Another side to life on the Home Front in Manchester during the Great War

“This meeting views with grave concern the enormous rise in the price of foodstuffs and coal, which is equivalent to a considerable reduction of wages of those fully employed and the enormous profits that Shipping, Dealers and other gamblers in the means of life are at present reaping by their unholy profiteering.

We therefore call upon the Government to take immediate action to control supplies to regulate food prices and to put an end to this flagrant exploitation of the necessities of the poor.”*

Such was a resolution passed by a large audience in the Free Trade Hall on Sunday February 14 1915.

It was the culmination of a few days of factory and street corner meetings which focused on the swift rise in rents as well as food and coal prices since the beginning of the war.

And it is an aspect of life on the Home Front which does not always feature prominently in many accounts of the Great War.

The popular story of how we coped during the four years tends to fasten on the participation of women on the shop floor and in the fields; the impact of Zeppelin raids and the blackout but all too often skips over the huge hike in the cost of living.

As Henry Hyndman the leading socialist pointed out “since the war had begun prices had gone up 22%, so that now the purchasing power of a sovereign was from 13s. 6d to 13s.9d.”**

And this was the context behind the industrial conflicts which rumbled on and which some at the time and since have sought to characterise as greedy workers exploiting a country at war.

The reality was very different as Sam Hague who spoke at that Free Trade meeting was quick to point out, “there never had been a time in the nation’s history when the working classes had so solidly backed the Government.”***

Working hours increased, and under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 and The Munitions War Act 1915 workers were being prosecuted for absenteeism and striking over wages and conditions.

In Manchester the first prosecutions under the Munitions War Act were held at the Town Hall on Friday July 30 when thirty-two men employed at Craven Bros Ltd Reddish were brought before the Recorder charged with going on strike  over wages and working conditions without first submitting the matter to the Board of Trade.****

But this is to get ahead of ourselves.

Back in January the Manchester Guardian had reported “the all-round advance in the price of most household commodities since the outbreak of hostilities – an advance amounting in several instances to over 50% [was] causing concern to the average householder whose income is inelastic”*****

And amongst working class families this all-round advance was causing great hardship more so because it was accompanied by rises in rents and fuel prices.

But strikes to maintain living standards were not the only response to the jump in the cost of living.
On the day war broke out the Labour Movement had formed the War Emergency Workers National Committee tasked with defending the interests of organised working people.

During the next four years it received daily reports all on everything from rises in rents, the cost and quality of food to pensions and conditions in factories and on the land as well as the railways, war babies, air raids and women’s war service.

Much of the correspondence came from local Labour and Trades Councils across the country which set up their own local committees.

Here in the city the Manchester & District Workers (War Problems) Joint Committee consisted of Manchester & Salford Trades and Labour Council, Manchester & Salford Labour Party, Gorton Trades Council, the Engineering and Shipbuilding Trades Federation, Building Industries Federation, Women’s Trade Union Council, Manchester and Salford Women’s Trade & Labour Council, Manchester & Salford ILP, Manchester Salford  & District Co-operative Societies, Women’s Co-operative Guilds, Women’s Citizen’s Association, and the Women’s War Interest Committee.

This was a broad cross section of those organisation representing the working class.
In turn Food Vigilance Committees were set up across the country to monitor prices and ensure local councils were enforcing regulations on both prices and the quality of food.

They also called meetings, distributed leaflets and like the War Emergency Workers National Committee pushed hard for more Government intervention in regulating the abuses thrown up during the war.

Now that to me promises to be a fascinating story.

Pictures; courtesy of the Labour History Archives & Study Centre,  at the People’s History Museum, Manchester, http://www.phm.org.uk/

*Resolution passed at the Free Trade Hall on February 14 1915

**LABOUR AND FOOD PRICES. A FREE TRADE HALL PROTEST, Manchester Guardian Feb 15 1915

***ibid Manchester Guardian Feb 15 191

****O’Neil Joseph, Manchester in the Great War, 2014

*****FOOD PRICES AND THE WAR, Manchester Guardian January 31 1915

The power of the Union ............ half forgotten stories from the Great War

“This meeting views with grave concern the enormous rise in the price of foodstuffs and coal, which is equivalent to a considerable reduction of wages of those fully employed and the enormous profits that Shipping, Dealers and other gamblers in the means of life are at present reaping by their unholy profiteering.

