Chapters 9 to 12, can be read here, covering the period from the First World War to the General Strike (Chapter 9), the Depression years (Chapter 11 1927-39), the Second World War (Chapter 12)
CHAPTER NINE
REFORM OR REVOLUTION? CLASS POLITICS 1918-25
1 The 1918 general election
2 The revolutionary period 1919-21
3 Battles on the economic front - from the war to the early twenties
i) The engineering industry
ii) General and Municipal Workers
iii) Printing and paper workers
iv) The mining industry
v) The railway industry
vi) Teachers
vii) Police unionism
viii) Co-operative and other distributive workers
ix) The builders labourers union
x) The textile industry
xi) The Workers Union
xii) Agricultural workers
xiii) Boot and shoe operatives
xiv) Painters
xv) Public services and professional workers
4 Battles on the political front
i) political radicalism in the early Twenties
ii) the Co-operative movement and Labour politics
5 Unemployment and the depression 1921-25
i) the textile industry
ii) the Workers Union
iii) the mining industry
iv) the building trade
v) the NUVB
vi) the engineering industry
vii) the Transport and General Workers Union
viii) the railway industry
6 Unemployed Struggles 1920-25
7 Electoral battles 1921-2S
8 Chapter 9 References
1 The 1918 general election
As the war drifted to its close, the Labour Party in particular, faced an important crossroads in its future. The party leader, Arthur Henderson, joined with others in arguing for a new party constitution in 1918. There was an underlying motive to the apparent quest for efficiency of organisation. The bulk of the parliamentary party, along with the key trade union leaders, wanted to curtail the growing power and influence of the socialist tendencies within the movement. Individuals who did not work in typical paid employment in a factory, mine, mill, shop or office were not usually able to join a union and thus become involved in the Labour Party. Whilst those who were unwilling to join the mostly Marxist, or certainly left-leaning, socialist societies, were similarly discomforted. For the very first time, the concept of individual membership was brought into the party, thus dramatically altering - but by no means ending - its essentially federal character. Especially since the domination of the party conference by the affiliated union block vote was confirmed. But from herein, Labour activists were no longer firstly members of an affiliated union or socialist society.
Naturally, none of this was designed to appease the left within the overall movement, but the more radical element was gratified with a morally important, but practically irrelevant, concession. The general character of the constitutional aims of the party was to be clearly socialistic for the first time. The effect was to deliver power into the hands of the right wing of the movement and the soul of the party into me sight of the left. In particular, Clause Four of the constitution pleased the militants by defining the socialism sought in theory by the party. “To secure for the workers by hand and by brain the full fruits of the industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.” [1]
The result of all this was to give Labour a clear mid-way appeal between out-and-out socialism and social-reform Liberalism, a formula which was to provide a mass electoral base to the party. Nonetheless, interest in the theoretical basis of socialism grew phenomenally, even in some unexpected areas. For example, David Amyas Ross, a sixth former at the Derbyshire public school of Repton appeared one day in the summer of 1918 in the London office of the Labour Research Department (LRD). This body was actually independent of the Labour Party as such and engaged in research work for trade unions. Ross went to the LRD to ask on behalf of the entire sixth form at Repton what assistance they could give to helping to spread the Russian Revolution!! In later years, Ross would go on to become a Workers Education Association tutor. [2]
Support for the Russian Revolution and the adoption of Clause Four boosted support for the idea of socialised or nationalised production in quarters of the workers’ movement which had hitherto been reluctant to jettison Liberal ideals. There were good, practical reasons for this. In November 1918, the Workers Union Derby District Committee adequately expressed the general mood. A resolution called upon the government to “utilise all national factories for essential after-the-war industries as a means of providing against unnecessary unemployment and further that the same be owned by the state for the benefit of the community”. [3] ‘National factories’ were privately owned companies which had their product and output taken under the control of the state for the duration of the war.
Furthermore, as the 1918 general election neared, the unions were at pains to make clear their partisanship. The WU proclaimed to the press in Derby, at a special meeting called to discuss the election, that the District Committee (DC) “representing 6,000 male and female members urge its members in the constituencies of Derby and South Derbyshire to use all the means in their power to secure the return to parliament of Mr J H Thomas and Councillor Trueman, both of whom are the official Labour candidates”. [4] Despite the sense of confidence evident here, the newly revamped Labour Party did not win the election. Quite naturally, the government had timed the date of the election to suit itself. Few of the men in the armed forces, who might have held quite strong views about the way the future should develop, actually managed to vote. Despite this, the 1918 electoral roll in Derby was three times as large as it had been in 1914. Some 11,000 of the 61,000 potential voters were engaged in military service, but whether many of these were able to cast their vote is doubtful, as the bulk of the forces were still tied up in foreign parts. Moreover, 24,000 of these voters were casting their votes for the very first time and were no doubt rather cautious about it. [5]
Labour’s electoral machine was poorly developed. In some areas, the influence of Lib-Labism had retarded the political strength of Labour, so much so that no formal organisation existed in some places. The WU may well have wanted to urge support for Councillor Samuel Trueman of Long Eaton, who stood for South Derbyshire. But in reality there was very little practical organisational back up for the candidate. South Derbyshire Divisional Labour Party was established in 1918 at a conference composed of delegates from three co-op societies, three ILP branches and 27 trade union branches, including no less than twelve branches of the South Derbyshire Miners Association. Amongst other unions were the Potters, the Bakers, the WU, the ASE, the Colliery Engineers, the Carpenters and the Agricultural Workers. Trueman was proposed by the NUR and the Long Eaton Co-operative Society - of which he himself was a prominent member. While many of the old LECS stalwarts were Liberals, the society had voted 114 to 6 to affiliate to the South Derbyshire Labour Party only that year. A proposition to disaffiliate which came in 1919 was easily defeated. Political involvement was actually quite a new development for the co-operative movement. The Swansea Congress of the Co-operative Union in 1917 had set up the Co-operative Party, with the aim of representation in local and national democratic assemblies.
Trueman won the selection vote in the local party committee by 34 votes to 21 against Bill Smith of Church Gresley, who had been proposed by the South Derbyshire miners. [6] In common with many socialists, Trueman had adopted a pacifist stance in the war and this fact was crudely exploited with great effect by his Liberal opponent during the campaign. The Government faced the December 14th election quite confidently. A sitting government having led the nation through stormy times, it rightly believed it could rely upon patriotic calls. The preferred slogan of winning Government candidates was “Hang the Kaiser”. Such an approach rather excluded Labour’s serious and rather sober programme for social betterment from considered attention. Despite this, Labour considerably increased its representation and became the official Opposition.
The still largely federal character of the Labour Party showed itself in the results. The British Socialist Party was still affiliated and fielded candidates in sixteen seats. Twelve secured official endorsement from the Labour Party and one from the Co-operative Party, whilst the others ran as independents. The BSP did rather well, especially when compared to the ILP, which engaged in the election in a similar way. The ILP polled an overall average of 21.4% to the BSP’s 21.1% The latter doubled its 1910 average of 11.1 %, quite an achievement considering that it was a relatively new entrant into the electoral sphere. Derby’s Willie Paul stood for the other avowedly Marxist organisation, the Socialist Labour Party, in Ince, Lancashire, where he took 13% of the vote in a straight fight with an official Labour candidate.
In Derbyshire, Labour officially won only one seat. Two miners’ candidates, Hancock and Kenyon, took their seats unopposed respectively in Belper and Chesterfield. Supposedly Labour men, they were in reality Liberals, but the Labour Party deliberately left the field clear for them. The miners’ nominees in Clay Cross, Frank Hall, and in North East Derbyshire, Frank Lee, only narrowly managed to beat a Liberal, as did George H Oliver, the former Derby Rolls Royce convenor, in Ilkeston. Only J H Thomas victoriously led the field in the two-member constituency in Derby. He polled two-thirds as much again as his nearest rival, the successful Independent Unionist. There was much local speculation as to the reasons for the failure of Labour to field a second candidate and many ascribed to Thomas a fancy for a continuation of the Lib-Lab alliance of previous years. Whatever the truth, his Liberal ‘partner’ came far behind, only a little ahead of the fourth candidate, Captain H M Smith, the grandly styled “National Democratic and Labour Party” candidate. This was a group tied to the British Workers League, a pro-capitalist body which sought to win the working class. The NDLP saw itself as a patriotic working class propaganda group, opposing class struggle and acting upon a policy of support for the Government coalition and the prosecution of the war. This party did remarkably well in Derby, winning a good share of the poll, which split fairly evenly between the three candidates other than Thomas.
Percentage of the Poll
Labour 37.8
Ind Unionist 22.4
Liberal 20.2
NDLP 19.6
It was a result which intrigued the local press, the Mercury commented that the “Lib-Lab compact has existed for many years, but on this occasion Labour, who were exhorted to split their “Progressive” vote did not carry the Liberal with them. If there was any surprise it was the splendid poll which Capt. H M Smith ... obtained.” [7]
Labour had not yet eclipsed the Liberals, but signs of this future development were clearly there. Labour had won 57 seats, only a small improvement on the 1914 position. But what was of considerable significance was the fact that Labour was generally the second candidate to the winner in many former Liberal strongholds. The 1918 constitutional compromise in the Labour Party aided unity in the movement and this, with the improved electoral performance, rather perturbed many sections of the establishment. For the workers, it was a time to redress old wrongs, above all to win the peace after the war. In the preceding four years, wholesale prices had increased by 13S% and the cost of living index by 120%. Wages had stayed well behind prices, being somewhat less than double the 1914 level. Trades unionists determined to put this right. In 1919 wages rose by about 20%, while prices were relatively stable, the standard of living of 1914 was thus all but restored. Apparently contradicting the results of the 1918 election, the popular mood turned strongly militant. The contradiction was easily explained by the fact of the enormous numbers of returning soldiers, determined that some sense come out of the horror of 1914-18, for themselves and their families.
2 The Revolutionary Period of 1919-21
The need to re-assimilate millions of men returning from the battlefields caused considerable problems to the economies of Europe. The immediate concern of many was to locate the demobilised into peacetime jobs. In the engineering industry, the skilled unions had won the introduction of the Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act, eventually enforced by 1919, to ease the return to ‘normality’. The ASE had extracted this concession as a price for its co-operation in the practice of dilution, but the Workers Union, speaking for the many unskilled workers who had benefited by the disturbance of normal industrial life, opposed the Act. Moreover, if the skilled unions had extracted some concessions, they could not cushion their members from every hazard. Britain was a victorious nation, but it was still prone to the vagaries of the capitalist economy.
Recognising the dangers of large scale unemployment among returning soldiers, the Government introduced a weekly allowance and raised unemployment benefit by 4/, to a total of 11/- a week for those demobilised, but still out of work. Moreover, employers were prevented from effecting wages cuts by the Wages (Temporary Regulation) Act until May 1919 and this was subsequently extended to November and again to September 1920. Despite these measures, there were serious concerns about the plight of the former serviceman. In Derby, the Mayor received a letter from the Demobilisation Council, which worried over the “serious state of unemployment in Derby” and recommended public works as the solution. [8] Some looked for deeper solutions, while others thought no further than how to get back to the pre-war state of affairs. The Derby WU DC agreed to support a resolution referred to it by its No.1 branch, which asked the Labour Party to “endeavour to promote a bill forbidding married women to enter employment where the husbands are able, through their income to keep them at home, whilst there are single women out of work”. [9] No doubt many on the almost exclusively male committee had unemployed married and single men in mind as well, although the resolution diplomatically
avoided that argument.
Support for more radical, even revolutionary solutions reached a high spot in the 1919-21 period, when industrial militancy was generally accepted as a legitimate tool of working class struggle. Massive and frequent wage rises and even some progress in the reductions of the working week were sustained in and around Derby, as recorded in the Derby WU DC Minutes:
Some Wage Rises (1918-20) in Derbyshire
Feb 1918
Offiler’s Brewery 8/- weekly increase
Derby Engineering Industry 3/- war bonus
Graham & Bennett 3/4d hour increase
Aug 1918
Offiler’s 10/- increase
Jones & Co. 12% plus 7.5% increase
November 1918
Lolson’s (Pentrich) 2/- weekly increase
Graham and Bennett 1d an hour increase
January 1919
Rolls Royce 3/- a week increase oilers and store keepers 1/- a week increase for machine moulders
February 1919
Rickard’s 5/- a week increase and a 47-hour week
March 1919
Green’s 4d an hour increase
Shardlow boatmen 10/- a week increase
Tarmac 41/2d an hour increase
September 1919
Derby Ice 5/- a week increase
Lolson’s (Pentrich) 6/- a week increase
Offilers 2/6d a week increase
November 1919
Lolson’s 2/- a week increase
Long’s 5/- a week increase
Engineering 5/- a week increase
Chemicals 5/- a week increase
Rail Workshops 5/- a week increase
Concordia Electric Cables 48-hour week
Dec 1919
Belper Urban District Council 2/- a week increase
DP Battery 2/6d to 5/- a week increase
Barnes & Fryer Packing Cases 2/6d to 5/- a week increase
Jan 1920
Mackintosh’s 4/- to 8/- a week increase
Hampshire and Co 48-hour week
Fletcher’s Lace, Nottingham Rd 5/- to 13/- a week increase
Leather Industry 5/- a week increase
Derby Silica Firebrick (DSF) 1d an hour increase
Feb 1920
Derbyshire Royal Infirmary 5/- a week increase
Graham and Bennett 1d an hour increase
Mar 1920
Long’s 2/- a week increase
Engineering Industry 6/- a week increase
April 1920
Belper UDC 5/- a week increase
Long’s 5/- a week increase
Lolson’s (Ripley) 5/- a week increase
Brick making 8/- a week increase
Leather 7/6d a week increase
June 1920
Kegworth Brewery 8/- a week increase
Dickinson and Housall 5/- a week increase
Derby Lead Works 6/- a week increase
J Fowler (Borrowash) 12/6d a week increase
Sandiacre Sewage 48-hour week
September 1920
Graham and Bennett 11/2d an hour
Bakewell UDC 5/- a week increase
Barnes and Fryer 1 1/2d an hour
October 1920
T Long and Co 5/- to 10/- a week increase
Peters Ltd (labourers) 10/- a week increase
Peters Ltd (metal spinners) 10/- a week increase
Clay Industry 6/- a week increase
December 1920
DSF 3d an hour increase
Offiler’s’ clerks 12/6d a week increase
A series of major disputes, locally and nationally, became the centre ground of a testing battle between capital and labour. More dramatically, these took place amid serious controversy about British interference in the revolutionary developments in Russia that had shaken the world. The continuation of conscription, the sharp rise in the cost of living, the low rate of exemption from income tax, which began for the first time to take revenue for the state from ordinary workers in this way, and the use of troops in industrial disputes, all combined together in creating a seething discontent amongst the working class.
