The story of a strike and of strikes yet to come, part two .... a Chorlton postcard

On Newton street in July 1911

The Carters came out on strike in Manchester at the beginning of July 1911. 

It was the picture of police escorting a strike breaker which first caught my interest.

But they were not the first or the last during the next few years to withdraw their labour to advance a demand for better pay and conditions.

Early in 1912 the miners had come out following a ballot “in favour of giving notice to establish the principle of a minimum wage for every man and boy working underground,”* and at the beginning of March Manchester Municipal workers voted to follow those of Stalybridge, Salford and Stockport and strike for higher pay.

You can get a sense of the mounting conflict from the newspapers of the period. The Manchester Guardian was quick to comment on the concerns over coal stocks in the Greater Manchester area just weeks after the miners had come out, and carried reports that in Nottingham the bakers and painters were about to go on strike while in Manchester there was serious disruption to the rail network.

Leonard's fears

And here in Chorlton on the day the Guardian reported that 60% of trains from one Manchester railway station had been “knocked off” Leonard wrote to a friend of his worries about his mother’s illness and that “all our staff intend to come out on strike this weekend.”

Now it may never be possible to discover the business that he ran or what happened on Friday March 15th when the strike was due to start, but I shall endeavour to try.

He was “busy making arrangements to fill their places” and thought that “this Coal crisis ..... is a terrible affair.” 

All of which rather eclipsed his pleasure that at the Parliamentary bye-election earlier in the year “our man got in (Good old Blue) turned a liberal majority from over 2,000 to a conservative one of 500, great excitement.”

It is a fascinating glimpse on how people here in Chorlton looked out on the mounting political and industrial unrest and sadly represents the only comment we have so far.

As it was the strikes rumbled on through the year, but more about them tomorrow.

Picture; detail of a postcard sent on March 12th 1912 from the Lloyd collection, detail from the Carter's strike, courtesy of the Greater Manchester Police Museum

*Balllot paper issued by the Miner’s Federation of Great Britain, January 1912

Looking beyond the obvious, a photograph and the story of a strike and of strikes yet to come ..... part one, this day on July 4 1911

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.

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

The story of a strike and of strikes yet to come........... part three

Over the last few weeks I have been writing about the impact of the industrial action during 1911 and 1912. 

We were still a very unequal society. 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.

Between 1889 and 1910 the cost of food rose by 10 per cent and the cost of coal by 18 per cent. In stark terms this meant that the “purchasing power of 20s. in the hands of a working class housewife in 1895 went down to 18s. 5d. in 1900, to 17s. 11d. in 1905, to 16s. 11d. in 1910 and to 14s.7d. in 1914.”*

And as wages were decreasing in value the profits of companies were increasing which was not lost on working families. It is this realization that they were growing poorer as their employers were getting richer which accounts for the bitterness of the great strike struggles of the early 20th century.

It is fair to say that “no such open class antagonism had been seen in Britain since the time of the Chartists.” **

So it was against this background that the Carters struck.

We tend to forget just how much was shifted by horse and cart.

Each railway company had their own stables and in all there were 157 carriers listed in the 1911 street directory.

It was a hard job involving plenty of heavy lifting and a measure of horse knowledge. The absence of carters from the road not only meant shortages of food.

Coal was not being moved to heat the boilers which powered the countless machines across the city, and finished manufactured goods were left in factories where they had been made.

The police in our picture were escorting one of the non striking carters travelling from Piccadilly Gardens along Newton Street. Their destination could have been the wholesale market.

There were concerns on the part of the authorities for the continuation of food supplies and at one point mounted officers of the Manchester City Police drew swords on a crowd.

This was followed by the dispatch of troops to the city. Winston Churchill, answered questions in the House about the decision to send troops to Manchester on July 6th and Salford on the 13th.

