Tolpuddle Martyrs festival

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Billy Bragg in 2004.

The Tolpuddle Martyrs' Festival is an annual free festival held in Dorset, England, which celebrates the memory of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. The event is a celebration of trade unionism and labour politics organised by the Dorset Committee of the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workersnow section of the TGWU and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and featuring a parade of banners from many trade unions, a memorial service, speeches and music. The festival is usually held in the third week of July.

Each year a wreath is laid at the grave of James Hammett, one of the martyrs.

The main festival events are held outside the Martyrs' Museum on the western edge of the village. The main speeches and performances take place on a small stage in front of the the Tolpuddle cottages and museum, with audience space on the green. The adjacent field, as well as having camping space, has a marquee, Workers Beer Company bar and merchandise stalls.

Recent festivals have featured speakers including politicians Tony Benn, Dennis Skinner, Jim Knight and Estelle Morris, British trade union leaders and many union organisers from around the world, especially countries where organising unions is difficult, *such as Iraq and Colombia. Musicians include Billy Bragg, now an annual fixture, Dick Gaughan and David Rovics.

George Loveless, one of the Tolpuddle Martyrs when sentenced to seven years‘ transportation wrote on a scrap of paper the following lines:-

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 watch-word liberty; We will, we will, we will be free!

This years (2007) Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival will be held on Sunday 15th July but events are organised from the previous wednesday

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:WkpGSR8fGQ8J:www.tuc.org.uk/the_tuc/tuc-12942-f0.cfm+tolpuddle,2007&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk&client=firefox-a