The “Triple Alliance” of miners, railway workers and dockers proposed a strike ballot specifically on three of these issues - Russia, conscription and troops in strikes. Some in Derbyshire were violently against the notion. Frank Lee of the Derbyshire miners told the Staveley Trades Council that “he was the last man in the world to favour the (proposed) strike which would upset the commerce of the country”. [10] Not everyone agreed with him. The impact of the Russian Revolution amongst all activists of the labour movement was overwhelming; right from the first moment the workers’ movement in Derbyshire followed events as far as was possible, given the circumstances. The Trades Council convened a meeting on the Menshevik supported revolution of February 1917, very soon after the event and over the next two years there was much interest in the dramatic events in the east. In spite of the grip of right wing ideas on the labour movement in the country and county, little but praise for the revolutionary developments in Russia could be found.
In 1919, Derby NUR asked the Trades Council (DTC) to convene a “town’s meeting to be addressed by a Russian on Russia”. However, no progress seems to have been made on this idea, perhaps largely because no official Soviet representative existed in Britain, the government having refused credentials to the first to be appointed. Soviet Russia had asked the Clydeside working class leader, John MacLean, to be their consul and the gesture was not meaningless. In Scotland, large sections of the working class were little removed from potential revolution and the Government knew it. There was no hesitation in bringing out armed forces to quell the growing sense of revolution, an act that in itself only served to highlight the increasing unease. Even though there was no formal plan for an insurrection, troops were used in a ruthless manner. Workers protested against the use of troops in strike action and had troops used against them in turn. The labour movement in and around Derby was as one in roundly condemning the Government’s approach.
The DTC was of the opinion that “military troops, when used in strikes, are always used in the interests of Capital against Labour and demanded the immediate release of Davie Kirkwood and Willie Gallagher, the imprisoned leaders of the Red Clyde.”[11] Such widespread support for radicalism naturally seriously worried the Government and the employers in all industries and localities. A familiar tactic of appealing to national pride and a joint employer-employee approach to industrial relations began to be exploited on a grand scale. The DTC however showed positive hostility to the forming of a Derby branch of the “National Alliance of Employers and Employed”, despite persistent approaches over the next few years from certain key local trade union officials who were supporters. [12]
British capitalism had important financial interests in Russia and men of power and wealth were sorely annoyed at the revolution, which pulled her out of the war. As soon as Germany was dealt with, Britain and twenty other nations invaded the young Soviet republic by force of arms, intending to crush the revolution almost at birth. Britain’s press was hysterical about the new experiment and violently condemned any signs of sympathy for Russia. To the consternation of many civic dignitaries, Derby’s most respected and respectable Labour leader, W R Raynes, announced at the local May Day rally in 1919 that he supported the demands for a withdrawal of British troops in Russia. His view was that “Russia had to fight to work out its own emancipation without Czars and capitalism”. [13]
Even more clearly, on another occasion, Raynes gave his support to the educational policy of the new workers’ republic, concluding that “if that is Bolshevism then I am a Bolshevik”. Naturally, the local press went to town! “I am a Bolshevik - W R Raynes” ran the placards. Horatio Bottomley’s weekly, “John Bull”, called him a “dangerous fool and an unholy liar”, regretting that he was not in the range of an active gun. “Derby should spew such a man ... out from its midst.” [14] Bill Raynes, misquoted though he was, found he was by no means alone. Workers’ organisations of all kinds adopted favourable policy decisions regarding Russia. In June of 1919, the Belper branch of the WU forwarded a resolution to the Derby DC that was accepted without dissent. As a result, the WU was locally committed to acting against “any further money or munitions being used in Russia” and to demanding the “immediate withdrawal of all British troops there”. [15]
The local branch of the BSP, one of the main constituent parts of the yet to be formed Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), submitted a resolution to the DTC in September 1919, “asking for support for the Soviet Government” and had no difficulty in getting this carried. [16] As an aside here, it is instructive to note that no constitutional queries were raised about the validity of such a motion coming from a non-trade union body. The BSP was still affiliated to the Labour Party and trades councils were still seen as central co-ordinating bodies of all working class organisations and the notion of banning or proscribing controversial tendencies had not yet been invented. A vigorous “Hands off Russia” campaign developed throughout the country, including Derby, whose committee wrote to the DTC in 1919 calling for support. Without any hesitation, the council demanded the “withdrawal of troops from Russia, and the removal of the Blockade and the refusal of supplies to Kolchak and Deniken”. [17] These were two generals who each waged civil war against the revolution. Subsequent meetings were to decide to send a donation of £1 to the Derby Hands Off Russia campaign, to send a delegate to a solidarity conference held on November 29th 1919 and finally to demand “immediate trade relations with Soviet Russia”. [18]
The strong sense of internationalism evident from these developments coincided with industrial militancy in an open way. However, the response was sometimes mixed. Staveley ASLEF branch voted on their EC’s request to consider the Triple Alliance threefold question in January 1920. Perhaps concern about the implications for railway jobs of coal nationalisation motivated the spilt vote on that issue, but there can be no doubt about the radicalism provoked by the events in Russia, shown by the vote:
“1 nationalisation of mines For 14 against 13
2 to abolish Conscription For 36 against 0
3 to withdraw British troops from Russia For 25 against 2”
Support for the EC’s motion was however massive. Even so, Derby ASLEF, in considering the circular from their general secretary, Bromley, uncharacteristically voted decisively against all three propositions. [19] Perhaps there were tactical, internal or constitutional reasons for this. The branch was certainly politically far more radical than other Derbyshire ASLEF branches.
Trades councils, shop stewards committees, trade unions, socialist societies, Hands Off Russia committees all formed “Councils of Action”, to unite all the forces opposed to intervention in Russia. The Parliamentary Committee of the TUC, the fore-runner to the General Council, the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party and the Parliamentary Labour Party all joined together to declare that the industrial power of the workers would be used to stop the war with Russia. The unprovoked invasion of Russia by the right-wing reactionary government of the newly created country of Poland stirred much sympathy for the Soviet republic. Derby branch of ASLEF had changed their tune by June, when they declared that no member of their society would “handle any goods consigned to the Government of Poland for the purpose of prosecuting the war with Russia”. [20] For the threat of another war was now clear. The DTC meanwhile demanded the withdrawal of British troops amidst a great surge of solidarity which swept the working class. Dockers refused to load munitions ships bound for Poland. The TUC called a Special Congress on the issue.
In August, the DTC passed an almost revolutionary resolution, when it decided to “support steps taken by Councils of Action to prevent the government entering into war with Russia, and warns the British government if it attempts to send either men, money, munitions or stores directly or indirectly to the aid of Poland, organised Labour of Derby ... will resort to direct action to prevent it”. [21] 200 delegates met in Derby to set up the local Council of Action, on the initiative of the Derby Labour Party (DLP) and the DTC. Specialist committees on transport, information, organisation, supply were set up to deal with particular problems should the “direct action” be called for. Circulars were sent out by all unions demanding absolute loyalty to any instructions issued by the National Council of Action. Derby ASLEF adopted a position typical of most unions, after receiving the instructions. The branch agreed to support the Council of Action “in whatever step they think necessary to prevent war with Russia or any other country”. [22]
Many viewed the all-embracing character of the Councils of Action and drew the obvious parallels with the Russian ‘soviet’, or council of workers, soldiers and peasants. In the face of these developments, the Government trod warily and avoided confrontation, shelving the intervention in Russia. But it was clear as to where its main threat lay. Albert Inkpin, national Secretary of the Communist Party was arrested in 1921 on trumped up charges, as an authoritarian mood now grew amongst politicians. His imprisonment was raised in 1922 at the DTC, which passed a resolution asking the Home Secretary to consider his immediate release. But the warning signs were not clear enough for some. Having done their immediate job, the Councils of Action were wound up by the leadership of the labour and trade union movement, perhaps with indecent haste. But the experience of the councils was to surface and to be used once again in the General Strike of 1926 and this would be particularly evident in Derby and Chesterfield.
3 Battles on the Economic Front - from the War to The Beginning of the Twenties.
i) The Engineering Industry
In September 1919, the moulders and the ironfounders found themselves engaged in a strike for what the DTC called a ‘living wage’, when it discussed the issue at its meeting the next month. [23] As part of the national movement for an advance in wages, a Derby strike committee was set up. This began to receive donations from the movement towards the strike fund, such as the £2 which the Derby Builders’ Labourers gave in November to the Friendly Society of Ironfounders [24], while the Rowsley NUR donated £1 in December. [25] The FSI had held a mass meeting at the Derby Market Place in late October, as the strike set in and attitudes hardened. The men decided to continue with their stance by an overwhelming vote. The strike committee was established at this meeting, when seven men were elected to lead the struggle locally. [26]
Much hardship was experienced by the iron workers and their families. The Derby Board of Guardians granted relief in one week in December alone to 177 men, 143 women and 260 children. Similar grants were made every week at a cost of between £150 and £200, actually taking the Board’s funds into deficit. [27] Faced with an unrelenting force of employers and acute starvation as winter progressed, the ironfounders had to return to work in January 1920, unfortunately with nothing gained, but importantly with nothing lost.
A major factor in the impotence of the dispute must have been the sharp disunity between the two key unions involved, the FSI and the Workers Union. There was “much reluctance to bring the WU men out’, according to the Derby WU DC and there were arguments about who was to run the dispute, which drove the unions concerned apart. The WU complained bitterly that the FSI was “anti-WU”, and while there was much truth in this statement, the dislike was entirely mutual. [28] The FSI sent a circular to all craft unions “charging WU members who are moulders with working under price”. The WU protested that this was untrue and asked for full details from the FSI of their allegations. [29] Meanwhile the FSI took in some other small unions to become the National Union of Foundryworkers, which many years later joined the AEU one of the key components ultimately of amicus.
In the engineering industry generally the newly powerful shop stewards were determined to prevent the loss of their prestige and one reflection of this was a desire for unity amongst craftsmen, which took the form of a widespread demand for organisational solidarity. Eight skilled engineering unions joined together, the principal society being the ASE, to form the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) in 1920. In Derby, there were at least two societies along with the ASE which were brought into the new union. The Steam Engine Makers were well established at Haslam’s, along with the ASE. The Number One shop was organised by the former, the latter taking the membership in Number Two and Number Three shops. The Steam Engine Makers were present in most of the organised factories, as was the ASE. Similarly, the United Machine Workers Association, which was particularly strong at Rolls Royce, brought many members in Derby to the merged AEU. Councillor Arthur Sturgess, the convenor of shop stewards at Haslam’s and the part-time District Secretary of the ASE in Derby for some eight years, became the first full time organiser for the AEU, being based at the Labour Party offices in Green Lane.
A massive rally of members of all the unions forming the AEU was held at the Central Hall in Derby, presided over by H Grey. Councillors Ansell and Sturgess proposed and seconded a resolution welcoming the amalgamation. But without doubt the highlight was the speech by the new general secretary of the AEU. This was Tom Mann, veteran socialist, one of the leaders of the 1889 Dock Strike, founder of the Workers Union and originator of the pre-war syndicalist movement. Mann made an uncompromising speech, which was warmly welcomed by the mass audience. He declared himself a “Socialist, Bolshevist, Spartist or any other ‘ist’ and lay great stress on the fact that he was out for the complete control of industry by the workers”. [30] (‘Spartist’ was presumably the local newspaper’s mishearing of ‘Spartacist’, the name recalling Spartacus the famous leader of the slave rebellion against the Roman Empire, which had been adopted by one of the left wing tendencies which would form the Communist Party in Germany.) Mann proudly approved the Soviet system, making special play of the role of shop stewards’ committees as a kind of British soviet.
In a test of strength between this new, strong union and Rolls Royce, the biggest engineering employer in Derby, 6,000 workers from all departments, including office workers, struck at the company in May 1920, ostensibly over the dismissal of a shop steward. The firm at first accused Bolton, the dismissed man, of bad workmanship, but later said it was because of insufficient production. Bolton conceded a minor error, but pointed out that it had been rectified within two hours, whilst the lack of production was entirely due to his trade union duties. Three days into the strike, Rolls Royce claimed to have no knowledge of Bolton’s position as a shop steward, a claim which had little impression on the daily mass meetings which consistently backed the stance of the strike committee. To counter many public and media distortions about the dispute, the shop stewards produced a leaflet over the names of J Clarke and William Wilkinson, Chairman and Secretary of the joint committee. One rumour about the strike was that it was over the right to smoke at will, still a disciplinary offence, or only during meal breaks. The workers’ committee was quite clear what was at stake. “The Strike was caused in the first instance because we believe our brother and workmate, Bolton, was unjustly dismissed, and in the second place because the Management of Rolls Royce refused to remove the cause of friction pending negotiations.” [31] That is to say, to re-instate Bolton while the matter was discussed around the table.
Moreover, the whole attitude of the company annoyed the men and women on strike and the strike committee summed up their feelings. “We are not going to remain slaves and chattels, but are free thinking individuals, and in our Trades Unions and Shop Committees we are banded together for mutual help and protection. We stand by our brother as we would stand by any worker worthy and in need of protection.” Beyond arguing that the strike was held outside of the agreed procedure for the resolution of disputes, the company and the Engineering Employers Federation kept remarkably quiet. Within only a few more days, a compromise solution was found which avoided embarrassment, but left the company in no doubt as to the collective strength of their employees.