The troops, Churchill said were sent not only in accordance with the regulations "to send Military aid to the civil power .... but in this case they had also the express instructions from the War Office, sent after consultation with me." ***

The Times carried a story that the Stock Exchange felt “a certain amount of uneasiness aroused by the reports of riots among the carters on strike at Manchester,” and further reported a fall in shares. ****

The events were also carried by the New York Times which reported that “crowds of women joined the men, stopping traffic and destroying or scattering the market produce in the streets” and it took the police till midnight to disperse the crowd making “frequent charges with their batons.” *****

Picture; Police officers beside a wagon travelling from Piccadilly Gardens along Newton Street, © Greater Manchester Police Archive, July 1911

*Morton, A. L., A People’s History of England, Lawrence & Wishart 1961 p 509

**Ibid Morton p 510

***House of Commons Debates, July 6, 1911, vol 27 c1341 & July 10, 1911 vol 28 cc13-4

****The Times, July 3rd 1911

*****New York Times, July 5th 1911

Calling out the troops to the Lancashire coal fields ........ 1912

The years before the Great War were a time of major industrial confrontation and saw some of the bitterest clashes between employers and the Government on one side and organised labour on the other.

A squadron of the 16th Lancers at Leigh, April 1912

During 1911 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.

Royal Fusiliers at Fletcher and Burrows Chesters Pit, Atherton, April 1912

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.

4th Battalion Royal City of London Fusiliers at Leigh, April 1912

Here in Manchester in the summer of 1911 the carter’s came out on strike and there were other strikes by the engineers and in the dock workers.

The following year there was a national coal strike aimed at securing a minimum wage.  It began in Derbyshire spread across the country and lasted for 37 days.

Troops were dispatched to the coal fields and the dispute finally ended with the Liberal Government passing the Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act.*

Location; 1912

Pictures; from the Manchester Weekly Times, April 12, 1912

*"to provide a Minimum Wage in the case of workmen employed underground in Coal Mines" from the debate on the bill, which can be read at HC Deb 19 March 1912 vol 35 cc1723-93, http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1912/mar/19/goal-mines-minimum-wage-bill

The story of a strike and of strikes yet to come, ............. part 4

During the August of 1911 the labourers in the engineering workshops came out in a series of disputes over poor pay and conditions across the city. 

Gorton Loco works

They were “the mere muscular machines that do the donkey work” and were paid between 14s [62p] and 18s [90p] and “certainly very few, ever worked for fifty-two weeks of the year.”* 

This was in part due to slack times and breakdowns and to annual sickness which might amount to fifteen days a year which meant that they might work just forty-four weeks which according to one estimate put their weekly take home pay at just 13s [65p].

Then there were the deductions like the two pence [1p] docked from their wages for the hot water to make their tea.

It began in Gorton in early August and quickly the strikes spread across the engineering workshops of the city and were a success with the employers conceding a wage rise.

No adult general labourer would receive less than 20s [£1] a week for 53 hours labour, semi skilled labourers between 21s [£1.5p] and 25s [£1.25p] a week and foundry labourers a minimum of 21s [£1.5p]. Those on piecework were put on new rates, which extended to overtime work as well. Finally the employers consented to recognise the Trade Unions and negotiate with the men’s officials.

The same issues of low pay and Union recognition were at the heart of the dispute between railway workers at the Companies during the same month.

On Newton Street in 1911 during the Carter's Strike

The railway labourers, also wanted a minimum wage of 20s [£1] and at the start of the month 1,300 labourers employed in the Carriage Works at Newton Heath walked out on unofficial strike.

They were soon joined by others from all grades and by the end of the first week 6,000 men had joined them. The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company which paid the lowest wages in the area, flatly refused to agree to the rise.**

In a growing spirit of “revolt, solidarity and self sacrifice”, the dispute continued to spread, with the strike widening to encompass support for the striking Liverpool railway workers.

At a mass meeting held in Stevenson Square on the night of Friday August 4th railway workers agreed to link up with the workers in Liverpool and resolved there would be no return to work until all were satisfied.

The following day the staff at Central Station went on strike and at another mass meeting there was a decision to boycott all goods coming and going from Liverpool with decisions for an all out strike if the demands for a minimum wage were not met. The deadline for the strike was set for Monday August 7th and when there was no positive response from the Company the “railway transport workers of Manchester came out on strike.”

All the railway goods depots were closed, passenger services on the London and North Western Railway Station were affected, and by Tuesday the engine men at Longsight refused to take out their engines with those at Stockport moving to do the same. As a result train services south of Manchester from London Road station could not be maintained and at all Manchester and Salford Stations with one exception, the porters also struck.

