“They have given the Union which I have advocated an impetus that it had never received before. It has done a world of good to that Union and has been the means of bringing more men into it and showing them what can be done by such a combination.”

– Gabriel Banbury at a meeting of the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union, quoted in the Oxford Chronicle and Berks & Bucks Gazette, 7 June 1873

It is refreshing to turn from the comments of the London liberal press on the Chipping Norton rebellion to your sensible and appropriate remarks – that the law was broken –justice administered – the farmer protected- the farm labourer rebuked… The sympathy of the Liberal Press is with the Ascott women who unsexed themselves, the mob who broke the peace and the committee of the Labourers’ Union who is fanning the embers of discontent into an open blaze from John O’Groats to Land’s End.

Chipping Norton landlord, Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 14 June 1873