It was an important lesson for Rolls Royce, which embarked upon a more benevolent course of employee relations, which recognised the especially skilled nature of its employees’ work. Increasingly, a job at Rolls Royce was seen as a particularly worthy one and the quality of employment became ever better. Even so, such disputes had been common throughout the engineering industry, but it only took a national lock out in 1921 to tilt the balance of power back towards the employers. Meanwhile, the national shop stewards movement which had emerged in 1917 was formally wound up in 1922, as the official trade union movement took up the challenge of shop floor organisation more seriously.
The railway workshops in Derby faced an even more daunting task than the Rolls Royce workers in changing their work environment. A visit to the Litchurch works in Derby in the early Twenties, more than any other experience, converted to socialism the noted Methodist, Donald (or Lord, as he was later to become) Soper. The noise, dirt, lack of safety and the rigid discipline created a lasting impression upon the young man. The manager’s office was called the “Baron’s Fortress”, a term which reflected the warlike behaviour of the management. The foremen wore bowler hats, as if to place them above the workers who had to stand to attention when talking to them. The foremen’s blue suits were almost a uniform, designed to intimidate and the practice of distinguishing supervisors by dress only died out after 194S. Men were hired and fired at will.
One former worker in the railway workshops, Les Clay, was taken on when hundreds of men waited every day outside the gates for a company official to appear. “Any joiners?” the foreman would say. “Any blacksmiths? Any turners?” Clay was in the front row on one occasion when the last to be taken on was called. When he thrust himself forward, he was rewarded with a job. Casual work even for skilled men was the norm and security of employment was equally risky once in the works. Clay had an average of one in four weeks unemployed and was always in the first batch to be laid off on account of his trade union commitment. The employer tended to hire labour when needed that day and to fire it as soon as work dried up. Forward planning was not a concept then familiar to the railway workshops.
Shop stewards, or to be precise ‘shop committeemen’, were provided for in a new agreement concluded for the railway workshops in 1923. In the Derby loco works, these committeemen were subjected to terrific harassment. Les Clay’s foreman, Healey, was a “bastard”. When Healey stood as a Liberal candidate in the local elections, Clay responded to a comment by the chairman of one of Healey’s public meetings, even though Sir Henry Fowler, the head of the Midland Railway, was also on the platform. The chair remarked that the men who worked under Healey would testify to his qualities. To the surprise of all, Clay announced to the meeting that the only thing Healey lacked in qualities was a whip! A member of the press fell off his seat on a window ledge in amused amazement at Clay’s audacity. [32]
Amongst other skilled engineering trades there was also sign of the desire for organisational unity of the kind displayed by the AEU. In 1919, the National Union of Vehicle Builders (NUVB) came into existence by the merger of the old established UKSC and three London based coach making societies. In Derby, the new union was particularly well based in the rail workshops having 313 members in the local branch compared to only 80 in 1915. The branch secretary was one T Osman and he steered the NUVB locally through its amalgamation and beyond. The effect of the new union was very positive in this highly specialised section of the engineering industry, for within two years membership had risen substantially.
ii) General and Municipal Workers
The Gas and General Labourers Union (G&GLU) was still strongly based among quarry workers in the north of the county, which was largely rural and remote from the major towns. Not that they were at all docile. One thousand quarrymen and lime workers in the Buxton area came out on strike for a week in May 1920, to satisfactorily resolve their grievances. But it was only with expansion into other fields, which was assisted by mergers, could the union emerge as the massive body that is today’s GMB. The G&GLU had been taking members in a variety of industries for some time. To underline this fact, the union changed its name in 1922 to the Amalgamated Society of Gas, Municipal and General Workers. However, the merger of three big general workers unions in 1924, which brought about the National Union of General and Municipal Workers (NUGMWU) really laid the basis for growth, particularly in the municipal sphere. In the lead up to the merger, the veteran leader of the gas workers, Will Thorne, visited Derby to address a mass meeting in the Temperance Hall in June 1923. Members of his own union joined in to listen to the merger proposal with those of the Municipal Employees Association, which had members employed by the Borough Council in Derby, and the National Amalgamated Union of Labour, which had members in the coalfields and elsewhere in Derbyshire. [33]
iii) Printing and Paper Workers
The female printing and paper workers of Derby were able to win an agreement in early 1919 to provide for wages of between 12/- at 14 years of age and 30/- at 20 years, which significantly was inclusive of war bonuses, thus protecting the increments. Skilled printers also received increases, taking them to 69/- a week in May 1919. The Operative Printers (NATSOPA) and the Paper Workers Union, representing male warehousemen, cutters and packers extracted rises taking the most experienced workers to within 3/- a week of the most highly skilled men. Their union, the Typographical Association, responded by asking for a 10% increase, but by the beginning of December the semi-skilled unions had obtained an immediate 6/-increase and a 1/6d increase to apply from January 1920. [34] The general thrust of all this is to only underline the fact that the general experience of the printing unions during the war continued immediately afterwards. Organisation of the workers was high, control of the trade was firm and demand for the products of the labour of print workers was still rising rapidly.
iv) The Mining Industry
The mining industry had been relatively quiet during the war, as demand for energy was at a premium. The Derbyshire Miners Association (DMA) was even able to expand itself in other, unusual areas. The price of lead rocketed during the war years and in consequence the mineral was once more actively mined in the county. But as the price of lead was left to rise or fall in an open market, the onset of peace presented serious problems for DMA members in the Mill Close mines in Darley Dale. This was Derbyshire’s largest ever lead mine, producing half a million tons of lead concentrates over three centuries of exploitation. Mill Close experienced no less than four defensive strikes over 1918-9, the last being in August 1919, when union members were made redundant at the same time that non-unionists with lesser service were given their jobs, after being transferred from other areas of the mines. 86 DMA members came out and the strike dragged on for months - until early 1921 in fact!
Under Derbyshire’s ancient lead mining regulations, a claim could be made for possession of disused mines, so the DMA decided to do just that in order that the men could be provided with work. A claim for three disused mines near to the Mill Close operations was made, the idea being to run the workings as a worker co-operative. But the capital required to fund such a project was too much for the union. Meanwhile, the owner of Mill Close, H Denman, sold out his interests in the mine, but the new owner still refused to take the DMA strikers back. In 1922, New Consolidated Goldfield Ltd, which now controlled Mill Close, injected much needed capital in the mines. [35]
The experience of the DMA’s coal mining membership over the next few years was to prove to be every bit as exhilarating as the struggle of the lead miners and sometimes as bitterly disappointing. As the demobilisation of the troops took place, some coal owners dismissed men to make way for returning servicemen, a course of action that led to disputes at Tibshelf and Normanton. The employers argued that they could not keep ‘uneconomic’ levels of labour on their books unless they had some help from the Government. This line of approach led in turn to definite calls for nationalisation of coal mines, as pit after pit faced the same problem. Another repeated demand during this period was for the abolition of the butty system. This operated throughout Derbyshire and the mass of the men were thoroughly opposed to it. They did most of the work whilst the butty took the lion’s share of the wages. Even so, there were some workers who believed that piece work maximised earnings. After decades of controversy, the unfair aspect of butty was finally ended in 1919, when a ballot of the DMA showed a three to one majority for a new system whereby every man would share equally in the results of a butty contract.
The ease with which such a long-standing grievance was resolved must have given great confidence to the DMA. A national claim for a 30% increase, a six hour day, full wages for the unemployed displaced by returning servicemen and nationalisation of the mines was made against the background of bold confidence in every coalfield. Of Derbyshire’s men, 93% balloted in favour of strike action. Wages had not kept up with the price of coal. Since the establishment of the datum line of 1888, wages had risen threefold, but prices had risen fourfold, so the demand for a 30% rise was not seen as unreasonable. Only the involvement of Lloyd George, as Prime Minister, averted the strike. A proposal to set up a Royal Commission was accepted by the Miners Federation, so long as they could have a say in the appointment of the members of the Commission.
Its Chairman was Mr Justice Sankey, hence the Royal Commission began to be called the ‘Sankey Commission’. It eventually reported that the high prices and low wages of recent years had allowed the owners to make extremely large profits, despite their inefficiency in managing their own businesses. But differences in the Commission resulted in three separate reports being presented to Parliament. Six on the Commission voted for the majority report, which provided for the MFGB’s demands for a 30% increase, a six hour day and a guarantee for those laid off due to demobilisation. A minority report, put by three of the Commission’s members and supported by the coal owners, argued for a 1/6d a day increase, a seven hour day for underground workers and an eight hour day for surface workers. A third proposal, which the government accepted, dubbed the ‘Sankey Report’, envisaged a 2/- a day increase, a seven hour day in 1919 and a conditional six hour day in 1921. The coalfields were in ferment at this manoeuvring and the MFGB balloted the men. Railway workers were in a similar struggle and were also on the verge of a national strike. It seemed impossible to hold the miners back to await the result of the ballot. In Derbyshire, sporadic strikes of pit deputies took place and, on 27th March 1919, 8,000 men in twelve of the coalfield’s pits walked out on unofficial strike. But the DMA advised acceptance of the Government’s terms and eventually the men came around to this.
The question of nationalisation had yet to be settled and the Sankey Commission began another inquiry. This time four reports emerged, but all of them favoured some form of state involvement. This apparent sense of unanimity to some extent lulled the miners into a false sense of security, rudely shattered when the Government rejected nationalisation. There were also difficulties in implementing the shorter working week, as the Government hedged on whether the reduction in hours would mean a reduction in wages. Unrest in the coalfields reached a new high, especially when it became clear that fewer hours would also mean fewer wage. 20,000 Derbyshire miners came out from 21st July in 30 pits. The DMA leadership laboured in vain to head off the strike wave, which was paralleled in the rest of the country. On 2Sth July, Lloyd George agreed a formula ending the strike, but nationalisation was still an unresolved issue. Mass meetings were held in the coalfields to win the miners for action on the issue over August and September. But the failure to generate support in other industries for sympathetic action ensured the failure of this struggle. In early 1920, Derbyshire miners voted nine to one for action. The MFGB as a whole was more evenly split, but nonetheless still voted in favour of a strike. However, the TUC took the initiative and decided by an overwhelming vote not to call a general strike on the affair. Nationalisation became a dead issue for a generation.
Not that this experience dented the resolve of the miners to tackle their immediate problems. The introduction of iron and steel props in underground workings at the Butterley mines in May 1920 led to a threatened strike and the idea was hurriedly withdrawn. The notion had proved controversial because the cheaper props would not give out a cracking sound when excessive pressure might lead to a roof collapse, as did wooden props. More emphatic than this was the major wages confrontation of 1920. The Derbyshire miners voted in a national MFGB ballot by well over two to one to strike for a claim to reduce the price of employees’ coal and increase wages. The owners made the fixing of a datum line to calculate production bonuses the main issue, but this was clearly rejected by the miners. The extent of feeling amongst the men can be gauged by the stormy reaction of the historically less militant South Derbyshire miners. There was a special reason for their outrage; the wages of miners in the Swadlincote area were about 3/- a day less than their fellows in the north of the county around Chesterfield. South Derbyshire joined with most other miners in the national strike, which started on Saturday 16th October. The DMA immediately made the decision to conserve its funds by paying a reduced strike pay of £1 a week to full members.
The miners naturally looked to the Triple Alliance, formed in 191S, for support from the transport unions. Rowsley NUR, like other railway union branches, formed a strike committee. But the domination of the solidarity action with the miners by the NUR was not well received by Staveley ASLEF, which voted 12 to 54 against supporting the NUR action. Instead, a proposal to stand by a decision of their own EC, once it had consulted ASLEF branches, went through with 40 for and only 22 against. Despite such bickering, at a national level the rail unions warned on October 21st that unless the miners’ demands were met, they would strike within days. The Government rushed through an emergency powers bill to give it authority to stand up to this challenge, but in also began negotiations with the MFGB. After four days, a proposal was made sufficient to avert the solidarity railway strike. Amidst much confusion and a split in the DMA’s leadership, there was a small majority in a ballot for acceptance in the county. Nationally, there was a wafer thin majority for rejection of the Government’s offer. Despite the ballot result, a special MFGB conference abandoned the strike.
Subsequent increases gave the Derbyshire men 3s 6d a day more than they had been previously earning. But, essential, very little in terms of lasting gains had been extracted from the strike. Essential strike funds had been drained away, weakening the miners’ bargaining position if a sudden fight came. The valuable offer of solidarity action by the Triple Alliance had frightened the Government, but the firmness of such offers had not been put to the test. Within a single year, the employers would be back to reassure themselves of their dominance over the miners.
(v) The Railway Industry
The eight hour day was introduced on the railways as part of the process of establishing a peace-time national agreement for the industry but not until after a fight. Discussions with the Government took place, amidst an atmosphere of intense militancy amongst the workforce. By the end of November 1918, the rail unions were deciding upon industrial action unless the Government definitely indicated that the eight hour day would be introduced. In December, Derby ASLEF considered that the “time has arrived when the question shall be settled once and for all”. A strike committee was elected, in a determined mood, while the branch pledged to “abide by whatever decision the EC considers the best”. Faced with the certainty of a major national railway dispute, the Government determined that discretion was the better part of valour and calmly retreated. The eight hour day was introduced from February 1st 1919, a momentous occasion. As Derby ASLEF called it, a “red letter day”.
