Six Men Of Dorset. BBC RADIO DRAMA

SATURDAY-NIGHT THEATRE

Sat 26th Aug 1961, 20:30 on BBC Home Service Basic

The recorded broadcast of April 24.

Haydn Jones, Avril Elgar and Miles Malleson in Six Men of Dorset by Miles Malleson and H. Brooks

A play about the Tolpuddle Martyrs, celebrating the brave working class men who were exiled to Australia for forming a trade union.

The action takes place in Dorset, London, and Australia in the 1830s, and Canada in the 1850s.
Produced by Charles Lefeaux

Main characters in order of speaking:

Nellie, as a child: Susan Bown

Georgie: David Lott

Jinnie: Heather Kyd

Betsy Loveless, their mother: Avril Elgar

George Loveless, their father, and one of the Six Men: Haydn Jones

James Loveless, one of the Six Men: Tom Watson

Two of the Six Men: James Brine: Nigel Anthony

Two of the Six Men: James Hammett:

William Eedle

Edward Legg: Kenneth Dight

The Squire: Eric Anderson

Dr Warren: Derek Blomfield

Farmer Bryant: Julian Somers

Farmer Case: Wilfred Babbage

Farmer Duffelt: Philip Morant

Two of the Six Men: Thomas Standfield:

Frederick Treves

John Standfleld: Andrew Irvine

William Cobb: Godfrey Kenton

Mr Wollaston, JP: Peter Claughton

James Frampton, JP: John, Bryning

Mr Gambier, Counsel for the Prosecution:

Derek Birch

Mr Butt, Counsel for the Defence: Miles Malleson

Judge Baron Williams: Keith Williams

The Rev Dr Wade: Willoughby Goddard

Robin Nealy: Andrew Irvine

Nellie Loveless: Penelope Lee

Other parts played by members of the BBC Drama Repertory Company

Tolpuddle is a village near Dorchester in Dorset, where in the years 1833 and 1834 a great wave of trade union activity took place and a lodge of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers was established.

George Loveless and five fellow workers – his brother James, James Hammett, James Brine, Thomas Standfield and Thomas's son John – were charged with having taken an illegal oath. But their real crime in the eyes of the establishment was to have formed a trade union to protest about their meagre pay of six shillings a week – the equivalent of 30p in today's money and the third wage cut in as many years.


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