The article above referred to a letter supposedly written by a Samuel Whitbread of Stapleford Tawney. The letter is reproduced here.
Samuel Whitbread, Laborer
Stapleford Tawney, nr. Romford, Essex.
To the hard working (but ill used) Laborers of Stapleford Tawney, Stanford Rivers and other Parishes.
Countrymen,
The time is now come when the poor labourer is determined to have more of those comforts that he produces, than he has had at present. In the counties of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Berkshire, Wilts, Lincolnshire and Norfolk, the laborers all have struck for higher wages, they say they won’t starve upon 8 or 10s a week any longer. They go to the farm houses after they have got together as may laborers as they can, perhaps 200 or 300 men from 5or 6 different parishes and make the farmers promise to give them 14s a week in Winter and 15s in Summer, and now the men have 14s instead of 10s. They don’t mind the farmer bouncing and blustering. They said they would have it and now they have got it. The men in Kent and Sussex that first struck began to plan the thing on Sunday and went about it on the Monday. If Essex rises, it will make 10 counties, and I know this, that it is the fault of the laborers themselves if they have 10s a week instead of 14s, which the brave men of Kent, Sussex and the other counties are getting. This is god news my boys, and make good use of it.
I am,
A Poor Man’s Friend.
They make every man leave off work and join them. No more 10s. a week my lads.
Show this letter to your fellow workmen, as I know what they will say and what they will do. Beware of spies.
The ’Morning ’Post, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 1839
The following statement, upon the accuracy of which the public may confidently rely, affords a striking illustration of the industry, zeal, and success with which the Chartist principles have been diffused and the Chartist organization established among the labouring population of Great Britain.
None of our readers can have forgotten the conviction: and transportation of the Dorchester labourers. The arrival in London of the returned convicts was signalized by a public procession, public dinner and a public subscription. The cause of Radicalism and
of unlawful oaths had gained a splendid victory over social order . . .
The new settlers at Grinstead and High Laver had not long been established among the hitherto quiet and well conducted population of these parishes before they began to agitate and to agitate in a manner, and with a degree of success which showed only too plainly that their mission of mischief had not been entrusted to unpractised or unskilful hands. Chartist newspapers were quickly seen in active circulation. The beer-shops in which they were to be found became more frequented and more noisy than heretofore. A Chartist association was formed at Grinstead and by the combined or
alternate influence or persuasion and of terror, nearly the whole of the agricultural labourers in that and adjoining parishes were induced to join it . . . The effect of these proceedings was to diffuse a general sense of insecurity throughout that part of the country, and so far to disturb the habitual relation between the farmers and the labourers
that the former thought it necessary to adopt a system of hiring for the last harvest different from previous practice and to engage their labourers on such terms that, in case of desertion from their work, they might be liable to summary punishment.
It is gratifying to us to be enabled to add, that since the discomfiture of the Chartists at Newport, the Essex disciples of the Dorchester labourers have dwindled, or seemed, to dwindle, alike in numbers and in courage.
We fear that only one inference can be drawn from this narrative viz... that the Chartist organization is very extensively diffused throughout the country What spot, it will naturally be asked, can be supposed to be free from this foul infection, when it seems to have pervaded even the quiet and secluded hamlets of the County of Essex.
………………
To the editor of the Morning Post
Sir,
I must request your insertion of the following remarks, as I consider that reports such as the one I have undertaken to contradict re especially calculated to inflame men’s minds, and to produce in stern reality the very evil which is now nearly, if not quite, imaginary….
I feel it is my duty as a magistrate in the neighbourhood alluded to, and almost within sight of the alleged Chartist demonstration, to set you and the public right on the subject.
It is true that some half dozen radicals in Ongar subscribe certain weekly halfpence to take in that immaculate print the People’s Charter.
It is true that a waggon load of delegates from some political union in London came down one day some six months ago, with ribbons in their buttonholes, to endeavour, I presume to get some beer and bread and cheese out of their Chartist brethren, in which praiseworthy object however, I believe they failed as signally as they did in endeavouring to enlist the people of Essex under the banner of Chartism.
It I true that these firebrands, the dreaded Dorchester labourers, are four ignorant creatures, who literally do not know how to plough the land they occupy.
And lastly it is true (and let me tell them they are marked men) that of these half dozen ignorant democrats (neither Essex men nor true agriculturalists are they) should attempt to disturb the peace of the county, they would be put down, not by military force as at Newport, not by an armed gendarmerie of the TRUE agricultural yeomen and labourers of Essex and I would stake my existence on the fact) would follow their landlords to the last drop of their blood in defence of the good old cause - the cause of their religion, teir laws, and their own firesides.
I am sir,
A Conservative magistrate for the County of Essex.
December 28, 1839.
The Reverend Philip Ray, Rector of Greensted was not a friend of the Tolpuddle martyrs, who had settled in Greensted and High Laver. The Essex Standard reported,
"George Loveless, instead of quietly fulfilling the duties of his station . . . is still dabbling in the dirty waters of radicalism and publishing pamphlets to keep up the old game."