Owen Gower

Category: Rural Radicalism

  • Words for the ploughman

    The Tyndale Monument, a tall stone tower with a pitched roof, in evening light.
    Tyndale Monument by Saffron Blaze (licenced under CC BY-SA 3.0)

    On a hill above the Gloucestershire village of North Nibley sits a Victorian monument to a local son who had a profound impact on religion, society, and culture. His name was William Tyndale.

    Although the details of his early life are unknown, it is widely believed that Tyndale was born either in North Nibley or in neighbouring Stinchcombe in the late 1400s. The Tyndale family in this area were influential and well-connected, and it seems likely that young William had a relatively privileged upbringing. Tyndale’s studies took him to the University of Oxford, from where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1512. After this he was ordained as a priest and may well have returned to his native Gloucestershire at this point to take up a role in a chantry chapel, although others have suggested that in this period Tyndale was furthering his studies at Cambridge.

    Tyndale was certainly back in Gloucestershire by 1521, when he took up the role of chaplain and tutor to the family of Sir John Walsh at Little Sodbury. This position must have offered him plenty of opportunities to write and study, and to share his opinions with the local clergy and dignitaries who came to dine with Walsh’s household. Tyndale also preached in the open air at St Austin’s Green in Bristol. Tyndale’s ideas were, however, controversial. During one discussion, he is reported to have stated “I defy the Pope… and all his laws and if God spare my life ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.” It was his firm conviction that English people should be allowed to read the Bible in their own language, rather than it only being available in Latin. This was not a new idea, a century before Tyndale’s birth the Lollards had called for scripture to be translated into the vernacular and an English-language Bible had been published, a translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible. However, Tyndale wanted to go further and to directly translate from the Bible’s original languages.

    In 1523, finding his beliefs under increased scrutiny in Gloucestershire, Tyndale moved to London and then a year later to mainland Europe. In 1526 he was finally able to realise his goal and publish a translation of the New Testament. Although initially easily available in England, Cardinal Wolsey soon ordered that copies of Tyndale’s New Testament should be seized and burned. Tyndale became a wanted man but, despite the risks, continued to refine and revise his New Testament and begin translating the first few books of the Old Testament. His work was cut short in 1535, however, when Tyndale was captured and arrested. On 6 October 1536 he was executed as a heretic at Vilvoorde.

    Tyndale was a true radical. Not only did his work, for the first time, allow the English to read and hear scripture directly translated into their own language from its original texts, it also challenged the many ways in which the Latin Vulgate translation had been used to prop up the structures and hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. Here one word could make all the difference. In Latin the Greek word ‘ekklesia’ had been translated as ‘Church’ and the word ‘presbyteros’ as ‘priest’, but Tyndale instead chose the more people-focussed ‘congregation’ and ‘elder’, respectively. Furthermore, Tyndale sought to democratise the translation exercise, using the preface to the 1526 edition of his New Testament to encourage readers to make amendments to his work where they felt he might have been deficient.

    A radical definitely, but a rural radical? It’s interesting to ponder the various influences on Tyndale and his work and wonder whether his rural upbringing may have contributed to his vision. Certainly, Tyndale himself appears to have acknowledged that the seeds of his life’s work were planted during his early education in Gloucestershire, writing “I read when I was a child thou shalt find in the English chronicle how the king Athelstan caused the Holy Scripture to be translated into the tongue that was then in England and how the prelates exhorted him thereunto.” Tyndale’s translation was also distinctively rural, making use of Gloucestershire dialect and writing in a manner more akin to spoken English, and perhaps the spoken English of the Vale of Berkeley, than the literary English of the time. Tyndale biographer David Daniell has argued that Tyndale’s use of the word ‘elder’ rather than ‘priest’ when translating ‘presbyteros’ reflected his experience of society in a Gloucestershire village.

