Six Men Of Dorset

SANWAL

(5 Sterne; 2 Bewertungen)

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.

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.

Chapters

1:25:06

Bewertungen

Not review, correcting historical error in description

TheMaskOfCastlereagh

(0 Sterne)

Taking issue with, from the description, ‘their meagre pay of six shillings a week – the equivalent of 30p in today's money’—this is false. N.b. This is not the uploader’s description and description can be found on a few sites including, sadly, Historic England (earliest use I found was in a 2006 collection of the socialist Tribune magazine). 1. Even after 1971’s decimalisation, some of our pre-decimalisation coins were retained in circulation, the shilling and 2-shilling (florin) at least, with the shilling becoming 5 new pence and the 2-shilling coin 10 new pence. Someone has simply multiplied the post-decimalisation shilling by 5. However, in 1834 our traditional currency of Pounds, Shillings, and Pence (Lsd—libra, solidus, denarius, the ‘L’ evolving into our ‘£’ symbol) was in use, with a shilling being 12 pence (and 20 shillings—240 pence—in a Pound). So, in pennies, a 6/- wage was 72d (72 pence), not ‘30p’. 2. It is impossible to give anything other than the roughest of guides to what that 1834 6/- wage was in modern terms. The ‘30p’ or 72d calculations both fail to take into account inflation, but the Bank of England provides a historical inflation calculator, if only for complete pounds; it calculating £1 in 1834 as equivalent to £132.92 in 2020, 6/- being a little over a third of 1L would mean their wage was £39.88 in 2020 money. 3. The price of bread is frequently used as a measure of the true value of wages, and according to ‘Three Centuries of Prices of Wheat, Flour and Bread’ by John Kirkland (1917)—available on this site https://archive.org/details/threecenturiesof00kirkrich —the average price of 4lbs of bread in 1834 was 8d, allowing a weekly 6/- wage to buy 36lbs of bread; the UK’s ONS records the average price of 800g of (sliced, white) bread in September 2021 to be £1.07, so to buy 36lbs would cost £21.84. 4. The MeasuringWorth.com site goes further in its estimation of purchasing power and estimates a 6/- income in 1834 to be equivalent to between £29.48 and £1,374 in 2020 values (visit website to see how they define the various values). 5. Even the poorest Briton today has greater expectations than an 1834 labourer, and over and above their basic needs many require financing their mobile phone, internet connection, Netflix, car, central heating, council tax, income tax, NI, VAT, and all the other taxes to support governments whose expenditure that as percentage of GDP now exceeds what we were spending at the height of the Napoleonic Wars; while the 1834 labourer would little worry further than keeping a roof over his head and food on his table. One should also note how in 1834, to a labourer, a loaf of bread was a loaf of bread; whereas now… do you want sliced or unsliced? Thick, thin or medium sliced? White or Brown? Wholemeal? Seeded? Malted? Etc. (Oh, Matt Sweeney136 above doesn't like facts, Cry more, Matt, sob your little heart out; all upset because I noted that six shillings is not equivalent to 30 new pence.)

Dear TheMaskOfCastlereagh

Matt Sweeney136