We therefore call upon the Government to take immediate action to control supplies to regulate food prices and to put an end to this flagrant exploitation of the necessities of the poor.”*

Such was a resolution passed by a large audience in the Free Trade Hall on Sunday February 14 1915.

It was the culmination of a few days of factory and street corner meetings which focused on the swift rise in rents as well as food and coal prices since the beginning of the war.

And it is an aspect of life on the Home Front which does not always feature prominently in many accounts of the Great War.

The popular story of how we coped during the four years tends to fasten on the participation of women on the shop floor and in the fields; the impact of Zeppelin raids and the blackout but all too often skips over the huge hike in the cost of living.

As Henry Hyndman the leading socialist pointed out “since the war had begun prices had gone up 22%, so that now the purchasing power of a sovereign was from 13s. 6d to 13s.9d.”**

And this was the context behind the industrial conflicts which rumbled on and which some at the time and since have sought to characterise as greedy workers exploiting a country at war.

The reality was very different as Sam Hague who spoke at that Free Trade meeting was quick to point out, “there never had been a time in the nation’s history when the working classes had so solidly backed the Government.”***

Working hours increased, and under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 and The Munitions War Act 1915 workers were being prosecuted for absenteeism and striking over wages and conditions.

In Manchester the first prosecutions under the Munitions War Act were held at the Town Hall on Friday July 30 when thirty-two men employed at Craven Bros Ltd Reddish were brought before the Recorder charged with going on strike  over wages and working conditions without first submitting the matter to the Board of Trade.****

But this is to get ahead of ourselves.

Back in January the Manchester Guardian had reported “the all-round advance in the price of most household commodities since the outbreak of hostilities – an advance amounting in several instances to over 50% [was] causing concern to the average householder whose income is inelastic”*****

And amongst working class families this all-round advance was causing great hardship more so because it was accompanied by rises in rents and fuel prices.

But strikes to maintain living standards were not the only response to the jump in the cost of living.
On the day war broke out the Labour Movement had formed the War Emergency Workers National Committee tasked with defending the interests of organised working people.

During the next four years it received daily reports all on everything from rises in rents, the cost and quality of food to pensions and conditions in factories and on the land as well as the railways, war babies, air raids and women’s war service.

Much of the correspondence came from local Labour and Trades Councils across the country which set up their own local committees.

Here in the city the Manchester & District Workers (War Problems) Joint Committee consisted of Manchester & Salford Trades and Labour Council, Manchester & Salford Labour Party, Gorton Trades Council, the Engineering and Shipbuilding Trades Federation, Building Industries Federation, Women’s Trade Union Council, Manchester and Salford Women’s Trade & Labour Council, Manchester & Salford ILP, Manchester Salford  & District Co-operative Societies, Women’s Co-operative Guilds, Women’s Citizen’s Association, and the Women’s War Interest Committee.

This was a broad cross section of those organisation representing the working class.
In turn Food Vigilance Committees were set up across the country to monitor prices and ensure local councils were enforcing regulations on both prices and the quality of food.

They also called meetings, distributed leaflets and like the War Emergency Workers National Committee pushed hard for more Government intervention in regulating the abuses thrown up during the war.

Now that to me promises to be a fascinating story.

Pictures; courtesy of the Labour History Archives & Study Centre,  at the People’s History Museum, Manchester, http://www.phm.org.uk/

*Resolution passed at the Free Trade Hall on February 14 1915

**LABOUR AND FOOD PRICES. A FREE TRADE HALL PROTEST, Manchester Guardian Feb 15 1915

***ibid Manchester Guardian Feb 15 191

****O’Neil Joseph, Manchester in the Great War, 2014

*****FOOD PRICES AND THE WAR, Manchester Guardian January 31 1915

Looking for the Chorlton Socialist Society in 1908

Now I am always looking for those little bits of our history which have been lost but are now coming back out of the shadows.

So it is with the Chorlton Socialist Society which was active in the decades either side of the turn of the 20th century.

There isn’t much and what there is hints at much more.