    Tyndale’s work lives on. Many of us will have heard readings from the 1611 King James translation of the Bible, including recently during the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, and this borrowed extensively from Tyndale’s earlier translations. 93% of the New Testament in the King James Bible is Tyndale’s work, along with 85% of the first five books of the Old Testament. This means that some of our everyday phrases are Tyndale’s. Whenever we describe someone as “broken-hearted” or “the salt of the earth”, or when we talk about “the powers that be”, we are quoting Tyndale and the words and speech patterns of our ancestors. And yet, perhaps this is not in the spirit of Tyndale’s vision. After all, he wanted to see a living and accessible translation of the Bible written in language that people used in everyday life. As beautiful as it is, the insistence of some sections of society to cling to the King James Bible for use in church services and larger public occasions makes it a symbol of the established way of doing things rather than the radical and inclusive tool it once was.

    References and further reading

    Melvyn Bragg. William Tyndale: A very brief history. London: SPCK, 2017.

    Brian Buxton. “William Tyndale in Gloucestershire”. Transactions of the Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 131 (2013): 189-198.

    David Daniell. William Tyndale: A Biography. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1994.

    The Tyndale Society. “William Tyndale’s Life and Work”. The Tyndale Society. Accessed May 30, 2023. http://www.tyndale.org/tyndale.htm

    William Tyndale. The Obedience of a Christian Man. London: Penguin Books, 2000.

    Roland Whitehead. “William Tyndale, Gloucester’s Fame and England’s Shame”. The Tyndale Society. Accessed May 23, 2023. http://www.tyndale.org/tsj08/whitehead.html

  • The Ascott Martyrs

    Ascott-under-Wychwood church surrounded by tombstones
    Ascott-under-Wychwood church by Philip Halling (licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

    In May 1873, a group of women from the small Oxfordshire village of Ascott-under-Wychwood sparked a national conversation which defied Victorian expectations of the role of women. Rather than being a discussion about, say, domestic issues or family life, they started a dialogue about draconian anti-picketing laws and the role women could play in industrial disputes. They were the Ascott Martyrs, among them Amelia Moss, Ann Moss, Ann Susan Moss, Caroline Moss, Charlotte Moss, Elizabeth Pratley, Ellen Pratley, Fanny Honeybone, Jane Moss, Lavinia Dring, Martha Moss, Martha Smith, Mary Moss, another Mary Moss, Mary Pratley, and Rebecca Smith.

    Just one year earlier, Warwickshire hedger and ditcher Joseph Arch had formed the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union to represent the interests of rural workers. By May 1872 the Oxford District of the Union had over 500 members. The following year one of the Union’s early acts in the area was to request that workers’ wages be increased by two shillings a week. In Ascott-under-Wychwood the first farmer to be asked was Robert Hambidge, who had the tenancy of the village’s largest farm, Crown Farm. Hambidge was not entirely dismissive of the request but offered the extra two shillings only to the most productive workers rather than everyone. This was counter to the Union’s aims and, as a result, Hambidge’s workers gave notice of their intention to strike. Soon the strike at Crown Farm had spread to the other farms in the village.

    Some weeks later on 12 May, keen for farm work to continue but still unwilling to change his stance, Hambidge employed two young men, John Hodgkins and John Millin, from a neighbouring village to hoe a pea field. On hearing about this, a group of women from Ascott-under-Wychwood decided that they would head to the field themselves to try to prevent the men from breaking the strike and undermining the Union. In effect, they were picketing.

    Hodgkins and Millin returned to the farm stating that they were unable to work and so, in the absence of Hambidge, his wife sent for the local constable who came to disperse the women, noting down the names of seventeen of them. On his return from Stow Fair the furious Hambidge decided to bring a private prosecution against the identified women, under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1871 which had made picketing illegal. On 21 May the seventeen women appeared before the magistrates in Chipping Norton and sixteen of them were convicted of intimidating Hodgkins and Millin and attempting to prevent them from going about their employment. Hambidge insisted that the women must face the most severe punishment possible. And so it was that seven of the women from Ascott-under-Wychwood were sentenced to ten days in prison with hard labour, while the other nine faced seven days, again with hard labour. Two of the women had young babies who they would have to take into prison with them.