As soon as rail workers realised their full strength, other issues came to the fore. In particular, after the tensions generated by the preparations for a national strike had revealed the potential extent for strike breaking, the question of working with non-trades unionists emerged as an issue. The future ability of railway unionism to face up to the employers was seriously affected by this. The isolated Rowsley branch of the NUR in North Derbyshire was, in those days, the centre of a major marshalling yard. Yet this rural NUR branch was just as affected by the prevailing mood of determination to seize material improvements as any big city branch. Rowsley NUR carried a resolution that a strike committee be formed and pickets “appointed to carry out the EC decisions of January 7th re their call on the non-union question”. In anticipation of future conflict, the branch set up a 15 man strike committee and another 15 members constituted a special picket group. [36]
These developments had been a reflection of the improved bargaining position that had been brought to railway unions by the war and its aftermath. National conformity of wages and a big improvement of the lot of the rail worker went hand in hand with the massive increase in union membership which had taken place over the war years. The Railway Clerks Association (RCA) won the right to represent station masters and other supervisory workers in national negotiations in early 1919, a fact which no doubt had a direct bearing on the sudden jump in RCA membership. The Derby branch reached the heady heights of some 1,500 members by the end of 1920. [37]
Throughout 1919, the Government and the rail unions negotiated over the question of a national wage agreement based on the standardisation of the hundreds of grades which the various companies used. Both sides naturally adopted postures designed to maximise their bargaining strength. The NUR especially sought to revamp the Triple Alliance, a fact underlined by a special discussion at the Rowsley branch in June at which “absolute support for the Triple Alliance” was declared. [38] A major crisis was reached in September 1919, when the Government proposed a wages settlement which would supposedly end wartime controls and lay the basis for the future rail negotiations with the independent companies at a national level. The proposal gave special concessions to drivers and firemen who were organised by ASLEF. The entire 33/- war bonus, which had been arrived at in seven stages was to be added to the highest pre-war company footplate rate. However, for the other grades, reductions of between one and sixteen shillings a week would apply from the beginning of January 1920.
A national strike was the only thing to be expected in the circumstances and this began on midnight Friday 26th September 1919. The obvious attempt to split the unions by treating loco drivers and firemen and the bulk of NUR members differently failed miserably, for the 57,000 members of ASLEF stopped work in solidarity. Derby ASLEF took a hard line over any of its members who might be tempted to waver. The branch resolved that “all members that remain at work during the strike shall be expelled from the society and forfeit all benefits”. The motion was carried unanimously. Moreover, to ensure complete solidarity, the branch decided not to resume work until “every man has been reinstated” and that “we unanimously agree that we will not resume work till the whole of the men that remained at work during the strike have been dismissed”. Seven men were given four hours notice of expulsion unless they ceased work, but in contrast seven non-unionists joined up from September 14th onwards. [39]
The wider labour movement geared itself to mobilising support for the rail workers. The United Machineworkers No 69 Derby branch simply reflected the overwhelming mood of solidarity with the rail workers, when it declared full support for them. The public at large were decisively in sympathy with the rail workers’ struggle. Meanwhile, the rail unions began to make arrangements for a long dispute. The joint strike committee In Derby approached the board of Derby Co-operative Society (DCS), after the Government ensured the withholding of wages duly earned. The Co-op was asked to supply food to strikers by voucher on their honour to redeem the full costs later. A similar request came from the iron founders who were themselves also engaged in a dispute at the same time. The DCS Board unanimously agreed to assist both groups of workers. [40]
This central strike committee of the railway unions met constantly during the dispute. In particular, NUR and ASLEF held their own and joint branch meetings practically every day. 11,000 railway workers were out on strike in and around Derby, so naturally the effect on industry was both immediate and dramatic. Thousands were laid off in the Derbyshire coalfields and many pits, such as Barlborough, Whitwell and Southgate were completely closed. 150 trains normally came out from Derby each day, but only three appeared on the first day of the strike. [41] After that there were no trains for five days out of Derby and the Trades Council later summed up the general view of the movement, when it “congratulated the railwaymen on the splendid stand made by them during their recent strike”. [42]
The Government waged a fierce propaganda battle against the rail workers, with newsreel films in the cinema and full page advertisements in the newspapers. It was the first, systematic use of such sophisticated techniques of mass persuasion during an industrial dispute. The Government’s campaign so infuriated members of Derby ASLEF that they decided to ask assistance of the Vehicle Workers Union, a recent merger of the London based bus and tram union and the Manchester based Amalgamated Association of Tramway Workers, which had a branch in Derby. The union was asked to “refuse to handle any transport (of) any capitalist papers seeing they are trying to influence public opinion by making false statements about the railway dispute”. The NUR countered the propaganda by commissioning the Labour Research Department to present its case to the public. Well argued advertisements appeared in the newspapers, asking workers whether they wanted to see their own wages cut in a similar way, for their turn would come next. The tremendous public support was maintained partly due to this professional aid from the LRD, which was an independent body much influenced by Marxist elements. The use of the LRD was an important first step for unions in utilising intellectual skills in a coherent and modern way.
Another major aid was the threat by print workers to strike if their own newspaper put the strikers’ case unfairly. It was very quickly apparent that the rail workers were due for a stunning victory and they were magnanimous in their strength. A party of soldiers returning home on leave were stranded in Derby by the strike, but were sent to Birmingham in taxis paid for by the local branches of the NUR. [43] The strike did not spread to other industries, simply because the rail unions did not call for such solidarity action. Nonetheless, the Derby builders’ labourers working on railway contracts came out in support, although they need not have done so, such was their sympathy for the dispute. The ABL subsequently sought official dispute benefit from the union’s head office for their members “who left work with the railwaymen in the recent strike”. [44]
After nine days of struggle, the strike ended on October 5th 1919, when the Government met with the railway union leaders to settle the dispute in No 10 Downing Street. The terms of the settlement allowed for no victimisation and the guarantee of existing earnings until September 30th 1920, when new negotiations on standardisation of wages would begin on the basis of a SI- a week minimum wage. Following this success, it proved no difficulty to negotiate a series of agreements which were signed during 1920. The extremely complex wages scales were simplified. Enhanced payments for overtime and shift work and a guaranteed week were all introduced, as the NUR maximised its advantages by adopting a strongly militant posture within the Triple Alliance.
The rail unions tried to achieve 100% membership within the industry. Derby ASLEF considered in December 1919 that “the time has arrived when all men joining the footplate fraternity shall be compelled to join a trades union”. The victory ensured that it began to be much easier to pick up membership. One Derby member of ASLEF, T Wasley, received a medal from the EC for proposing 60 new members in eight months during 1920. [45] Bargaining opportunities also arose that year, when the unions put a proposal to the Minister of Transport to establish national conciliation machinery. Derby No.1 ASLEF voiced a common concern, when it decided to keep its rank and file Vigilance Committee, “while the new machinery is set up and then we shall see what is required to work it”, thus hedging their bets. [46]
Railway workers were still subject to the rigidity of stern disciplinary rules. For example, instant dismissal for smoking on duty was not at all rare. Despite these restraints, perhaps because of them, the unions were able to prosper in the aftermath of 1919 strike. This was so even in what might be considered the more remote areas. Rowsley NUR, for example, went from strength to strength. The branch affiliated to the Matlock Trades and Labour Council in 1919, with as many as four delegates attending the council. Links were forged with the Matlock, Cromford and Ambergate NUR branches and the NUR in North Derbyshire even supported Hibbs of ASLEF as a Labour candidate in the Darley Dale Urban District Council elections of 1920 with some vigour. Rowsley NUR set up a branch library and with great pride recorded their intent to buy a volume of a Keir Hardie biography for this. The branch became an intrinsic part of the daily life of the locality, engaging in house to house charity collections - especially for the local hospital - amongst other community activities in the Darley Dale area. This work was so advanced that a formal “collection committee” was set up.
In a similar way, Derby ASLEF branch tried to view its activities with a broader perspective. A “workers education class for the younger members” was set up in 1921. However, a different mood was to be detected already, as recession began to set in. The ASLEF branch thought that their initiative ought to be followed by other branches “with a view to lifting the workers out of the apathy that they are in at the present time”. [47] We shall see in due course how this came about.
(vi) Teachers
In sharp contrast to manual workers, the lot of the teacher was infinitely less disagreeable, in terms of the standard of working conditions. Yet it is a measure of the seriousness of unrest amongst all employees in Britain at this time that the profession was beset with ‘industrial’ relations problems. The failure of Derbyshire County Council (DCC) to more effectively deal with the still inadequate salary of its teachers caused a strike in the county in early 1919, quite an unheard of development. The Derbyshire area of the NUT had by now achieved the not inconsiderable membership of 1,459. In the course of its dispute over county rates of pay, it became clear that only a nationally set level of payments would resolve the teachers’ problems. Indeed, the Derbyshire area demanded such.
A similar process of unrest was evident throughout the country and resulted in the convening in 1919 of the Burnham Committee of enquiry into teachers’ pay. This accepted the NUT’s demands for a national salary scale, although much pressure had to be exerted upon DCC to implement the terms of this decision. Two years later, area scales were still in existence in Derbyshire. [48]
More controversial still, was the pressure from women teachers for equal pay. A separate organisation, the Union of Women Teachers had been formed in 1909. But little progress on fairer treatment for women had been achieved and the war years had exacerbated the discrepancies which existed. The perfectly sound, egalitarian principle of equal pay caused much dissatisfaction amongst male teachers. Despite the fact that the NUT’s membership was 70% female and that equal pay became union policy in 1919, the NUT maintained an ambivalent attitude, causing support for the continuation of separate women’s and men’s only teachers’ unions, as hostility towards each others’ positions developed. [49]
(vii) Police Unionism
Even more astonishing to modern experience is the unionisation of police and - perhaps less surprising - prison officers, which came about in this turbulent period. A process which began in 1914 culminated five years later in the terminal defeat of the National Union of Police and Prison Officers (NUPPO), a bona fide trade union in the contemporary sense of the word. NUPPO was defeated in the course of a major dispute, which seriously worried the Government and establishment. For the very survival of British capitalism rested upon notions of neutrality of the state and its instruments. To have the police engaged in conflict with the state raised very profound questions.
At first NUPPO grew very slowly, its members having to meet in secret. A branch began organising in Derby in 1917. [50] As the war came to an end, discontent about pay and conditions spilled out into the open, as it was to with so many other diverse industries and occupations. Some local authorities, the technical employers of the police, were prepared to concede advances in pay. The Derbyshire County Council Standing Joint Committee asked the Home Secretary for sanction to improve reserve police pay. It submitted an entire new scale of payments for approval in 1918. [51] Demands for the reinstatement of a dismissed leading member of NUPPO in 1918 were initially refused and led to a strike in some parts of the country on 29th August.
Within days a settlement had been reached and membership of NUPPO rose to five sixths of the entire force. Like any other trade union, NUPPO had learned the value of solidarity, both for its own members’ problems and for other workers. In the summer of 1919, the Derby branch of NUPPO decided to affiliate to the Labour Party. Nationally, the union had already affiliated to the TUC. Locally, NUPPO benefited from the organisational and financial assistance of the Derby Trades Council. The DTC gave Derby NUPPO a donation of £1 4s 0d to help it on its feet. Generally, there was widespread sympathy in the labour movement for the policemen’s’ case. Charles Duncan, the WU leader, was an honorary official of NUPPO and was himself involved in a libel action on the latter’s behalf in 1919. [S2]
But the Home Office had moved very little on police pay and by the summer of 1919 had rejected NUPPO’s demands outright. A strike broke out principally in London and Liverpool, as the wider trade union movement declared itself decidedly in favour of the union. The Derby Trades Council did so on July 9th 1919. Despite the earlier signs of militancy, in common with most other police areas, Derby’s NUPPO branch did not come out on strike. The branch would only comment that they were “not on strike for the present”, implying that their hesitancy arose out of misconceived tactical considerations on the part of the union.
Whilst Derbyshire police did not actively join the dispute, there is an interesting sidelight which provides a link with the county. One of the key leaders of the strike was Leonard Petchey, who had served with the Derbyshire Constabulary in 1903 and 1904. His experience as a 19 year old in a North East Derbyshire mining village was decisive in preparing him for the leading role he played in the police strike of 1919. When in the county, he had to work a 63 hour week for £1 4s 6d, with no holidays, no bicycle and with primitive lodgings. Petchey resigned out of disgust at the high handedness of the police authorities. Yet, for him, the local people were “real decent and warm-hearted, they took a bit of knowing, but once you knew them, they presented no problem at all”.
Because of the spilt amongst the men themselves in 1919, well exemplified by the hesitancy of NUPPO activists in places like Derby, the Home Office was able to ride out the dispute. After a humiliating return to work, mass dismissals of militant policemen began and an emergency Police Bill was introduced in Parliament. This had the objective of stifling police trades unionism, once and for all. Strike action by the police would be illegal from the passing of the Bill into legislation. The wider trade union movement registered its opposition, for example the DTC in August and Rowsley NUR in November but it was to little effect, for the Government had got its way and independent trades unionism amongst the police was at an end. Whatever professional bodies which were subsequently established to represent the police would say about their own representativeness, these would remain quite divorced from the wider workers’ movement and would operate in a manner quite alien to trade union traditions.
(viii) Co-operative and Other Distributive Workers
In the period which followed the war, not even the Co-operatives - which were supposed to be on the side of organised labour - avoided industrial disputes. In 1919, the South Yorkshire Amalgamated Union of Co-operative and Commercial Employees (AUCCE) fought a battle for the merging of war bonuses into a complete wages scale. The Co-ops realised that the dispute could escalate into a fight for a national arrangement along these lines. Consequently, the employers decided to pre-empt this by threatening a lock out of North Midland and Lancashire employees. Co-ops in Derbyshire would have certainly been affected by this. But a negotiated settlement resolved the immediate conflict, although the argument about wages scales rumbled on for eighteen months.
This experience encouraged the mood for greater trade union unity in the sector and the three societies which mainly organised in the Co-ops decided to opt for amalgamation. AUCCE had over a thousand members in Derby, when the union joined with the Shop Assistants Union and the Warehouse Workers Union. A mass meeting to promote the fusion of the three was held in Derby in November 1919. Held at the Temperance Hall, this was chaired by Councillor W R Raynes, who put the rather suspect view that Derby was “at one time a black spot in the trade union world”. This was presumably by contrast with the rapid growth of unionism in his time. [53]
But, as it happened, only the Warehouse Workers joined up with AUCCE. However, a merger with the Journeyman Butchers’ Federation (JBF) enabled the union to change identity to the National Union of Distributive and Allied Workers (NUDAW). The Shop Assistants remained aloof from all this until as late as 1947. To complicate matters further, the Shop Assistants suffered a breakaway in the form of the National Chemists Assistants, which became the National Union of Drug and Chemical Workers by a merger. In 1936 shortening its name to the Chemical Workers Union (CWU), this earned a long-standing reputation for being a maverick union. It was to leave the TUC in 1923, rather than conform to a Disputes Committee ruling on membership recruitment from another union altogether. There were very strong objections from the TGWU and NUGMW, which both suffered from the casual approaches of the CWU to snatching the members of other unions. Oddly, the union subsequently merged with the TGWU in 1971. Apart from sporadic attempts to organise in British Celanese, the union never really featured locally.
