"Why 'New Tolpuddle'?" you may very reasonably ask. There are two reasons.
Lord Melbourne, after whom my city was named, was the British Prime
Minister at the time the Tolpuddle Martyrs (pioneers of unionism)were
transported to Australia. Another reason is that "New Tolpuddle" suits the
feel of the city better anyway. (Melbourne tends to be imagined as a damp,
overcast, serious sort of place. There's a joke "Emigration from Melbourne
to Sydney is a good thing, because it raises the average IQ of both
cities".) One day I'll start a campaign to rename the place "New Tolpuddle".
While we are on the subject of pioneers of liberty and so forth this is a
good place to link to a site about the Levellers , seventeenth century
english revolutionaries who were the first people to be called Anarchists
(according to Raymond Williams' Keywords ). This was a term of abuse and
ridicule by their enemies. By modern definitions they were simply
parliamentary democrats rather than Anarchists; although a radical faction,
the "True Levellers" or "Diggers", are accounted by some the first literal
Anarchists ever. Anyway, the most well-known Leveller, "Free-Born" John
Lilburne is also an important figure in legal history (facing famous
criminal trials under both Charles I and Cromwell !) and is often credited
with first establishing the right to silence by his successful defiance of
the Star Chamber. In my view Anarchism is a radical outgrowth of the
age-old democratic movement (the "Good Old Cause" as it was already in
Lilburne's day) and we can be proud to claim Lilburne and his comrades as
part of our own history. The link I've got up at the moment rather
misleadingly describes the Levellers as "liberals", but it is a gateway to
some useful primary material nevertheless
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/8908/