    The details of the case soon found their way into local and national newspapers and, before long, the matter was being discussed in Parliament. Particular concerns were raised about the fact the sentence included hard labour. There is a popular story that Queen Victoria herself heard of the women’s plight and granted a full pardon, along with a petticoat to each woman, but there seems to be no truth in this. Instead on 29 May, the Home Secretary made a surprising intervention and sent a telegram to the Governor of Oxford Prison telling him to remit the hard labour. By this point, however, nine of the women had already been released and the remaining seven only had two days left to serve of their sentence.

    When all the women were finally released there were celebrations along their route home. Back in the village, Joseph Arch presented each woman with £5 raised by public subscription. The suffering of the Ascott Martyrs, as they became known, had turned into a triumph. But there was more to come.

    Two years later the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1871 was repealed through the introduction of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875. Early calls for reform cited this story as evidence of the injustice of the 1871 Act and union representatives at the time stated that the Ascott Martyrs had played a significant role in the legalisation of picketing. That picketing continues to be such an integral part of industrial action is thanks in no small part to the sixteen women from Ascott-under-Wychwood.

    More than a century later, the right of some workers to strike is under threat and it seems perfectly conceivable that new anti-picketing legislation could soon follow. Whilst the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill specifically targets those employed in health, education, fire and rescue, border force, nuclear decommissioning, and transport, there is no doubt that it threatens us all. The right to strike is a right to desire a better future for yourself and for others, and to put the common good above actions which benefit only a select few. Let’s not forget the people, like the Ascott Martyrs, who achieved this for us, and do all we can to defend their legacy.

    References and further reading

    Carol Anderson. “The Ascott Martyrs”. YouTube video posted by “TolpuddleMartyrs1834”. September 8, 2022. Accessed March 29, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CSo317lOmE

    Mary Davis. “Timeline 1850 – 1880”. TUC History Online. Accessed March 27, 2023. http://www.unionhistory.info/timeline/1850_1880.php

    Laura Lys. “The Ascott Martyrs: Early Pioneers of the Trade Union Movement”. Museum of Oxford. Accessed March 27, 2023. https://museumofoxford.org/the-ascott-martyrs-early-pioneers-of-the-trade-union-movement

    Wendy Pearse. “Defiant Women”. Ascott Martyrs Educational Trust. Accessed March 15, 2023. https://www.ascottmartyrs.co.uk/defiant-women

    The Museum of English Rural Life. “The Evolution of Rural Protest”. University of Reading. Accessed March 29, 2023. https://merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/online-exhibitions/evolution-rural-protest/

    Tim Sharp. “Fighting the anti-strike law”. Trades Union Congress. Accessed March 27, 2023. https://www.tuc.org.uk/blogs/fighting-anti-strike-law

  • Mighty oaks from little acorns grow

    Picture this: you’re an agricultural worker in Germany in the 1800s. Until recently you were tied into serfdom, and whilst you might have a degree of satisfaction knowing your toil was now for your own benefit, you find that you struggle to make ends meet at certain times of the year. Unlike your urban counterparts with more regular income, you cannot access credit systems to help tide you over and nor can you afford to invest in tools and machinery to help your business grow.

    This was a quandary faced by countless individuals and families across the soon-to-be unified nation state, and one that had not escaped the attention of public servant Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen. Motivated by his Christian beliefs and own experience growing up in a farming family, Raiffeisen had already launched several pioneering mutual aid programmes, including a communal bakery during his tenure as Mayor of Weyerbusch and a society to assist in the acquisition of cattle during his time as Mayor of Flammersfeld. But he knew that more could be done, particularly to safeguard farmers from the activities of loan-sharks.