As for NUDAW, the new union broke into its chosen sphere of activity with enthusiasm. Its paper, New Dawn, was not only a slight pun on the name of the union, but was really symptomatic of a sense of a new beginning that the establishment of the union gave co-op workers. Some evidence of an initially militant industrial policy exists. For example, after permission had been given to NUDAW members at Ripley Co-op to engage in official strike, the Society agreed to pay the “Boot Repairers’ Log”, a disputed payment claimed by shoe workers. [54] While a total strike of all the employees of the Derby Co-op was called by the local representative and later approved by NUDAW’s executive. This was actually averted in the end, but a strike of butchery department members did occur when some employees changed membership to the craft butchery union, the JBF, before the merger which created NUDAW. The craft union advocated a higher rate of pay, as generally observed by Derby’s specialist retail butchers. Arbitration was proposed, but there was still a strike, which eventually was ended by agreement to refer the affair to a joint committee of the TUC and the Co-operative Union, the latter being essentially a trade society of the co-op organisations. Another instance of local militancy was in the early 1920s, when Derby Co-op Society workers came out in sympathy with craft bakers in their national dispute, whilst bakers at Long Eaton Co-op unsuccessfully campaigned for night work to be abolished in 1921. [55]
A more serious and lengthy affair was the insurance workers’ dispute. The Cooperative Insurance Society (CIS) dismissed W Stokes, District Manager in Derby, “due to his actions as a trade union secretary” for sending out in his own time a circular to his members telling them not to accept new conditions of employment until they had been considered by the union’s executive committee. [56] This event took place against the background of another dispute on a new scale of wages, which had been raging for eighteen months that had been set off in South Yorkshire. These insurance workers were just unable to resolve their problem and the dispute bubbled on, with morale beginning to flag.
In September 1922, the CIS rejected arbitration and nine months later the issue was discussed at the Derby Trades Council. There, one delegate argued that “it is ridiculous (since the CIS) were preaching the ideal of the Co-operative Commonwealth”. [S7] But if dissatisfaction with the co-operative movement was evident, then this was equally the case with NUDAW. Insurance workers set up a rival union, seceding from their own union. The new formation, established in 1923, was called the National Union of Co-operative Insurance Society Employees (NUCISE). Due to technicalities of a constitutional nature, NUCISE was not considered eligible for affiliation to the TUC and therefore, in 1934, it affiliated (not merged or amalgamated) to the TGWU. Affiliation ensured continued autonomy, while access to all TGWU services and facilities was possible by the payment of an annual affiliation fee. In 1982, NUCISE formally merged with the TGWU, after a ballot of its members, to become part of that union’s clerical and supervisory trade group, ACTS.
Apart from the initial hostilities with NUCISE, NUDAW had problems with the National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks (NAUSA) all during the Twenties. The tensions were so strong as to receive a report on the problem at the DTC in 1923. [58] The antagonism continued for some time, but the two unions were destined to unite in 1947 in the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW), which today is the main union in the Co-ops. In the meantime, the forcefulness of the two unions mellowed, as the Co-ops themselves now began to cope with the notion of effective trade unionism amongst their employees, A special relationship with the Co-op unions was nurtured. This was exemplified by the introduction of worker directors, as in the Long Eaton Co-operative Society in 1922, when NUDAW member Arthur Church took his seat. [59]
However, there was little trades unionism in the distributive trade outside of the Coops. Major stores like Woolworth’s were then noted for their anti-trade union outlook. The DTC launched a boycott in 1924 of Woolworth’s store - the first in the area - for its open refusal to employ union labour, [60]
(ix)The Builders Labourers Union
Charles Brown, the former branch secretary of the Derby ABL, only came back from the army to take up his union activities in October 1919. It was an opportune moment to return, for the membership of ABL was about to phenomenally explode. An enormous amount of building work began to be undertaken for British Celanese (or British Cellulose, as it was called at first) at Spondon. This enabled the ABL, and also the craft unions, to make major recruitment gains during 1919. A shop steward was elected for the ABL on site by October of that year and the union decided to extend the election of shop stewards to all yards organised by itself in the Derby area and on all jobs where there was in excess of twenty men.
Throughout this period, the minutes of the ABL show an almost obsessive concern for the “non-union question”. While the organisation of the shop stewards’ system grew apace and in October 1919 the ABL voted to meet monthly instead of quarterly. Apart from the expansion of the Spondon site, there was generally a building boom and this reflected itself in some startling recruitment levels. National membership of ABL in 1918 was 9,969, so the local branch was not an insignificant part of the whole union.
Derby ABL membership [61]
1917 65
1918 281
1919 248
1920 835
A number of locally and nationally well-known firms were organised by the ABL. McAlpine’s had employees in the union in Derby in 1918. [62] W Ford’s, which had been organised as early as 1913, were still organised in 1920, when the company was warned about paying under the union rate. Gee’s, which later became Gee Walker, were organised. In 1920, they too received a union warning; this time about allowing bricklayers to unload brick lorries, obviously the work of labourers. [63] Ford and Weston had a number of labourers organised by Brown, when he visited a Melbourne job to check on membership. Astral Company in Kedleston Road were organised in September 1920. [64]
Faced with this growth, the Derby branch of ABL began to feel the need for some more permanent arrangement of an officer. This would be a departure from the past practice of periodically appointed district delegates, when a working member of the branch would be paid loss of earnings to attend to problems on the job of branch members. A new rule book adopted in 1916 at a national level - and supported by the Derby branch - for the first time made provision for the existence of full time officers. [65] The branch discussed the idea of a local full timer, as a general principle, in the spring of 1920. [66] A working group reported to the branch committee that it was a feasible proposition and on July 1st the branch voted to make Brown the full-timer at the remuneration of £5 a week, paying for this by means of a levy of 2d per week per member. Such decisions were being made in a number of towns where the ABL organised. The head office determined a standard rate for the job later that month of £6 a week, so Brown got an increase earlier than he might have expected! [67]
The work of an organiser was fairly strictly controlled by the membership. It was agreed by the local ABL committee in 1921 that to check “the organising work done by the secretary ... a report in writing be made weekly (and) to each quarterly meeting”. [68] £6 was a good wage for the building industry, even though rates had risen quite dramatically, compared to the pre-war position. Building labourers got 16s 8d for an eight hour shift in 1920, compared to 6s 0d for nine hours in 1914. Labourers managed to maintain a rate moderately close to that of the skilled men. Plasterers, plumbers, bricklayers and carpenters could expect around 19/-, or just under, for a ten hour day in 1920. [69] This was very much due to the pressure on the wages front that the entire industry felt from 1918 onward. During the course of 1918, the ABL lodge in Derby decided to press their head office to “apply to the Government for the payment of the 121/2% for all members working in controlled establishments and on work of public utility”. [70] Great changes began to be made in the industry. In October, a new local federation of building unions was established under the rules of the newly set up National Federation of Building Trade Operatives.
The significance of both the local branch resolution and the new structures was that, effectively, local bargaining in the building industry had come to an end. In 1920, this became formally confirmed after the ABL head office circulated branches indicating that all future claims for pay and conditions improvements would be handled nationally. [71] A major demand for the building unions in this period was for a reduction in basic hours of work. Derby ABL balloted 194 for and 3 against the claim for a 44 hour week in May of 1919. Only one year later, after all building unions had agreed to press for this without reduction in pay, the reduced working week came in.
(x) The Textile Industry
At the end of 1918, the Ilkeston Hosiery Union (IHU) voted to press for the 44 hours, at a time when average hours in the textile industry were in the region of 54 a week. The hosiery unions throughout the East Midlands were generally a little more cautious than the IHU and asked for a 47 hour week in negotiations with the employers. After five hours argument, an agreement was reached for a 48 hour week and increases in overtime premia and piecework rate.
Despite this advance, some textile workers were not happy with the deal. In parts of Derbyshire, the S4 hours were accepted as quite normal and the full amount of earnings lost by the six hour reduction in standard hours were not totally compensated for by the increase in piecework agreed to by the employers. Union members demanded that in future no agreement should be made at the negotiating table without reference back to the membership at large. More positively received were the series of cost of living rises agreed on at the joint forum. [72]
Even largely unorganised firms were affected by the general agreement in the textile industry to improve pay and conditions. The English Sewing Cotton Company issued the following circular early in 1919, concerning working arrangements at its Derwent Valley mill in Derbyshire. [73]
“ENGLISH SEWING COTTON CO LTD NOTICE
Changes in Working Hours
It has been decided to make an experiment for three months commencing from February 17th 1919 of a Forty-nine-and-a-half working week at this mill and during the period the daily hours of work will be as follows:
MONDAYS TO FRIDAYS (inclusive):
8.00 am to 12.30 pm
1.30 pm to 6.00 pm
SATURDAYS: 8.00 am to 12.30 pm
Piece rates will be unaltered and the weekly wages of Time Workers will remain as at present.
The directors look with confidence to the workers to use their utmost endeavours to see that, as far as practicable, production is unaffected as little as possible as a result of the reduced working hours.
Breakfast will have to be taken before starting work, but in the case of those workers who come a long distance, the gate will be open at 7.30 am, and Breakfast can be taken in the Dining Room between 7.30 am and 8 am, when Tea will be provided if sufficient names are handed in.”
While responding to the advances won elsewhere, the company maintained a studied attitude of, on the one hand, benevolent working conditions and, on the other, firm resistance to trade unionism. A move on hours was made, but there was no question of paying for it out of anything other than reduced earnings.
But the textile industry was about to experience major technological change, albeit over a long period, The British Cellulose Chemical Manufacturing Company Ltd was first established in the Derby area in 1916 and the company thoroughly developed the cellulose acetate process during the war, By 1921 this had been applied to yarn production, as modern techniques were explored. Knitting, dying and finishing units were soon installed in the Spondon fibre plant. This new artificial fibre industry would give rise to massive factories, more like chemical plants than clothing establishments. A union like the Workers Union was well placed to take advantage of this development. As early as 1919, when the giant Spondon plant was only in the first stage of expansion, the WU was fighting the company over the issue of shop stewards’ representation. Although the WU executive sanctioned an official dispute over the sacking of a shop steward in 1919, the company was unmoved and maintained a vigorous resistance to the influence of shop stewards for decades after. [74]
More traditional industries like the lace making trade viewed the immediate future somewhat differently. The three lace making unions had established some degree of unity in 1919 and engaged in a long running dispute aimed at raising the level of wages outside of Nottingham, in the Eastern Derbyshire area, In November 1919, the delegates of the various unions in Long Eaton, Ilkeston and Derby met to decide what to do to break the deadlock. A joint leadership, consisting of Wood of the Long Eaton Operative Laceworkers and Warburton of the Derby WU unsuccessfully pressed the employer for an increase in the bonus of 30%. The Nottingham bonus was 50% on basic rates - the lower rate prevailing outside the city. Despite much strengthening of the trade union movement in the trade, this differential proved very difficult to break down. [75]
(xi) The Workers Union
There was still much speculation in the local labour movement as to the way in which the WU had negotiated a conclusion to the Darley Abbey affair. This was characterised by a rift between Derby Trades Council (DTC) and the union itself. The conflict was fuelled by events elsewhere in the textile industry. Workers at Doulds engaged in a dispute in the summer of 1919, when the DTC Executive Committee initially condemned “the action of the Workers Union official”. This approach was backed at the July meeting of the full council, when the DTC strongly protested against the conduct of Stokes. The WU DC protested equally robustly at the DTC’s intervention. [76] Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the case, there was resentment at outside intervention. In the end, the DTC at its August meeting simply withdrew the letter of complaint.
At Darley Abbey, the local branch began pressing for an improvement on the length of the working week in 1919 and a resolution on this was forwarded on through the DC to the WU executive. [77] A fact which re-enforces the probability that the settlement of the recognition dispute had envisaged only national bargainers dealing with local matters affecting the mill. Such a set of circumstances rather implied a hollow victory in the 1917-8 strike. The WU branch had found itself without rights to raise grievances directly with their employer. The shorter hours hoped for did not occur, for early in 1919 short time working hit the company as recession followed the former boom in the textile industry. The short time working was applied within the mill so unfairly that the WU had to intervene to unsuccessfully negotiate on the matter. Despite this, the Darley Abbey WU members still pressed for a reduction in hours and the claim was put in the hands of the Divisional Organiser, J Clarke of Burton-on-Trent and Julia Varley, the National Women’s’ Officer, based in Birmingham, towards the end of 1919. [78]
In January of the following year, the Darley Abbey branch made an application for an increase in wages, but this appears to have been referred to national level. [79] The branch protested to the DC about the long delay in handling their problems in April and this was again referred to the executive. [80] Despite the inevitable disillusionment which surfaced at the mills, trades unionism did hold firm in the company at least until some time after 1920. No doubt the decline in organisation evident in the town generally, following the end of the militant years, had an effect on confidence of workers at the company as well. Nonetheless, it was a far cry from the brave words of support which had been spoken for the ‘Darley Abbey girls’ to the dismal end which unionism at the company faced. During the course of 1921 trade union organisation at the firm came to end altogether and the company ceased trading some two decades later, without a union ever again breaking ground.
