DORSET’S history will be brought together via a new shuttle bus link between the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival and Shire Hall Historic Courthouse Museum on Saturday July 21.
This year’s festival runs from July 20-22, and celebrates the Tolpuddle Martyrs, farm workers from west Dorset who banded together and formed a union. They were arrested for taking a secret oath and kept for three days in the cells below what is now the Shire Hall Historic Courthouse Museum. They were sentenced to seven years transportation to Australia and the backlash that followed their trial and sentence gave rise to the modern Trade Union movement.
The festival celebrates this struggle every year through music, debate and a grand procession through the village. With the recent opening of Shire Hall Historic Courthouse Museum, Dorchester’s latest attraction, this has added further to the Martyrs story. This year on the Saturday (July 21st), festival-goers will be able to catch a shuttle bus from the festival to the museum to visit the place the Martyrs were detained and sentenced. The bus costs just £10 and this includes entry to the museum.
Director of Shire Hall, Anna Bright, said the team was delighted to be working with the festival organisers. She said: “The history of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, of ordinary people standing up for what they believed in, is integral to the history of Shire Hall. Issues around social justice are as important today as they were in 1834.
“We are delighted that with the opening of Shire Hall, and the cells and courtroom in which the Martyrs were held and sentenced, comes a new dimension and layer to their story.”
Organiser of the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival, Tom de Wit, said that this year was a very special celebration.
He said: “We are particularly excited this year, with the 150th anniversary of the TUC – an important historic year for the festival, that such an important part of the story has become publicly accessible.”
He said that the festival and museum would be working closely together, as both venues were places where people could come together and discuss not only history but contemporary issues and politics.
Tom added: “It’s not an exaggeration to say that the events that took place in this respectable Dorset town, at Tolpuddle and at Shire Hall, absolutely changed the world. It even changed the framework of justice in this country. It’s an event that puts Dorset and Dorchester on centre stage.”
For more information visit: www.shirehalldorset.org, find the team on Facebook @DorsetShireHall, Instagram @shire_hall_dorset and on Twitter @ShireHallDorset. For more information about the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival visit:www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/festival.
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