Police escort a carter, 1911

The growing sense of confidence and militancy led the Manchester Trades and Labour Council held on the Wednesday night to accept a motion that “if ever the military are drafted into Manchester again during industrial disputes; the whole of the Trade Unions will cease work by way of protest.”

Nor were the events in Manchester and Liverpool isolated disputes, across the country railway workers were coming out on unofficial strike.

Much of the grievance revolved around low pay and the refusal of the railway companies to recognise the unions. Five years earlier in an attempt to avert a national strike the Liberal Government had set up conciliation boards.

But the companies still would not deal with the unions and the boards were not successful in improving pay and working conditions.

During the previous year the companies had been doing much better and were announcing improved railway dividends but had made no moves to share their growing prosperity with the workers in the form of pay rises.

Against this backdrop and with the wave of unofficial strike action continuing the four railway unions issued an ultimatum that if the companies did not either recognise the unions or start talks there would be an all out rail strike.

The deadline was August 15th and when the companies remained defiant the strike began two days later. Consistent with his earlier actions Winston Churchill mobilized 58,000 troops which were deployed along the network at key points such as junctions, stations and signal boxes.

On the 16th he reported to the House that “at Manchester business is practically at a standstill, but there has been no disturbance. Two battalions and a Cavalry regiment are held in readiness to proceed on the request of the local authorities”

They were later deployed “to occupy the railway station, because there was an almost complete arrest of the deliveries of goods from the station, and that the traffic was being wantonly interfered with to a degree wholly different from any interference with the traffic in other parts of the railway system where the military had already given protection. 

I understood also yesterday evening that the Lord Mayor fully concurred in the steps which had been taken, and that the result had been extremely beneficial in permitting free movement of necessary supplies.”***

But already the strike had achieved its purpose with the Government bringing the unions and companies together face to face on the 17th. The companies conceded a small wage rise and a Royal Commission into the operation of the conciliation boards were promised.

How far the companies were genuine in their attempts at conciliation may be judged by how they treated those of their employees who had gone strike. Despite promises that there would be no victimization some workers in some companies found that their records highlighted the part they had played in the strike.

Moreover the Railway Gazette was convinced that the “principal lesson for the railway companies is the need of greater solidarity and greater firmness ... Having made up their minds to a certain course of action they should absolutely refuse to be turned from it by a mere public outcry.

It dismissed claims of poor working conditions on the basis that from 1889 to 1911 there had been “only a very small number of labour disturbances” leading the paper to argue “that conditions of service in the British railway industry must be very much more satisfactory to the rank and file of the employees than would appear from the allegations of trade unionist officials, since an industry employing very nearly 600,000 men, in which strikes are, on the whole, very few, has hardly the look of 'seething with discontent’.” ****

I doubt that the railwaymen, engineering labourers or carters quite saw it that way. Strikes were costly, uncertain and fraught with the risk of dismissal. Working men and women had to think very carefully about withdrawing their labour.

Just because at certain times they did not protest at their conditions does not mean they were happy or that they did not engage in other ways to further their condition.

The unofficial strike of the Newton Heath carriage workers was coordinated from the Independent Labour Party Committee Rooms on Oldham Road in Newton Heath, and the ILP along with the Labour Party, other socialist groupings as well as the Co-operative Movement were places where working people could find a forum to articulate their wishes for a fair and just place.

Picture; Gorton Locomotive Works, 1960,m61101 & Victoria Station, 1910, m63286, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and details of the a Police escort on Newton Street July 1911 during the Carter's Strike. courtesy of he Greater Manchester Police Museum

* Richardson, H.M., The Manchester Strikes, The fight for a minimum wage, The Labour Leader , August 11, 1911, Working Class Movement Library, Salford

** This despite the fact that they were just about to declare a larger dividend than for the last eleven years, this amounted to 4½%, Richardson, H.M.,

*** Churchill, Winston, HC Deb August 16 1911 vol29

**** Churchill, Winston, HC Deb August 22 1911 vol29
***** The Railway Gazette, October 13 1911