In 1895 they had complained bitterly to the Manchester Guardian that they had been prevented from holding a meeting in the Public Hall which was a “hall built for the public, consecrated to the common good, free from the trammels of faction, open for the use of all” and following this had met the same response from
“every other room belonging to a public body.”*

The letter was signed by Charles Fletcher of 9 Chestnut Avenue who was the secretary, and in the course of the next five years there were three more secretaries who were recorded in the Labour Annual and its successor The Reformer’s Year Book**

In 1898 Mr Fred Hughes of 16 Manchester Road was secretary of a group which had 40 members and three years later he was followed by Mr J Crispin who lived at 32 Whalley Road and in 1901 by George Lee of 17 Albermarle Road.

So far little is known of these men, although a Charles Fletcher who later lived in Rusholme served during the Great War, and Mr Lee can be tracked across Chorlton from 1901 to 1911.

Charles Fletcher gave his occupation in 1915 on his Attestation papers as a lorry driver, while George Lee was a designer for a calico printing firm.

Now these were the sort of people who had been moving in to the township since the 1880s when much of New Chorlton was developed.

“The influx of a new population of lower middle class city workers who have to find room to live in the new houses erected on open spaces where a few years ago there were green pastures and golden corn fields.

These people have brought with them a new political outlook consistent with the great advance of Labour in recent years.”***

And with places like the Public hall barred to them they were forced to meet “on certain nights around lamp posts”**** to spread their political message. ****

That said by 1906 they at least were afforded the same rights as other political groups and had been given permission to hold two meetings on the village green.

Like all such groups their membership remained small but there was a steady core which took a dip in 1910 which at present is unclear.  In the previous few years it had affiliated to the Manchester & Salford Labour Representation Committee and its membership was on a parr with some of the bigger areas of the city.

In 1906 when the Labour Representation Committee changed its name to the Labour Party the Chorlton Socialist Society had debated its response to that name change.

Along with other such groups it was a branch of the Independent Labour Party which had been formed in 1893, and at the 1907 Annual ILP meeting which was to be held at Stockton-on-Tees, there were suggestions that the party should change its name.

The Pendlebury and Swinton branch along with Chorlton suggested a change to the Socialist Party while other branches came up with variations.*****

As it was the ILP retained its name and in turn affiliated to the Labour Party.

All of which may mean that after 1906 Chorlton had its own branch of the Labour Party which attracted members from the Socialist Society and that will introduce us to William Mellor who was also an active trade unionist and socilaist living in Chorlton.******

And that I guess means a return to the archives of the Peoples History Museum where no doubt I will be able to uncover a shed full more on both the society and at the start of the Labour Party here and perhaps a little more on Mr Fletcher, Mr Lee and those other secretaries.*******

We shall see.

Picture; Solidarity, Walter Crane, 1887

Additional research from Barry Clark and Morris, D 'Labour or Socialism'. Phd, University of Manchester 1982

* C. Fletcher, Chorlton-cum- Hardy Socialist Society, Manchester Guardian, October 23 1895

**Labour Annual, 1895-1900, The Reformer’s Year Book, 1900-1909

***Davies, Rhys. J., Socialism in Suburbia, 1930

****ibid Davies, page 9

*****New name for the ILP, The Manchester Guardian March 8 1906

******William Mellor, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/William%20Mellor

*******Archives & Study Centre, at the People’s History Museum, Manchester, http://www.phm.org.uk

William Mellor senior, a Chorlton Socialist

I am back with the mystery of William Mellor.*

Last week I pondered on the young William Mellor who lived in Chorlton from 1911, was a well respected book binder and calligrapher, exhibited with the Clarion Guild of Handicraft and was Secretary of the Northern Art Workers Guild.

He enlisted in 1915, was gassed and demobbed four years later and disappears from history.

All of which set me off on the search for this interesting man and on the way introduced me to his father.

He was also a bookbinder and back in 1911 lived next to his son on Clarence Road ** in Chorlton.

Now I have to admit that I passed William Mellor senior over in the hunt for the younger William and that was a mistake.

