between land owner and worker. In Dorset, England, 1834, six agricultural workers were sentenced to transportation to Australia for swearing a secret oath as members of a friendly society. The society (The Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers) was set up by leader George Loveless as a reaction to falling wages. Landowner James Frampton managed to take them to court, where they were convicted by a jury of twelve fellow landowners. The British public protested the sentence, collecting 800,000 signatures calling for their release and attending a march of 100,000.

But why was such a large number of the public influenced to act upon this case? Especially when considering, while the Martyrs are, rightly, remembered numbers of others, some of whom were hung are barely mentioned in the historical record. It is not the case of the Tolpuddle men that is exceptional but the way it has been kept in the public mind on this reading. (E.P. Thompson). It has been theorised that because George Loveless was a literate man, he could write down his experiences, while others could not. It is also possible that the society was linked through family to union organisations in metropolitan areas like London, and could have been part of a wider movement. Then possible, with the lower classes ability to write letters and plan strategically on a nationwide scale.

Without the working class reading and writing it would be difficult for them to form nationwide unions, movements and societies to bring about change and to plan, promote and control effectively over large areas. As the writing system trickled down the class system, it allowed those who it touched to possess the same abilities as the upper levels used. This did not assume someones place within the system itself, but for the first time allowed people to work their way up from the class they were born into, potentially putting them in a position to speak out against conditions they once experienced, with a less hostile reception. The attention the Tolpuddle case received sparked interest in working class issues, not just from the working class.