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East Anglia - a hotbed of rural resistance

STEVEN WALKER takes a looks back at the birth of the Agricultural Labourers Union

These days East Anglia is synonymous with a kind of rural idyll - a quiet backwater where the metropolitan bourgeoisie buy their holiday homes.

Probably to many people this signature farmland region, which still hosts quaint agricultural county shows, has always trundled on in the slow lane of life. Not so.

We only have to step back a little in time to see a hidden and barely acknowledged history of militancy and trade union organisation which was just as strong, organised and rebellious as that of the urban proletariat which emerged as the industrial revolution was accelerating in the early 19th century.

At that time the ruling class landed gentry worked hand in glove with the established church to suppress dissent and agitation for more humane living conditions and better wages.

The squirearchy could use the threat of eviction and unemployment against those daring to question the terms and conditions of their labour, while the high church preached sermons about the virtues of hard labour and rewards awaiting the agricultural labourers in heaven.

Getting sacked for daring to ask for more wages meant instant poverty due to tied living conditions, and a labourer would have to move considerable distances to shake off a reputation as a "troublemaker" and gain employment.

In The Memoirs of Josiah Sage the author, who was born into rural poverty in Norfolk in 1870, recalls vivid memories of an early trade unionist called Joseph Arch who spent his life organising farm labourers into one of the embryonic Agricultural Labourers Union.

Arch himself was inspired by farm workers in Warwickshire who drew attention to their appalling working and living conditions by writing to local newspapers in 1872.

Word spread to Norfolk where Arch, a primitive Methodist preacher with a reputation for great oratory, was asked to speak at a meeting organised by several farm workers. A thousand workers attended as word spread by mouth and the meeting had to take place on the village green.

At the end of the meeting a resolution was passed to form a union and shortly after they sent a very polite letter to all the landowners in the district of Wellesbourne, requesting consideration be given to an increase in wages, a reduction in hours and proper overtime pay.

Unsurprisingly this led to a spell of victimisation against union members.

A report in the Times said: "The farmers are beginning to retaliate on the union, which they are determined to extinguish.

"As a body the farmers are resolutely opposed to the union, which they regards as a most dangerous confederation.

"Some have already discharged all their labourers who have joined a union and other unionists are under notice to leave."

Arch was denounced as a paid agitator and an apostle of arson who was setting class against class.

Nevertheless his status and reputation among farm workers grew and his speeches were listened to with rapt attention as he argued against starvation wages and for improved terms and conditions.

The union grew in strength and formed one of the strongest lobby groups pressing for the Franchise Bill which eventually became law in 1884, allowing farm workers to vote for the first time.

In the 1885 general election Arch was elected to Parliament. A popular song at the time had been We Demand The Vote. The last verse seems timeless, in this era of zero-hour job contracts, fuel poverty, food banks, youth unemployment and the persecution of trades unionists:

March on thus brave comrades,

In the cause that is right,

Show wisdom in counsel,

Show valour in fight.

We have won many battles,

be valiant and brave,

Stand firm for the vote,

and the vote we will have.

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