He was an equally intriguing man and also presented a puzzle.  In 1911 he described himself as a secretary which I took to be a reference to his work for the National Union of Bookbinders and Machine Rulers, which in turn led me to link him with W.R. Mellor who was a City Councillor and magistrate.

And here not for the first time the research got complicated because a William Mellor of Stanley Grove in Chorlton  died in 1925 and this seemed to rule out W.R. Mellor who died nine years later.

It was an easy enough mistake to make particularly as both had wives with the same name.

But now I think we are back with W.R. Mellor who in 1911 was secretary of the Manchester & Salford Trades & Labour Council and gave his address as 3 Clarence Road.

And here I have to thank my friend Lawrence who fired by the mystery dug deep and discovered that, “William Mellor snr, is I think the William Mellor (W.R.Mellor) who was the secretary of the Manchester Trades Council. He retired from that post in September 1929, and was also a Councillor. 

He was very active in the strikes of 1911 and the General Strike and is mentioned many times in the book 
To Make That Future Now, by the Frow's.

He lived in Clock Alley, a street absorbed by the CWS buildings on Corporation Street, left school at 10, becoming a bookbinder, and was active in the National Union of Bookbinders and Machine Rulers before WW1.

The Manchester Guardian has his death notice, on March 2, 1934 when he was living at 115 Birch Hall Lane, wife of Mary. Manchester Crematorium, funeral arrangements M&S Co-Op Funerals.”

So there you have it, in the course of exploring the life of young William Mellor we now know more about his father.

And I rather think I want to know more.  He was according to a colleague, "a man of kind disposition, humane feeling with a strong sense of justice.  Always he gave offenders the benefit of any doubt there might be in their cases, and whenever possible extended to them a helping hand.""****

He "represented the Moston Ward in the Manchester City Council, was a member of the Labour Group in the council and sat on the Baths, Housing and Public Health Committees and was the founder member of the Tenants' Defence League. He was originally in the bookbinding trade but later became connected with trade union work, and was at one time secreatry of the Manchester and Salford Trades Council."*****

Picture; Manchester & Salford Trades & Labour Council, agenda 1911, courtesy of Lawrence Beedle.

Research thanks to Lawrence Beedle

* What happened to William Mellor?
 http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/what-happened-to-william-mellor.html

**William Mellor and his wife Eliza lived at 1 Clarence Road in 1911 and his father and mother at 3 Clarence Road, now renamed Claridge Road, both have now been demolished.

***Frow, Eddie & Ruth, To Make That Future Now, 1976

****Manchester Guardian, March 3, 1934
*****Manchester Guardian, March 2, 1934

What happened to William Mellor?

It is a simple enough question but one for which I have no answer.

And it is all the more frustrating given that his early life up to the point when he moved to Chorlton  is well documented.

Now I have to confess William Mellor was unknown to me until a few days ago when my friend Barry Clark told me about him.

He was born in 1886 and moved to Clarence Road in Chorlton around 1911.*  At the age of 30 in 1915 he had volunteered for the army, served in France and was twice gassed before being demobbed in 1919.

And that is pretty much it.  Despite a heap of digging neither of us has been able to track him after the Great War, which is a puzzle given that he was a well respected book binder and calligrapher having won prizes for both.

He exhibited with the Clarion Guild of Handicraft  was Secretary of the Northern Art Workers Guild before it folded in 1911 and his work appeared  in various national art journals of the time.

Now there are plenty of clues still to follow up.

His father, William Mellor was also a book binder and was editor of the Book Binders Trades Journal and may have held a position in his union given that he gives his occupation as “secretary” on the 1911 census.

It is just possible that something of the young William will be revealed in a further search through his father’s life and from his links with the Northern Art Workers Guild.

Added to which there might just be some records from his time as a student at the Manchester School of Art.

All of which leads me at present to pursue the Clarion Guild of Handicraft which is a fascinating area of study and may still throw some light on William Mellor.

Picture; poster advertising an exhibition of the Clarion Guild of Handicraft, at the Athenaeum in 1904, from the collection of Barry Clark.

Additional research by Barry Clark

*William Mellor and his wife Eliza lived at 1 Clarence Road in 1911 and his father and mother at 3 Clarence Road, now renamed Claridge Road, both have now been demolished.