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25.01.2022 Great article on Irish political prisoners escaping from Fremantle Prison, Perth in 1874.

21.01.2022 #OnThisDay remembering and celebrating those who believed in a better world, who gathered in Manchester to listen to speeches calling for political reform and the right for working people to have the vote. The Mood in the crowd was said to be jovial, light hearted. But for the English aristocracy their hearts were full of fear and hate. Plying soldiers with alcohol they sent them by horse and sward into the crowd and murder did take place. 20 lay dead and 600 wounded, man...y of whom would die of the injuries in the following months. The Peterloo massacre would set in motion a movement that would come tantalisingly close to bringing down the British ruling elite. In saving their scalps they would relinquish political control and today we vote because of the sacrifice made by working people with bold ideas. For Tasmania Peterloo is so essential we should have a statue of our own, a statue of the people for the people. Our own Mathew Brady had been at the rally, had seen the slaughter, was angered by the slaughter. Days later he would steal bread and food for a homeless mother and child. Sent to NSW he rebelled and rebelled against the tyranny of the British Elite, sent to Sarah Island, he would escape and become a legendary bush ranger, offering 20 barrels of rum for the head of Governor Arthur. John Cahuac, an autodidact and friend of Percy Shelly would publish a satirical poem criticising the British Elite, he too would be arrested on jumped-up charges and sent to Tasmania. On hearing of the Manchester massacre, solidarity actions broke out across the north of England, in Huddersfield 1500 marched on to the town, intercepted by soldiers, more would be killed, several hung, including a 12 year old boy and a handful of weavers were sent to Tasmania. The call for change was growing as too was the determination to make those changes. Working class organisations and democracy itself would rise from the Peterloo Massacre.

16.01.2022 #OnThisDay 1792 Percey Shelley was born. Shelley was a poet and social commentator, his work the Masque of Anarchy would force him to leave England under a wave of repression that swept country. The Masque of Anarchy was a response, and call to action following the slaughter of women and children in Manchester in 1819. Those-for-whom-statues-were-built ordered troops with sabres into a peacefully rally, 20 were killed and 500 lay injured. Shelley wrote the Masque of Anar...chy, and a wave of uprising swept the north of England. Solidarity actions in Huddersfield drew 1000s of working people in a march on the town. The peaceful march was attacked by troops, more people were killed and arrested, those-for-whom-statues-were-built ordered the hanging of several more including a 12 year old boy. Many others were transported to our beautiful lands. Good friend of Shelley John Cahuac also published Who killed Cock Robin a response to the Peterloo massacre and he too was transported to Tasmania. Our struggles are never over, they are never finished and in the great words of Shelley: `Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number-- Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you-- Ye are many -- they are few.'

15.01.2022 Uks' Tolpuddle Festival is online this year - good opportunity to see what might be built here in Tassie - The Radicals Festival???, anyone know some one with land on the SE coast?, anyone want to help to make this happen?

15.01.2022 We have recently found another cohort of political prisoners transported to Tasmaina in 1839. Agricultural workers who rose up against the landowners in Hernhill, Nr Faversham in Kent in what became know as the Battle of Bossenden Wood. The battle was fought between a small group of labourers from the Hernhill, Dunkirk, and Boughton area and a detachment of soldiers sent from Canterbury to arrest the marchers' leader. Eleven men died in the confrontation, 2 others we sent for transportation: Thomas Mears and William Wills, and thats where the story begins ...

09.01.2022 Bring out the banners, bring out our Tassie banners. https://www.youtube.com/watch

04.01.2022 #OnThisDay we remember John Cahuac, arriving into Hobart on the Phoenix II 1824. John was a working class autodidact, he was a satirist, poet, bookseller and author. His distaste for the behaviour of the British ruling elite alined his work with Percy Shelley, Byron, John Keats, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Love Peacock, and Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein,). When troops majestically galloped into a crowd at Manchester swinging their sabres and striking at women children, you...ng and old. 20 lay dead and 600 seriously injured. Cahuac like many of his fellow authors took to pen and paper to express their anger. Cahuac republished 'Who Killed Cock Robin' and of course Percy Shelley wrote and published the The Masque of Anarchy. In a wave of crack downs by the British Establishment, Shelley was forced to flee to Italy, Cahuac was not so lucky, he was arrested on trumped up charges and transported to Tasmania. Cahuac took up various roles as a clerk around Hobart and southern Tasmania (might well have been involved in setting up the early union for clerks, that started in Hobart around the same time...?) until his sentence was served. He then moved to NSW, his daughter married a convict who had been given money after helping to save a sinking ship. The money had allowed them to move in the circles of the emerging merchant classes and they too had a daughter who married. In a horse riding accident the mother Cahuacs daughter was killed. Following a trip to the UK Gertrude Evans Cahuac (granddaughter) and children sailed the Dunbar, returning to Sydney in 1857. Having made good progress, the ship met with foul weather as it arrived off the coast of Sydney around midnight on 20 August. Missing the entrance to Sydney Harbour, the ship was driven by violent seas into the cliffs near South Head and ‘rent into a thousand pieces’. A crewman named James Johnson was the only one to survive the wreck, with Mary Anne Egan and her children among the 121 passengers and crew who perished. In 1860, Daniel Egan commissioned three stained glass windows commemorating his wife and step-children for installation in St Mary’s cathedral, which was then under construction (see portrait photo below). For a haunting recital of Who Killed Cock Robin, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va7RYvcobtM

