Looking beyond the obvious, a photograph and the story of a strike and the North West Labour History Journal

I have decided to re run an older story.

It first appeared in February and I decided to use it again partly as a way of advertising the current edition of North West Labour History, which also includes on its cover one of my photographs.*

Not for the first time am I showing off.

This edition of the journal has the theme “That sense of solidarity” and includes articles on Anni Marland who was a “popular organiser for the Women’s Trade Union League" on the Postman’s Federation 1854-1927, and the Nelson Clarion House.

And for me it is the reviews which are particularly useful and in this edition they range from a book on the English Civil War in Lancashire, to Tales of Daring and Adventures in Victorian Bolton and  a Guide tor Local Historians.

And of course my own piece “Looking back at the obvious.” which this blog piece is a shortened version.

Photographs are not always what they seem. We can stare at an image and on the face of it draw all sorts of conclusions. Conclusions about when it was taken, who the people were and what purpose it served.

I had seen this photograph countless times and never really studied it. There was a suggestion that the date was 1880 and clearly the presence of the police hinted at trouble.

But study the picture and it tells its own story. A line of policeman are walking beside the horse and cart and alongside flanking them is a crowd, many of whom are keeping pace with the procession. Usually at least one person would be caught smiling at the camera perhaps even fooling around but not today. Look more closely and their faces suggest a collective sense of seriousness perhaps even anxiety. To our right a young woman is running and the purposeful expression on her face hints that all is not well.

There are questions that need to be asked of the image. Why are the police escorting a cart? Perhaps it was stolen but would this bring so many people out on to the streets? And why is the young woman running to get ahead of the police?

The caption in the police archives reveals that the cart is heading from Piccadilly Gardens along Newton Street. Now there was a police station on Newton Street, but it is also the direction you might take to get to the wholesale food market.

The clothes of the crowd are much later than the 1880s and put the photograph at the beginning of the twentieth century. This was a time of major industrial confrontation and the years around 1911 saw some of the bitterest clashes between employers and the Government on one side and organised labour on the other.

There were strikes in the south Wales coal fields, and trouble in Liverpool which began with a sailors strike and spread across the city involving other industries. And while the miners lost the workers in Liverpool were mostly successful and pointed the way forward for other workers in other industries around the country. There was a growing feeling that industrial action would deliver a better life for working people. And the agitation even spread to the schools. In over sixty cities and towns children came out as well. The number of working days lost because of strikes climbed as did the number of trade union members, and In Parliament Churchill, the Home Secretary was often preoccupied with questions on the industrial unrest.

All of this was against a backdrop of wage cuts, poor working conditions, and rapid inflation. Between 1889 and 1910 the cost of food rose by 10 per cent and the cost of coal by 18 per cent. The life expectancy for working men was just 50 years of age and 54 for women, five per cent of children aged between 10 and 14 were already at work and the richest one percent held 70 percent of the wealth.

Tensions mounted and the army was sent into the striking areas with fatal consequences. A miner was killed in south Wales and two workers in Liverpool.

Here in the city the same awful poverty, dreadful housing conditions and bleak prospects were evident to anyone who cared to walk just a few minutes from the tall impressive headquarters of commerce.
Just a little east of the scene in our photograph were the crowded streets and courts of Ancoats and Ardwick, while in the direction the procession was taking could be found New Cross , Redbank and Strangeways, all of which commentators agreed should be raised to the ground.

The photograph also provides a clue to the time of year. Our young woman is in shirt sleeves and the men in the crowd are dressed in suits. The summer of 1911 was particularly warm. June had been a mix of sun and showers but July was fine and hot and gave rise to fears of a prolonged drought and it is in early July that our picture was taken. It may have been Tuesday July 4th but certainly during that week.

I can be fairly certain because it was during this week that the carters went on strike here in the city. Twelve thousand men were on strike and in pursuance of their claim were picketing the docks to prevent the movement of food to the wholesale market.

* North West Labour History, No 37, 2012-13 £7.95 www.workershistory.org

Picture; Greater Manchester Police Archive, July 1911 by kind permission of Greater Manchester Police Archive, July 1911