#english_history 

## Workers' rights
Since **1824** workers had been allowed to join together in [[Government and society in Late Medieval England#^00201d|unions]]. Most of these were small and feeble, and although one of their aims was to make sure employers paid reasonable wages, they also tried to prevent other people from working in their particular trade. As a result, the working classes still found it difficult to act together.

In **1834** there was an event of great importance in trade union history. 6 farmworkers in the Dorset village of Tolpuddle joined together, promising to be loyal to their "union". Their employed managed to find a law by which they could be punished, and they were. Then in London 30000 workers and radicals gathered to ask the government to pardon the "Tolpuddle Martyrs". The government didn't. Tolpudddle became a symbol of employers' cruelty, and of the working classes' need to defend themselves.

The radicals and workers were greatly helped in their effors by the introduction of a cheap postage system in **1840**, which enabled them to organise themselves.

## Workers' actions
Working together for the first time, unions & co put forward a People's Charter in 1838, demanding rights & etc. The Charter was refused.

The Chartists were not united for long. They were divided between those ready to use violence and those who believed in change by lawful means.

But the riots continued, and so did the government's cruelty. The government was saved partly by the skill of **Robert Peel**, the Prime Minister of the time. Peel believed he was able to use the improved economic conditions in the 1840s to weaken the Chartists movement, which slowly died.
In 1846 he abolished the Corn Law.
Then he turned his attention to the problem of crime, by establishing a regular police force for London in **1829**. Since Peel's nickname was "Bob", the policemen since have been called **"bobbies"**.

Britain's success in avoiding the storm of revolution in 1848 was admired almost everywhere. Britain had been a political model in the 18th century, but with the American/French revolution interest in liberalism and democracy turned to these 2 countries. Now it moved back to Britain.