    Raiffeisen’s early projects relied on richer members of society to make contributions to the benefit of less well-off inhabitants but in 1864 Raiffeisen, now Mayor of Heddesdorf, decided to establish an organisation on more egalitarian principles. Its basic premise was that if you had savings, you could deposit them with the society in the knowledge that they would be used to offer affordable loans to other members. Anyone could join, as long as they were of good character and had some tangible assets: land, livestock, or equipment. All members were equal; everyone could be elected a volunteer director, and everyone was jointly liable for the activities of the society. With a broader aim to build bonds of solidarity between members, this last point was particularly important to its founder. Raiffeisen had created what is now often described as the world’s first credit union.

    Raiffeisen’s first society operated within a small local area, and he may well have hoped that soon other communities would establish their own. Initial progress in this was slow. Nevertheless, soon Raiffeisen found a need to create centralised institutions to support individual local societies, including providing clearing services. By the time of his death in 1888, there were 425 rural credit societies in Germany, with similar initiatives being established across the border in northern France, and by 1913, there were 16,927 societies across Germany operating according to Raiffeisen’s principles. Now some of the world’s largest banking groups trace their heritage back to that first credit society in rural Germany, including Crédit Mutuel in France and Rabobank in the Netherlands.

    135 years after his death, Raiffeisen would no doubt recognise the difficulties people around the world face in accessing affordable credit today. Still nearly one-third of the global adult population, 1.7 billion people, do not have access to banking services. Amongst the financially excluded are a high proportion of women, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, and the world’s rural poor. Access to credit does more than just allowing people to ‘get by’, it can help lift people out of poverty by encouraging and facilitating entrepreneurial spirit. Where people are excluded from formal banking systems they are often forced into the hands of predatory lenders or loan sharks. Even when credit can be accessed through financial institutions, borrowers may not necessarily be able to obtain preferential terms, such as here in the UK where one quarter of 25 to 34-year-olds rely on credit cards to pay their bills. 

    In setting the foundations of the credit union movement, Raiffeisen’s work continues to make a positive difference today. With 87,914 credit unions across 118 countries, and over 393 million members between them, credit unions continue to use their deposits to offer affordable loans to those who might have otherwise been turned down for credit. They continue to belong to their members, rather than shareholders, and still promote solidarity, just as Raiffeisen had imagined when he founded his first credit society.

    References and further reading

    Association of British Credit Unions Limited. “Facts and Statistics”. Association of British Credit Unions Limited. Accessed February 15, 2023. https://www.abcul.coop/credit-unions/credit-unions-facts-and-statistics

    Iona Bain. “Credit unions are an underused lending resource for young people facing financial hardship”. Metro. Accessed February 17, 2023. https://metro.co.uk/2023/01/16/credit-unions-find-the-lending-alternative-going-under-the-radar-18098218/

    British Credit Union Historical Society. “Welcome to the British Credit Union Historical Society”. British Credit Union Historical Society. Accessed February 15, 2023. https://cuhistoryuk.com

    Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale. “Mutualism, born from the energy of a visionary”. Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale. Accessed February 6, 2023. https://www.creditmutuelalliancefederale.fr/en/about-us/our-history/energy-of-a-visionary.html

    Myron T. Herrick and R. Ingalls. Rural Credits: Land and Cooperative. New York and London: D Appleton and Company, 1928.

    International Cooperative Alliance. “Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen”. International Cooperative Alliance. Accessed January 6, 2023. https://www.ica.coop/en/friedrich-wilhelm-raiffeisen

    Alper Kara, Haoyong Zhou and Yifan Zhou. “Achieving the United Nations’ sustainable development goals through financial inclusion: a systematic literature review of access to finance across the globe”. International Review of Financial Analysis, 77 (2021).

    J. Carroll Moody and Gilbert C. Fife. The Credit Union Movement: Origins and Development, 1850-1970. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971.

    World Bank. “Financial Inclusion Overview”. World Bank. Accessed February 15, 2023. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/financialinclusion/overview