polemic against Mr. Arch's adversaries, political and social. Retiring from Parliament before the 1900 General Election, Arch returned to his home in Barford, where he continued to live until his death nineteen years later. Legacy The old ‘Wellesbourne Tree’ died in 1948 but the spot was marked by a commemorative stone at the old meeting place, now renamed Chestnut Square. In 1952, the National Union of Agricultural Workers erected a bus shelter there and set up inside it a commemorative plaque which still remains. A replacement tree was also planted where every year union representatives once gathered on 7 February and then went on to Barford to lay a wreath upon Arch's grave. Though the unions no longer do this, the Wellesbourne Action Group organises a walk from Barford to Wellesbourne in June each year along the footpath known as the Joseph Arch Way. There is now also a Joseph Arch Road in the village which runs off the A439 roundabout, while in Barford the old coaching inn has been renamed the Joseph Arch pub. The Museum of English Rural Life has an archive with holdings relating to Arch which include personal diaries and ledgers and the Union collecting boxes. There are also curious plaster casts of his hands and wrists (Object number, 75/16/1-2). References Joseph Arch, the story of his life told by himself, London: Hutchinson, 1898 Joseph Arch, the Farmworkers Leader, Pamela Horn, The Roundwood Press, 1971. "The Farmworkers Champion", Pamela Horn, Journal of Liberal History, Issue 37 (Winter 2002-03) "Joseph Arch" by Alun Howkins in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: OUP, 2004-08 External links 1826 births 1919 deaths People from Barford, Warwickshire Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1885–1886 UK MPs 1892–1895 UK MPs 1895–1900 British trade union leaders