Six Men Of Dorset

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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