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In 1975 Robert Leach, a young lecturer in drama at Birmingham University published The Wellesbourne Tree: A Musical Documentary Play about Barford born Joseph Arch who, in 1872, founded the National Agricultural Labourers Union, spent his Sunday afternoons as a Methodist lay-preacher, eventually became a Liberal MP, and (probably most proudly for him) was crowned Champion Hedgecutter of England. I knew about Arch of course (he’s still something of a hero in these here parts of Warwickshire), and had even heard about Leach’s musical play, but had never read it, or seen it. In fact the work has only ever been produced once I believe.

Then in a small bookshop in North Wales, I came across a copy of the play and realised (after reading it in the pub next door) that it is, on the one hand (as bad history lecturers say much too often), a very powerful work – with a musical element that is appropriate and effective – but which, on the other hand, could not (even with the help of Cameron Macintosh’s millions, the combined directorial experience of Peter Hall and Trevor Nunn, and the advertising brilliance of Saatchi the Elder) stop a show (with a cast of 31, nineteen scene changes, filmed backdrops, a warehouse full of costumes, at least ten musicians, a pompous musical director, and an extremely camp choreographer) from becoming a huge financial landfill site. Which is a damned pity because it’s a piece of work that deserves to be seen again, even though Leach (mistakenly in my opinion), avoids
the effectiveness of recitative, and the creation, especially with Arch’s long speech under that bloody chestnut tree, of some wonderful revolutionary anthems of the kind that make Les Miserables so memorable.

I think, with some re-writing, an amalgam of characters, and a cast of no more than ten (with some actors doubling as musicians) the piece might find a life. Sadly, Robert Leach now seems to spend most of his time writing obscure academic books about other playwrights, so maybe he’s not interested in his own dramatic work anymore? Pity.

I grew up not far from that old chestnut tree in the centre of Wellesbourne (just five miles from Stratford) and heard stories from my grandfather – told him by his father – of that rainy night in February 1872 when over 3,000 farm labourers, their wives, and children gathered around that tree (the lower branches hung with oil lanterns) to hear the barrel-chested Joseph Arch – stood on an old pig killing bench – make his historic speech. The following extract is taken from Leach’s play:

ARCH: Brothers, there is a hue and cry all over the country. Hodge the Unionist is up for a bout with Jack his master and the ring looking on is as big as all England. If you mean to have a living wage instead of a starvation one, you must combine and unite to get it. It is your due; for when a man gives his master honest work, he has a right to honest money in return. It is no matter of compliment or favour between master and man, but of fair dealing and bargaining. It is no more than for a man to act rightly by himself and his wife and children.

My grandfather’s father recalled how, because Arch was such a good preacher, with a deep baritone voice, he could hold a crowd with a thousand words, or a single pause. He remembered how Arch spoke of “fighting tooth and nail”, and how his words would go down in history “… as having been written in brass with an iron pen.” He remembered Arch making the comparison between the Negro slaves having recently won their freedom in America, and how the slave, who was the English farm labourer, would also win his. He remembered how the land-owners agents, stood in the shadows, then sent in men with clubs to try and break-up the meeting, but to no avail, with the protagonists themselves often fleeing with broken and bloody heads.

They were dangerous times. My great-grandfather worked for the Lucy family at Charlecote Park (one of the biggest landowners in the area) and could, if discovered, have been thrown out of his home for attending that meeting. That he chose to take the risk is testament to the often horrendous working conditions farm labourers had to endure.

After that meeting in Wellesbourne, and the creation of the Union, there were daily meetings throughout Warwickshire. Barns were burned down, strikes were called, livestock died in the fields, and strikers died in the muddy lanes. In the end the farmers and landowners could see their wealth deteriorating in front of their eyes and began to negotiate with Arch, who spoke of helping the farmers and landowners in their hour of need. Arch had the upper hand, and the landowners knew it. They never forgave him.

The way the land was farmed and husbanded changed from that moment on, with Arch, now elected to Westminster, able to argue for land reforms, and even better wages for his Union members. He even visited Canada to advise the government there how best to encourage English farm labourers to emigrate to North America, and perhaps even buy their own farms. And thousands did, creating even better wages and conditions for those left behind.

In the early1950s I remember watching the old chestnut tree being cut down so that the road through the village could be widened. They planted another tree, just a few feet further back, in 1953.

My grandfather’s elder brother, Jack (who had been a member of Baden-Powell’s Police Force during the siege of Mafeking ), was a travelling pig killer, a professional gardener, something of a womaniser, and a champion hedge-cutter, who once told me that it had been Joseph Arch himself who’d taught him how to lay a hedge properly, and that Joe loved to sing the old Methodist hymns as he worked.