Martin James Boon (1840-1888) was a radical trade unionist.[1] In 1869 he participated in the establishment of the Land and Labour League of which he was a secretary until it ceased operation in 1873. Despite having penned a pamphlet opposing emigration,[2] he emigrated to South Africa, and wrote a further pamphlet on railway nationalisation as well as idiosyncratic histories of the Orange Free State[3] and South Africa.[4] The latter contained considerable fragments of a personal memoir and includes the only contemporary history of the Land and Labour League.[5]