lord John Russell's order on 10 March 1836, that free pardons be issued to them. Loveless, however, had some months previously been persuaded to write to ask his wife Elizabeth to join him; when offered a free passage to England, he refused to accept it until certain that she had not already sailed. This delayed his departure for several months, but on 30 January 1837 he embarked in the Eveline and reached London in June.

Meanwhile the authorities in New South Wales had been far more dilatory in conveying the government's instructions and offer to his companions. It was not until 11 September that James Loveless, Brine and the Standfields sailed from Sydney in the John Barry, reaching Plymouth in March 1838. James Hammett, who had been working in the interior of the colony, did not arrive in England until September 1839.

On their return the Lovelesses, Standfields and Brine settled on farms near Chipping Ongar in Essex, and migrated to Canada a few years later; James Hammett alone went back to Tolpuddle. George Loveless, like his companions, became an active Chartist; he wrote The Victims of Whiggery (London, 1837), a remarkable account of the Dorchester labourers' experiences and of the transportation system. He died on a farm at London, Ontario, on 6 March 1874.