04.01.2022 #OnThisDay in 1833 a proud and determined George Loveless walked in shackles onto the deck of the William Metcalf - a boat bound for Van Diemans Land. George Loveless was the leader of the Tollpuddle Martyrs and founding member of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. The actions of George Loveless and the other Tolpuddle Martyrs are largely seen as being the founding actions in the formation of the trade union movement. Loveless was born in Tolpuddle, Dorset, Eng...land to Thomas Loveless and his wife Dinah. From childhood he worked as a ploughman and, by 1830, had become a prominent community leader and Wesleyan preacher. In the early 1830s he represented agricultural labourers from Dorchester in discussions with farmers, who agreed to raise wages to ten shillings a week. However in Tolpuddle, farmers only agreed to pay nine shillings, and later reduced wages to seven shillings and threatened a further cut to six shillings. As a consequence, in October 1833 Loveless formed a Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. Although trade unionism was not illegal, Loveless and his five co-leaders were found guilty of administering unlawful oaths, a felony under an Act of 1797. Loveless and his co-defendants (his brother James, their brother-in-law Thomas Standfield, their nephew Thomas Standfield, James Hammett and James Brine) were found guilty at Dorchester Assizes in March 1834, and sentenced to transportation for seven years to the Australian colonies. On 25 May 1833 Loveless was taken to Portsmouth and set sail for Van Dieman's Land, arriving on 4 September 1833. He was sent to work on the domain farm at New Town as a shepherd and stock-keeper. He was later employed by Major William de Gillern at Glenayr.

03.01.2022 Pre-dating transportation, but resistance to the British establishment still the same. The Levellers argued in 1649 for democracy, freedom and representation - the levellers created An Agreement of the People, a manifesto that would give freedom to the working classes. This was too much for Cromwell and the senior officers, who hunted the Levellers down, but their spirit lived on and their work influencing the US Constitution.

01.01.2022 #OnThisDay 1849 the Adelaide left London for Hobart. On board were William Cuffay (son of a 'freed' Afro-Caribbean slave), William Dowling, Thomas Fay, William Lacey and Jospeph Ritchie. All 5 had been convicted of sedition, levying war and compassing to depose the Queen. 16 months earlier on the 10 April over 100,000 chartists met at Kennignton Common with the intention of marching on Parliament to deliver a petition with over 3 million signatures. The British establi...shment drafted-in nearly as many ‘special’ constables, the queen was sent to the Isle of Wight. Confusion, uncertainty and fear of confrontation by the leadership brought the march to an end with the petitions sent by horse and cart to Parliament across Warterloo Bridge from South London. The immediate aftermath saw a spike in activity by those who argued that the British elite would listen only to direct action. William Cuffay, a leader of the London Chartists organized with others to carry out a range of simultaneous actions aimed at disrupting and destabilizing the British elite. An informant in the group brought the action to an end. William Cuffay and the other 4 were transported to Hobart. Once here Cuffay continued to fight the establishment, Cuffay was a key leader in the campaign against Transportation, the Master and Servant Act and for the right of working people to vote, just like his actions in the UK, Cuffay played a key role in crafting democracy. 20 years after Cuffay died the right was gained by most Australians, sadly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples did not gain this right until 1983. To hear more on William Cuffay listen to a great broadcast on the ABC: https://www.abc.net.au//the-isle-of-denial-william/2925954 Follow us via: https://www.facebook.com/RadicalHistoryCollective

01.01.2022 We have received this photo from Allan Taylor TWU ex President, Vic/Tas Branch. The photo is of the Zeehan Bakers and Bread Carters Union, one of the early transport unions that became what is now the Transport Workers Unions. The photo dates back to the 10 September 1908, Zeehan at that time was a bustling and busy town with more that 20,000 residents. Allans grandfather is the picture. If like Allan you have old union photos, please send them to us - its great to share these wonderful old union photos, email: [email protected]