{"id":2031,"date":"2020-12-04T09:30:18","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T09:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/?p=2031"},"modified":"2020-11-26T08:32:49","modified_gmt":"2020-11-26T08:32:49","slug":"the-milton-abbas-martyrs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/2020\/12\/04\/the-milton-abbas-martyrs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Milton Abbas Martyrs"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Milton Abbas Local History Group<\/a> member has discovered that in 1803 six men from Milton Abbas were charged under the Combination Act of 1800, for conspiring with others to increase wages. Their names and sentences of two months hard labour are given in the Dorchester Gaol Prisoners in Custody registers for March 1803. Described in the catalogue as Criminal process register 1782-1808<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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These documents are in Dorset History Centre and available on Ancestry. The men were convicted by the notorious James Frampton of Moreton, the very man who thirty years later convicted the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Our research shows that they are the first men in Dorset to be convicted under this Act. Could they be the first in England?<\/p>\n

This event is of national importance and the whole affair should be much more widely known. The TUC, the Martyrs Museum and Shire Hall Justice Museum have all expressed their interest in discovering more about the event.<\/p>\n

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The Milton Abbas Local History Group would love anyone reading this blog to help us research these important people, they may be part of your family tree! They were early pioneers, victims of oppressive laws and their story should be as well known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs. It is astonishing that so little is known of the Combination Acts and the people convicted under them. There appears to be very little written about them.<\/p>\n

The victims, all from Milton Abbas are –<\/p>\n

William Vatcher 1753-1818<\/p>\n

John Bennett, alias Vatcher 1775?-?<\/p>\n

James Vatcher 1774-1816<\/p>\n

John Chaffey 1774-1855<\/p>\n

John Scott 1764-1837<\/p>\n

Charles Best 1733-1825<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our group has been given some family trees so we know some of these men were linked by marriages, wouldn’t it be great if the families could be reconstituted?<\/p>\n

In addition, is it possible to find more information on the magistrate who sentenced these men, James Frampton? We know that there is an MA Thesis by John Fripp in the Dorset History Centre Rare Books section ‘James Frampton: A Dorset Magistrate in the 1830s: Draco of the Fields, Or Man of His Time?’<\/em><\/a>\u00a0 but are hopeful there is more information to find!<\/p>\n

Please get in touch via our website <\/a>if you know of these men, or would like to research their lives. We already have a wonderful resource with transcriptions of overseers of the poor accounts, churchwarden accounts and all other 18th century documents of Milton Abbas transcribed and digitised for easy searching.<\/p>\n

If you are a descendant of one of these men, then you have a family history to be proud of!<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

A guest blog written for Dorset History Centre by Bryan Phillips of the Milton Abbas Local History Group.<\/p>\n

Should you or your organisation wish to contribute a guest blog, please get in touch with us to discuss your idea.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Milton Abbas Local History Group member has discovered that in 1803 six men from Milton Abbas were charged under the Combination Act of 1800, for conspiring with others to increase wages. Their names and sentences of two months hard labour are given in the Dorchester Gaol Prisoners in Custody registers for March 1803. Described… Read more The Milton Abbas Martyrs<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1892,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58],"tags":[82,256,255,109],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2031"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1892"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2031"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2035,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2031\/revisions\/2035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}