Another cause of friction between the DTC and the WU was the dispute at Alderman Green’s Agard Street tape mills late in 1919. A dispute had broken out in the summer, but due to dissatisfaction with the progress the union had made, the employees dropped out of the WU. The DC noted in August that their “EC had decided to pay strike pay to our members employed at Aid. Green’s Ltd, but it had come to the knowledge of the organiser that the girls did not intend to pay any more money into the union”, Stokes was given a free hand in dealing with the situation by the DC, [81] Yet, somewhat contrary to the impression created by this, the workers went to the DTC for assistance. The DTC executive organised a deputation to Green, much to the displeasure of the WU, which protested at what it saw as inaccurate press reports. But the correction subsequently made by the local paper was considered by the WU as worse than the initial statement, so the union sent a sarcastic letter to the DTC “thanking them for disorganising our women members at Greens’s”. Relations, following these controversies, between the WU (and even the TGWU, its subsequent ‘heir’, locally at least) remained distinctly cool for more than a decade afterwards. Defending the fact that not one single WU branch was at this stage affiliated to the DTC, Hind retorted that “none of the women (at Green’s) had been taken back”. The affair would not die down, for in 1924 it once more surfaced. [82]
Disappointing experiences like this apart, the WU began to expand throughout the county. While it had established a branch in Ashbourne at least as early as 1914, it was not until 1920 when membership exploded in that area. Declared branch income, a rough and ready indication of membership, in Ashbourne in 1914 was £44s 0d; six years later this figure had reached £842 3s 21/2d. A District Committee was set up with C Holmes of Green Lane, Clifton, Ashbourne as secretary. Elsewhere in the county, branches were begun in Borrowash, Youlgreave, Belper, Spondon and Langley Mill. [83] The union spread into new sectors, notably public services. A strike of WU members employed by Heanor’s Urban District Council (UDC) ended quite successfully in October 1919, giving the green light to other municipal employees in manual grades to try out the WU, even as far north as Bakewell’s UDC. There, on Christmas Eve 1920, Stokes withdrew the threat of a strike by WU members at the gasworks, after a 1/- increase was conceded. It was claimed that these were the worst paid group of its kind in the entire country prior to the increase. [84] Clearly, the threat of action at Christmas had some publicity pressure value. These furthest reaches of Derbyshire were gradually organised by the WU, operating from Derby. The union found a friendly response when the Bakewell branch approached the Rowsley NUR for the first ever dispute at OP Battery. [85]
In another trade, the WU made inroads, to the displeasure of the small specialist unions, in the furnishing industry. As in textiles and engineering, the WU showed itself capable of an almost priggish independence when it came to joint industrial action. The furniture unions for their part thought that the union should follow their lead. The industry faced a lock out in 1919, which was discussed at the WUDC held at the Mikado Cafe in Ilkeston on August 9th. An official of the National Furniture Trades Union had called out the WU members in the trade in that locality. But Stokes “ordered the girls back to work pending a decision of the Executive Committee”. [86]
(vii) Agricultural workers
The mood of buoyant confidence rubbed off onto this very difficult to organise group. Derbyshire rural workers were largely non-unionised until this period. The main body was the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union (NALU), later to become the National Union of Agricultural Workers and, from the 1980s the T&G’s Rural, Agricultural and Allied Workers trade group. NALU began to find a basis in the villages around Derby. A Findern branch of NALU was founded in early 1920; the secretary, C JeIf, initially arranging a social evening to which he invited local farm labourers. The event was entirely successful, with enough recruits made to enable the branch to be declared well and truly established. The trend to greater organisation on farms and in the countryside aided the difficult set of negotiations which decided farm labourers’ wages. A county wages board set the standards, often to the dissatisfaction of the labourers.
In 1920, the board decided on a minimum scale, affecting 2,000 workers, of £2 2s 0d, a considerable rise from the previous figure of £1 17s 6d. But NALU had wanted a minimum of £2 105 0d and many members were reported by their area organiser, Charles Wozencroft, as being upset. The rise of 11.5% was obviously extracted by virtue of the prevailing state of unionisation in this and other industries, Pressure on central government to introduce an Agricultural Wages Act bore fruit eventually in 1924. Predictably, the farmers in Derbyshire opposed this. Alderman Peat, Chairman of the Derbyshire Farmers’ Union, said that they were “prepared to pay their labourers adequate wages”, but their objection was to the insult of the “penalties of imprisonment and fines” which the legislation imposed. The effects of the overall militancy of the working class were very quickly lost in agriculture, even more so than elsewhere. Wages had dropped to as little as £1 11s 6d in 1924, as effective unionism became more difficult; but the new Act did bring in a minimum of £1 16s 0d. [87]
(viii) Boot and shoe operatives
Boot and shoe workers in the village of Eyam in North Derbyshire stood their ground for some three years in an extraordinary dispute. The trade had first established itself in the village in around 1906. Ankle and bar shoe work was carried out at Eyam, while pit boots were made at the village of Stoney Middleton. J Buckle of the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives began organising these workers in 1918. (NUBSO, after a name change and a merger, became part of KFAT, which in turn merged with the ISTC into `Community'.) But the employers, determined to maintain the very low rates of pay, sacked the Eyam NUBSO branch secretary, as well as the president and his son and daughter. In fact, the entire branch committee was dismissed - and all because they had dared to join a union. There was no pretence on the part of the employer that the action was anything other than a calculated attempt to smash the union. An immediate strike would have taken place, but NUBSO officials advised the workers to stay at work, whilst attempts were made to arrive at a negotiated settlement. But, in the event, the employers stubbornly refused to even meet with the union.
So, the strike began, with the workers immediately maximising demands by asking for a reduction in hours from 59 to 52 hours 30 minutes, a war bonus payment and of course the re-instatement of the dismissed trades unionists. However, the employer adopted an entrenched position and the battle was to be a long one. The strikers organised marches, headed by a band, and paraded between the two villages at which open air meetings were held. Over £9,000 - then a small fortune - was paid out in dispute benefit by the union, which decided to adopt an old stratagem as the months slipped by, by placing shoe-making machines in the homes of strikers, to provide some form of work. Then a bold suggestion was made - that of starting a rival factory - some two years after the dispute had begun. Many of the men had been supplementing their strike pay by home-working, quarrying or farm work during all that time.
Clearly, some more stable solution had to be found. Buckle purchased an 80 foot by 15 foot hut on the outskirts of the village for £250. A roadway and a small stone building were built and the whole of this was paid for by voluntary subscriptions, collected within the space of two months. The total cost of this venture was £2,000. The new ‘strike’ factory was capable of producing much better work than the employers were and also had a greater capacity. The old employer paid 13/- a week maximum with some of the women getting less than 10/-. The new factory paid the union rate of £2 a week minimum and piecework earnings of up to an extra 10/-, all in a 43 to 48 hour week. It was a bold solution to a bold-natured dispute. But it eventually “petered out without any definite settlement being reached”. The perennial problem that has arisen over all history, for all worker co-operatives or employee-owned businesses, of a shortage of capital bedevilling the project. The strikers’ factory closed down and strikers who had not obtained employment elsewhere returned to their former occupations. [88]
(xiv) Painters
The painters’ (NASOHSPD) New Mills branch had established a closed shop at Howard’s in 1915. [89] Within four years the branch was organising painters at Whaley Bridge and Chapel-en-le-Frith, all within the boundaries of Derbyshire, but close to the influence of Manchester, [90] A total of four shops were now ‘closed’ to all but union members: Alsop and Clayton’s, J Barbers, G & J Howard’s and Jackson & Potts. [91] From time to time, problems surfaced over the employment of non-unionists, but these were usually solved as when, in 1920, Howard’s were given an ultimatum that unless a non-society man became a member before May 1st an indefinite strike would begin, Needless to say, the union got its way! [92]
The New Mills NASOHSPD branch under its secretary, Potts, and its president, Stewart, operated very tight rules and regulations. This was exemplified when nine society members from outside their area were taken on by the Derbyshire County Council Education Committee, without reference first to the branch. The men were fined 10/- for operating contrary to society rules, [93] Even though the NASOHSPD executive seemed not to be in sympathy with the action of the New Mills branch, it decided to summon the men to the branch to explain their actions in taking the local men’s jobs without their endorsement first, [94] Conflict with their executive was not necessarily a strange feature of the life of the New MiIIs branch. When the EC had granted permission in 1920 to members in Matlock to work 44 hours in 5 days, the branch sought to challenge the ruling via their delegate at the Building Trades Federation meeting.
(xv) Public Services and Professional Workers
Public service workers of all kinds began to organise. Post office workers were ruthlessly preventing from organising easily, especially in rural areas, In March 1924 and again on August Bank Holiday 1925, the Union of Post Office Workers had a demonstrative event to put their case for recognition, which was held at the Whitworth Institute in North Derbyshire. Other trades unionists, including Rowsley NUR, turned out to assist them. Between 1906 and 1920 firemen were sporadically organised by the Municipal Employees Association (which later helped to create the NUGMW) and the National Union of Corporation Workers (which later became NUPE, today part of Unison). Most of this work was concentrated in and around London, but some slight signs of interest existed locally. More concretely, the Poor Law Officers Union (a section of the Asylum Workers Union, later to become the Confederation of Health Service Employees - COHSE, now part of Unison) was set up in 1919. Both the section and the main body had members in Derby at the local asylum employed by the Board of Guardians. Even white collar public service workers were beginning to combine, The Civil Service Clerical Association (later the Civil and Public Services Association, or CPSA, now part of PCS - the Public and Commercial Services Union.) was founded through the amalgamation of a number of unions in 1922. A product of the contemporary vogue for organisational unity, the new union had some membership in the locality, but its activities were very limited.
White collar workers in the private sector saw unionism as an extension of their professionalism, Draughtsmen at Rolls Royce and the railway workshops began to join the Association of Engineering and Shipbuilding Draughtsmen during the war. The first formal step towards recognition of the AESD locally was in 1918, when the engineering employers were one of two of the first district associations to agree to negotiate with the union over draughtsmen’ salaries. [95] The Derby AESD specialised in organising monthly trips to engineering firms in the North and Midlands, to examine new techniques in design and engineering. Over a hundred members went on a visit to Hadfield’s steel works in Sheffield in December 1923, for example. [96] Interestingly, in recognition of new developments in the trade, in 1922, a special section for tracers, a job that would become dominated mainly by women, was created.
There were other private sector white collar workers who organised locally. The National Amalgamated Union of Life Assurance workers emerged in 1918, a branch being created in Derby in 1922, with the help of R E Stokes of the Workers Union. [97] Whilst the National Union of Clerks had some significant membership at Stanton Ironworks in 1918. The NUC would later become the Clerical and Administrative Workers - CAWU - later the Association of Professional, Executive and Clerical workers - APEX - which subsequently became the white collar section of the GMB. [98] A Derby branch of the NUC had catered for local government clerks for some time, when a second branch was set up in 1920. The absorption of some smaller unions saw a name change to the National Union of Clerks and Administrative Workers (NUCAW). This then organised a wide range of membership in areas not today the province of its heir, APEX, the white collar section of the GMB. Municipal clerks, education departments, income tax offices, labour exchanges and pensions offices were all organised to some extent by the NUCAW. [99] A NUCAW office was set up in Ilkeston in 1920, but the finance committee of the borough refused a written request from the union’s local secretary for sole negotiating rights. [100] It is clear that concern for the position of the National Association of Local Government Officers (NALGO) existed here. NALGO had yet to establish its dominance of Britain’s town halls, which is today inherited by Unison.
Finally, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), which had been founded in Birmingham in 1907, set up a chapel, or branch, in Derby in this period. Thomas Jay, the president of the union, visited the town in May 1921 to speak to the local NUJ, which was well based in the local press, The president of the branch was Walter Piper. [101]
Some Strikes in Derby 1917-24
September 1917 Darley Mills v Workers Union
September 1917 Midland Railway Loco Works v Boilermakers
April 1918 Ambergate Timber v Woodcutting Machinists Society
June 1918 Rubber Cable v Asbestos Workers Union
April 1919 Scarle & Co. v Upholsterers Union (a)
July 1919 Building Trades Employers v Building Trades Federation
July 1919 Doulds v Workers Union
August 1919 Derby Master Bakers v Bakers Union
October 1919 Foundry Employers v Moulders and Iron founders
May 1920 unknown v Piano Workers
June 1920 Woolworth’s v NAUSA
October 1920 Lysol v Chemical Workers Union
1921 British Celanese v Workers Union
March 1922 Maypole Dairy v NAUSA (b)
1922 Rolls Royce v engineering unions (c)
February 1923 Building Employers v Building Trades Federation
March 1923 Smith’s of Drury Lane v Garment Workers
March 1923 Stokes and Hudson v Elastic Web Weavers
June 1923 Borough Asylum v Asylum Workers (d)
July 1924 A Green Ltd v Workers Union
Most of these disputes, reported in the local press or in Trades Council minutes were over wages. Some interesting exceptions are:
(a) over trade union recognition
(b) to resist an increase in contractual hours worked
(c) a nine day strike over a dismissed shop steward
(d) to resist an increase in contractual hours worked
4 (i) Political Radicalism in the Early Twenties
It was but a small step from opposing imperialistic venture in Soviet Russia to support for the right to self-determination in Ireland, Especially as the national struggle of armed rebellion and civil war in Ireland reached crisis proportions. The Sinn Fein nationalists had won an absolute majority in Ireland itself in the general election of 1918, but refused to take their seats in the British parliament. The mass of the Irish people no longer recognised (if they had ever!) the authority of Britain in Ireland and were determined to achieve self-determination for their country. The British Government sent vast numbers of troops to Ireland to prevent this.
