Age Concern Dorchester - Dorset's Living Memories

Tolpuddle Martyrs 100th Anniversary

Freda Wade writes ...

August 1934 saw the 100th Anniversary of the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

Dorchester was full of people from the Trade Unions and each evening there was a play in the Corn Exchange re-enacting the events.

 I was made to go for walks with my grandparents whenever they thought fit, and on this particular afternoon my grandmother and I were walking along Holloway Road when we passed a cottage occupied by Mrs Roberts. In the doorway of this cottage was an old man who was almost blind. My grandmother stopped to talk to him and asked him if he had been invited to the celebrations at the Corn Exchange. He didn't even know about it, and he was the son of James Hammett, one of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Quite extraordinary.