Derby trades unionists and socialists were mainly solidly in support of Irish independence, The Trades Council viewed with concern “the state of affairs in Ireland, where men are arrested, imprisoned and deported without charge or trial and expresses its sympathy with the men suffering in Mountjoy Prison in the cause of Political and Social Freedom”. Significantly, the resolution was passed unanimously. [102] Partition of Ireland had yet to come, so there was little sense of the need to defend ‘loyalists’, while distaste for repression was strong. In September 1920, the DTC attacked the Government’s treatment of the Mayor of Cork, who was on hunger strike. [103]
Derby’s Labour Party (DLP) came down in favour of Irish independence in an unambiguous decision. The quarterly DLP meeting supported the immediate liberation of all Irish political prisoners and the offering of a truce. The party looked forward to the time when all armed forces would be withdrawn and the time when the “keeping of order has been placed in the hands of the Irish local elected bodies, thus creating conditions under which the Irish people may determine their own form of government’. The DTC was as equally clear in its policy for complete withdrawal of troops from Ireland and for complete self-government, as expressed in its resolution adopted in March 1921. [104]
Many were alienated by the viciousness of the so-called ‘Black-and-Tans’, the troops sent to Ireland. The nick-name arose from the half police, half army uniform this ragtag and bob-tail outfit were clothed in. Derby No.1 ASLEF voted 32 to 3 for a motion in February 1921, condemning with horror the “atrocities committed upon innocent railwaymen” in Ireland. A strike over the situation, particularly over the shooting of ASLEF members in Mallow, near Cork, was proposed by the EC of the union. The move was supported by the local activists, until a joint Derby branches meeting revealed that the decision would not obtain ‘a great deal of response from the membership. Nonetheless, the threat of a strike brought pressure to bear on the Government, which agreed to an inquiry into the Mallow atrocities. [105]
Faced with widespread criticism of its policy in Ireland, the British Government opted for a political, rather than a military settlement. In negotiations with Sinn Fein, an offer was put of an Irish Free State of 26 counties, still owing allegiance to the British Crown, but effectively independent in political terms. In due course, this institution would become the Republic of Ireland. However, six counties were to remain within the British Union. This compromise attracted the support of a small majority of the nationalist camp and laid the basis for a temporary solution to the Irish problem, albeit in an atmosphere of extreme controversy amongst the Sinn Feiners, leading to a civil war and the long-running hostility to Northern Ireland of the remnants of the IRA. This minority within the nationalist camp, which refused to accept the settlement and attempted to maintain the armed struggle, were subject to fierce repression. The labour movement in Britain did not immediately loose interest in the affairs of Ireland with the settlement. The Trades Council voiced the concern of the movement at the imprisonment of James Larkin, the outstanding Irish trade union leader, in the USA in 1922 and sent a message to that effect to the American Ambassador in London. [106]
Interest in political matters at home was largely based on the seriousness of the economic situation. Prices of wholesale goods in the spring of 1920 were 225% above the 1913 level and the cost of living, or retail prices, in November of that year reached a peak of 176% above August 1914. [107] Workers could only maintain their position by the exertions of industrial militancy and this in turn fuelled political passion. In this situation, it is hardly surprising that Labour’s electoral fortunes took a favourable turn. The first signs of this in Derbyshire were in the Derby School Board elections in April 1919, when Labour gained an extra five seats to add to its existing two, out of a total of fifteen available places. In Belper, Labour gained five seats at the UDC elections the same month. Jabez Walker unseated the ‘independent’, a sitting councillor since 1904. Gains were made throughout the county in Ockbrook, Codnor, Blackwell, Clay Cross, Ilkeston, Duffield and at Derby - all in County Council elections. [108]
In November 1919, the small Labour group on the Derby Borough Council of four was joined by an extra ten councillors. In the following year, another five joined the group, bringing the total to 19 out of 64. Labour had arrived as a major force in municipal politics. [109] In these circumstance, the Tories made a special appeal to the working class voter, going beyond their traditional stance of patriotism and blind faith in the economic system. A Derby section of the ‘Labour Committee’ of the National Unionist Association was set up in 1920. The function of the committee was to foster anti-socialism and support for the Tories in the unions. The committee had members in the NUR, the WU, the ASE, the Tailors, the Moulders, the Motor Drivers and the Burton Coopers. [110]
But such devices had little real effect in denting the surge of interest in working class politics, which reached a new height. There was even a locally printed, leftist rank and file newspaper aimed at trades unionists, the Derbyshire Worker. This would play an important role in the north of the county in the General Strike of 1926. The Worker circulated in the mining districts of the county, in particular, throughout the period and the DMA officially gave a subsidy for 1,500 regular copies of the paper. The Worker proved to be a sufficient thorn in the side of the establishment to justify special attention. A novel way of trying to close down the paper was found. John Reynolds, the printer of the Derbyshire Worker was prosecuted for “employing” workers on overtime, contrary to the Factories Acts. It appears that Reynolds’ hours of work were supposed to be 8am to 8pm, but the Factory Inspector caught Reynolds, his wife and their three children all at work at 805pm. Despite his defence to the court that the children were only “amusing themselves”, Reynolds was found guilty and fined £5. The Worker was of course merely a self-help initiative by political activists, but the authorities treated it as a business. [111]
The spread of popular socialist ideas really ensured the development of a modern look to British politics, with the Labour victory at the Spen Valley by-election in January 1920. Over the next four years, the challenge of Labour as a major electoral force became more than evident. As this came about, the Tory leadership destroyed the Coalition, the Liberal Party and Lloyd George. As the Liberal Party disintegrated, middle-strata opinion clustered for comfort around the Tories as the guardians of law and order, the Empire and the “British Way of Life”. Under Baldwin’s leadership, the Tories won the 1924 general election and were to dominate Britain for the next two decades without serious challenge, apart from short intermittent periods.
The arrival of Labour as a significant electoral force revealed the degree to which the establishment feared a repeat of the traumatic events of the 1917 Russian Revolution in Britain itself, even if that were moulded by British experiences and traditions, The newly arrived electoral power of Labour was treated in the Tory press to almost the same sense of horror as the Bolshevik revolution had been. The Derby Mercury featured a weekly column throughout 1920 by ‘Ruskinian’, entitled “Labour’s Forum”. This was in fact one continuous, lengthy theoretical diatribe against the generality of socialist ideas.
Inspired by the events in Russia and the call by Lenin, with all the prestige he commanded as leader of the first socialist revolution, to found revolutionary parties on the model of the Bolsheviks, many socialists joined together with militant trades unionists from the shop stewards’ movement to form the Communist Party in August 1920. A variety of socialist groups amalgamated into the Party, including the BSP, the SLP and the South Wales Socialist Society. The biggest group, the BSP, had re-affiliated to the Labour Party in 1916 and so it seemed natural that the new organisation should apply for affiliation. Although a significant minority from the SLP were opposed to this, But the leadership of the Labour Party departed from the established federal basis of the party and aimed to exclude the Communist Party from its ranks right from its very foundation. Persistent attempts to reverse this at the Labour Party annual conference were always defeated, albeit sometimes relatively narrowly. For most of the 1920s, however, individual members of the Communist Party were able to attend Labour conferences as delegates from trade unions and even be nominated for public office as official Labour candidates by local constituencies. Gradually, each inroad the Communists had into the wider federation of working class politics was closed off.
At its foundation, and for much of its history, the Communist Party had strong roots in Scotland, Wales and London. In towns like Derby and Chesterfield, the party was able to establish a significant presence in the local labour movement, basing itself on pre-existing socialist groups. The Derby SLP branch and its key figure Willie Paul enjoyed some prominence, but there was also a BSP branch in the area. At the time of the foundation of the Communist Party, Willie Paul lived at ‘Pen Bryn’ in Littleover, Derby. He became a member of the Provisional Executive Committee of the Party and was particularly involved in the debates inside the SLP over the unity process and the nature of the new formation. Paul was in fact a major influence in coalescing those in the SLP who favoured joining the Communist Party. [112] At the founding conference however, Paul displayed much of the revolutionary zeal which the SLP had made its hallmark, by speaking against affiliation to the Labour Party in a most scathing and cynical way. This was of course entirely consistent with the SLP’s view of the matter. Nevertheless, the anti-affiliationists were beaten in the debate and the Communist Party’s policy was to be for affiliation. The Derby Communist Unity Group was one of many smaller, local societies represented at the founding Unity Convention. The Communist Unity Group was the faction inside the SLP which had convened a special national conference at Nottingham to win the SLP to the notion of unity of all communist organisations. The SLP official leadership expelled the CUG for this action but was left only with a rump and quietly faded away over the years.
Paul stood unsuccessfully in 1923 as official Labour candidate in Manchester, bravely following Communist Party policy, even though he disagreed with it. Publicly well known to be an individual member of the party, he had strong connections with Manchester. Paul had often “rendered songs of the Irish potato famine” at the Openshaw BSP meetings for Harry PoIlitt, later to become the long-standing leader of British Communism. Paul has been described by PoIIitt’s ‘official’ biographer as a “powerful and expressive baritone”. He polled a respectable 21% of the vote against strongly fielded Tory and Liberal opponents in the 1923 election. The following year, he stood again with much the same result, but increased the share of the vote, this time as an official Communist with Labour backing. Paul later edited the Sunday Worker newspaper in the late 1920s but left the national stage during the period of the ‘Bolshevisation’ of the CPGB, even if he remained on the fringes of Communist politics all his days. In the 1930s and l940s he was closely identified with Soviet friendship activities in Derby and was a prominent supporter of the Derby Peace Council in the 1950s, until his death in the latter part of that decade. He was to leave his considerable personal library to the Party in his will. [113]
Derby’s Labour Party was not really affected by significant Communist involvement. Perhaps the DLP’s decidedly right-wing leanings encouraged residual anti-Labour attitudes amongst local Communists, which were inherited from the SLP. As with all working class political organisations in the immediate post-war period, the DLP experienced a period of growth. Branches were being established everywhere, even in rural areas of Derbyshire, as with the founding in March 1920 of the Mickleover branch, then a small village on the outskirts of the town. The DLP’s membership and income rose phenomenally and the healthy financial situation meant that by the end of the year new premises were to be acquired at 63 London Road in Derby.
DLP annual income DLP affiliated membership
1910 £92 -
1918-9 £398 7,634
1919-20 £1,100 14,244
Little wonder then that the working class movement viewed the future optimistically. The success of the pro-Soviet councils of action, the rising industrial militancy and the increasing electoral support for Labour all seemed to bode well, There was also an enormous growth of interest in socialist ideas and a general belief that world peace had at last been achieved and this made for a sense of security. The joint DTC-DLP May Day celebration in 1920 was a big event. W R Raynes declared that “May 1st should be reckoned as a general holiday” and trades unionists and their families crowded the streets of Derby in a carnival atmosphere to watch a parade of decorated carts and drays. One represented “S.S. Co-operation”, another portrayed a garden allotment. Every union had its banner out in what was probably one of the largest May Day processions ever held in Derby. [114]
ii) The Co-operative Movement and Labour Politics.
For the first time, the 1917 Congress of the Co-operative movement recognised that it needed a political voice and founded the Co-operative Party. From herein the Co-ops around the country, in varying degrees, began to exert political authority. The first act of Derby Co-operative Society (DCS), along these lines, was to set up a Political Committee, the first meeting of which was held on February 20th 1918. A list of possible parliamentary and municipal candidates who would be approved by the DCS was composed. Additionally, a political structure was established in Normanton ward and Jessie Unsworth stood in Pear Tree ward in the Board of Guardians elections. It was thought that a good campaign was waged, even though the seat was not won. Formal co-operation was established with the Labour Party, which had agreed to leave a gap in its list of candidates to enable Co-operative candidates to stand unimpeded. Utilising this agreement, A J Tapping was elected in Dale Ward in 1919 as the first Co-op councillor.
Affiliation or alliance to the Labour Party became a controversial question in the Cooperative movement and in 1920 the DCS, for the first time, accepted the need to affiliate to the Derby Labour Party. The radicalism of this period affected almost every section of the working class movement. The almost exclusively retailing role of the Co-op movement had not entirely been defined and there was a potential for political conflict with other sections of the movement arising from this. For example, the DCS by 1918 had lent no less than £400,000 to its members for housing purposes. Was this a role for the Co-ops, or for direct works departments of local authorities? More profoundly, the conjunction of political and economic values represented by the Coops lent itself to an abiding interest in and fascination for all things Russian. J J Wooley, secretary to the Cooperative Producers Federation, was invited to lecture DCS members at the Co-op Hall in 1923 on his visit to Moscow.
Others were not so certain about the propriety of the co-ops being linked up with politics. In the mid-1920s, the Long Eaton Co-operative Society (LECS) did eventually disaffiliate from the Labour Party after a series of arguments. In doing this, the LECS was showing how influenced it was by its president, Wilkins, who made the objective of disaffiliation a personal crusade. The decision was taken by a referendum of the membership of LECS and the question posed not only the disaffiliation from the Labour Party, but also from the Co-operative Party. 1,859 voted for ending affiliation, with 846 voting for continuing the relationship. It had been the decision of the Co-operative Party to work with the Labour Party, on fixing the number of Co-op candidates overall and to label such candidates in future as ‘Labour and Co-operative’, that had finally pushed people like Wilkins of the LECS to move in this direction. The long term future of LECS was to remain with the Co-operative Party, but it was not for very many years that the Society would eventually drop its determined resistance to links with the Labour Party.
In Derby, “very cordial relations” existed between the DLP and the Political Committee of the DCS, resulting in the implementation of the Co-operative Party’s agreement with the Labour Party and the appearance of joint candidates in local elections. An organised disaffiliation campaign was waged in Derby, but it was not one which had highly placed support. An attempt was made in June 1923 at a quarterly meeting to get the DCS disaffiliated but was lost on a vote of 359 to 214. In an attempt to meet the criticism that not all DCS members voted Labour, the Society affiliated on a figure of only 5,000. It being claimed that this was a “fair estimate of those who held sympathy towards the Labour Party”. [115]
5. Unemployment and Depression 1921-5
The immediate future for working people was bleaker than could have been imagined. Unemployment and short-time working became a common feature of industrial life during 1921. 5,085 were reported as being unemployed permanently or temporarily. The DTC demanded work or maintenance at full trade union rates at its January 1921 meeting. The figures were reported in detail. [116]
Category men women boys girls
Unemployed 1,720 1,238 166 307
short-time 489 962 17 191
At the peak of the depression, unemployment in the engineering industry had risen nationally to the astonishing figure of 27%, while 17.8% of all insured workers were out of work. One observer wrote that “the unofficial shop stewards movement is at ebb tide, because of the percentage of unemployed in the metal trades, the man at the gate (i.e. the unemployed worker awaiting work) determines the status of the man at the bench”. [117]
In the three years from 1919, trade disputes accounted for an average annual figure of some 49 million working days. But the following ten years, even excluding the General Strike, involved only 7.5 million lost days. For every dispute in 1918 there were well over three in 1921. This level of activity climbed steeply over those three years, apart from a slight cooling of the rate of increment in late 1919. But, from the beginning of 1921, dispute levels fell to that of 1918 in a single year and over the next three years to half that level again. The impact on wage levels was dramatic. Workers’ earnings declined relative to their 1914 value by some 50%, thus abolishing the relative gains of 1919-20. [118] R E Stokes of the Workers Union made clear that these gains were under attack at the WU DC in November 1920. “There would not be much chance to get an increase in wages as he put in for an advance of wages in one industry and the employers had put in for a 25% decrease.” That was the bad news. Now for the good news! “But he had been successful in getting it put off until January of next year.” [119]
Wage cuts and increases in Derbyshire 1921 - 1924
June 1921
Tarmac CUTS 1 1/2d an hour in April and 1 1/2d in May
July 1921
Wagon Building CUTS 3/- in July and 3/- in August
October 1921
Engineering CUTS 7.5 % to 12.5 %
Wagon Building CUTS 7.5%
Plain Net CUTS 7.5%
Plain Net Threaders CUTS 12%
Levers Net CUTS 16.66%
Timber CUTS 1 1/4d an hour
Clay Industry CUTS 7/- a week
December 1921
DP Battery CUTS 10%
November 1922
Wagon Building CUTS 6/- a week
Clay Industry CUTS SI- a week
DP Battery CUTS S% in stages
July 1923
Brewing CUTS 3/- a week
DP Battery CUTS to a weekly wage of 52s 9d
September 1923
Offiler’s’ clerks CUTS 1/6d a week
March 1924
Derby Brick 5/- a week increase
Building Trade 1/2d an hour increase
Gas Industry 1/2d an hour increase
Electric Cable Making 1/6d increase a week
Electricity Supply 1/2d an hour increase
Cement Industry 4/- a week increase
May 1924
British Celanese 1d an hour increase (machinists)
British Celanese 1/2d an hour increase (spinners)
i) The Textile Industry
The textile industry went through a sudden recession which was in part borne out of a glut in the whole of the European textile market. In the autumn of 1920, Bemrose’s reported that orders were affected; Boden’s laceworks had been working short-time for some months and expected the situation to get worse. Walter Evans Darley Abbey Mills described trade in the sewing cotton industry as “very bad”. The workforce had just been put on a reduced working week of 30 hours. Moore Eady and Murcoft Goode Ltd reported that the hosiery industry was affected by the possibility of a coal strike.
H Cheshire, the WU Laceworkers branch chairman in Derby reported at the end of 1920 that 1,500 were out of work for good or on short-time in his trade within Derby. “150 worth of relief food had been ordered from the Co-op.” [120] The distress was acute and gave rise to feelings of bitterness. The Long Eaton Laceworkers’ leader, Ernest Wood spoke at the local Trades Council, telling the delegates that “there would be trouble if something wasn’t done about the local unemployment problem”. [121] The WU’s greatest strength in the lace trade was amongst the plain net twisthands in Derby, nevertheless the union made a move which seemed almost calculated to generate inter-union conflict. The WU agreed to a cut in wages of 7.5% in the plain net rate and as much as 16.66% in the levers rates. To enable this extraordinary move, the union withdrew from the Lace Operatives Federation. The Amalgamated Society of Laceworkers resisted the agreement and accused the WU of “scab-hunting tactics”, of deliberately seeking to poach the less resilient membership of the Amalgamated Society. [122] The other main union in the trade, the Weavers Union took a similar attitude.
The fourth union in the trade, the independent Long Eaton Operative Lacemakers Society, had maintained itself aloof from the Amalgamated Society for two decades with Ernest Wood as their full timer, based at their office at 8 Gibb Street. In July 1921, however, this small craft society amalgamated with the Workers Union, providing the union with a remarkably firm base in textiles. The Long Eaton union voted unanimously to merge at a meeting of members held on 12th May 1921. Clarke from Burton had been present to stress that amalgamation would bring the benefit of full financial support from the WU during disputes.
The Workers Union had only recently set up a Draycott lace branch, just next door to Long Eaton, when Wood brought his members across to make the union the largest force within the plain net sector. The strength borne out of this amalgamation was to be needed for, in September, the WU was to be rewarded for its dubious tactics towards the other unions in the previous year. The Lace Conciliation Committee met to consider the employers’ demand for a 10% cut for twisthands and a 25% cut for auxiliary workers. The union side countered this with a sliding scale proposal, only to be faced with the employers’ new demands of a 25% cut all round. Moreover, they sought an increase in women’s working hours from 48 to 55, a suggestion that Wood thought was “inhuman”.
In an atmosphere of gloom and despondency, the Long Eaton laceworkers decided to call a mass meeting to be addressed by “some of the Workers Union chief organisers”, who no doubt advised caution in the face of the obviously aggressive stance adopted by the employers. At any rate, the essence of the employers’ demands went through without action against them by the unions. [123] With recession adversely affecting the ability of the unions to prove their worth to potential members and with the growing number of jobless, they were themselves under pressure to keep or obtain the maximum possible number of members. Bad feeling already generated between the lace unions would be exacerbated by the rivalry thus created. While the Long Eaton union merged with the WU, the Amalgamated Laceworkers, with a base both in Nottingham and in the surrounding towns in Eastern Derbyshire, maintained their own union. To face the challenge of the WU in Long Eaton, the Amalgamated Society decided to appoint a replacement full-time officer for the area. The successful candidate, John Fletcher, took over in 1916 and continued in the post until his death in 1939.
The WU benefited most from the competition, even though the Amalgamated Society favoured the more skilled worker. Membership of the WU amongst laceworkers was greatly expanded. By 1924 there were four branches in the lace trade in and around Derby and income in that year for these branches alone was four times what it had been six years previously. New members were acquired in Heanor and its lower level of membership contributions assisted the WU in competitive recruitment. But other unions were eager to enter the field and the WU had no monopoly. In December 1922 and January 1923, the Derby Trades Council promoted itself once more as an organiser and recruiter of all labour. It gave attention to the organisation of workers at Smith’s of Drury Lane and at Stoke and Hudson’s, both textile firms. Banham of the Garment Workers Union attended the DTC’s meeting to discuss Smith’s and by March it was reported at the DTC that a meeting of the employees had been held, but that it was very poorly attended. Complaints about conditions at Stokes and Hudson’s were resolved however and the Elastic Web Weavers had begun recruitment there.
The WU found itself back in the news with fresh difficulties at Alderman Green’s Tape Mills in Agard Street, Derby, during the course of 1924. A measure of how much a union was needed at the firm was reflected in comparative wage rates at union and non-union establishments in the same sector. Mayfield’s, the union firm, paid 35/- a week for a 48 hour week, or 8.75p per hour. Green’s paid 28/- a week for a 551/2 hour week, or 6d per hour. On top of this enormous disparity in earnings, Green’s were proposing to reduce the rate to 18/- a week for 551/2 hours, or almost 4d per hour! Not unnaturally, this awakened interest in the union and a strike broke out. This was resolved after a two minute conference! Initially, it seems, the notice proposing an alteration of the payments system which was displayed at the factory, was wrongly interpreted as meaning a reduction in wages. Leastways, that is how Alderman Green explained it. He argued that it was all a misunderstanding and that, if he had been in the town at the time, the strike would never have happened. Naturally, he reasoned, as soon as he was able to deal with the problem, he unreservedly confirmed that no cuts were intended. [124] Having supposedly resolved the matter, Green promptly dealt with the ring-leaders in his own way. When three of the women approached him, asking for a general increase, he sacked them.
The Trades Council intervened to extract a promise of action from Green. Weeks later, he had still failed to respond, so a DTC delegation again waited on him and received a promise of re-instatement of those dismissed. But once more, the Alderman showed himself to be slow in implementing his promises and the DTC put further pressure on him. It was only at its December meeting, half a year later, that the council was satisfied to note that a letter from Green had promised that there would be “re-instatement of the women the council had seen him about’. [125] Although there seems to be no further evidence of any union organisation in this company thereafter, whether or not Green kept his promise to re-employ the women. In the hosiery industry, the Ilkeston Hosiery Union (IHU) was predominant in the area.
During the course of 1920, it had begun to feel its way to the north of the county. A branch was opened at Matlock and membership modestly increased to 7,600 in the process, nearly all within the county of Derbyshire. [126] The majority of the textile unions kept very much to their own trade. But the Tailors and Garment Workers Union proposed a more efficient approach, by drawing together all textile trades into a wider federation. (This union eventually merged into the GMB.) The federation idea was welcomed by J S Amatt, the secretary of the IHU’s Derby branch, but he was on his own. Amatt suspected that the opposition of his union to a federation was much related to the refusal of H Bassford, the IHU General Secretary, to contemplate change. He was, after all, by then in his early seventies and had been in the job for a good thirty years. [127] Federation was seen by some in the trade as a way of preventing the disintegration of unionism in the face of depression. But for others, the habits of a lifetime and the traditions of a generation were just too ingrained.
In the hosiery part of the textile industry, over half of the workers in the county were on short-time by June 1921 and naturally the distress was terrible. In April, the executive of the union had decided to pay out-of-work benefit for only one more week; such was the pressure on funds. [128] The hosiery employers demanded a 25% cut at the Joint Industrial Council, but a ballot of the workers showed a ten to one vote against acceptance. The employers changed their position slightly, proposing a sliding scale, which would be less painful, but as effective in the long run. [129] But, by the next year, the unions were able to obtain a list of agreed wage rates with the hosiery employers in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Equal rates throughout the trade were established for full-fashioned underwear, in itself an important advance in organisation. This was largely based on the need to compete for labour with the relatively high wages paid in the coal mines of the area. As the IHU secretary, Bassford, put it, “the colliers had got such big wages that others were forced to pay them good wages or lose their hands”. By 1924, average earnings in the hosiery industry had stabilised fairly well at 55s 0d for males and 28s 1 0d for females, with an overall average earnings figure of 35s 0d. [130]
ii) The Workers Union
Naturally, the recession enabled those who had always hesitated to use industrial militancy to now argue that the time was not ripe for boldness of approach. A fad for the philosophy of industrial peace and non-political unionism emerged, much aided by the ‘popular’ press. R E Stokes of the WU was prominent in advancing these notions, most noticeably from the beginning of 1921. Tensions between ‘Mick’ (H A) Hind and Stokes became obvious. The former, as a lay member of the executive theoretically had the power, while the latter could claim local leadership by virtue of administrative advantage. Hind made a doubtful speech of congratulations, in a silver wedding presentation to Stokes and his wife. While speaking of the good work done by the organiser, Hind said of him that “it was not possible for him to please everybody it had been his lot to make decisions which were unpalatable at times to some people, but Brother Stokes had always tried to see both sides of the question and had endeavoured to hold the balance between employers and the members of the union, and if he thought the member was in the wrong he would not hesitate to say so”. Unmoved by these back-handed compliments - after all the role of a union officer was hardly to act as some kind of neutral arbiter between the membership and the employer - Stokes was happy to express his view that the future lay in “the better understanding between employers and workmen”. [131] It was a far cry from Tom Mann’s view of the role of the Workers Union.
There were 27 branches of the union in the Derby area by 1921, all of which had sprung from the original Derby No.1 branch of which Stokes had been pioneer. He was to remain a WU full time official until his death in the Thirties, but was somewhat undermined by the creation of a new organisational division in 1921. This new WU administrative area covered Burton and Derby and Stokes became very much overshadowed by the Divisional Organiser, Joe Clark, who was based in Burton-on-Trent. Clarke’s position in the union, as easily the youngest officer in that kind of position in the country, positively assisted the stability of the WU in the area he covered. Clarke proved better able to withstand the demoralising effects of this period. He himself attributed his success, in part, to his refusal to popularise the scheme whereby new members could claim immediate welfare benefits, rather than have to wait for a qualifying period as would normally be expected in trade union benefits. No doubt, a complex of factors was at play, including the relatively sheltered nature of the industries in the division. Clay pipe making, artificial fibres, railway workshops, the Rolls Royce industries and the breweries were all sectors which coped fairly well, in relative terms, at this time and in consequence made for a healthy future for the WU.
However, wage cuts were the order of the day during this period in every industry. A trade which usually had few industrial relations difficulties was the leather tanning industry. Derby Workers Union members in the trade came out on strike in July 1921 to resist a reduction. It was one of the first moves to effectively resist wage cuts in the town. But soon a trickle of cuts, followed by a six month period of quiet, rushed into a flood. In October 1921, R E Stokes reported to the WU DC that “he was sorry he had not got a more favourable report to give”. He went on to list five major industries where wage cuts of between 7.5% and 16.66% had been imposed. A minor strike at Spondon occurred in the summer, but it failed to prevent a 15% cut in wages. The picture was the same everywhere. At the end of 1921, Stokes was still complaining at the DC that it was “a most difficult job ... to stop employers from reducing wages without any agreement”. As the fierceness of the recession calmed somewhat, in the spring of 1922, “some employers (were) hinting at a longer working week to cope with orders being received during the slow climb out of depression”. [132]
That year saw a re-assertion of confidence amongst some sections. Around 4,000 WU members in the Derbyshire clay industry were involved in resisting the demands of the employers for up to £1 a week reduction in wages. A “somewhat critical situation” was created, some employers indicating their intent to withdraw from the industry’s collective agreements. [133] Two year later, at DP Battery, six months of negotiations with the WU resulted in a reduction in hours from 491/2 to 48 without loss of pay. (The DP, or Dujardin-Plante, Battery Works had been established in 1897 on an old site of one of Arkwright’s cotton mills at Bakewell.) Additionally, a week’s paid holiday was agreed as was the introduction of premium times for overtime pay. A strike of the two hundred employees was thus only narrowly averted, while the overall change in the company’s treatment of their employees was quite startling. Seven years previously, a normal working week had been 60 hours, all on plain time rates. [134] It was perhaps some measure of how far it became possible to get away from the nightmare of cuts after cuts in wages.
In between these two experiences, the WU was involved in a number of strikes - all for offensive rather than defensive issues. The brick manufacturers, Derby Silica Firebrick (DSF), near Youlgreave, faced a successful strike in March 1923 for a 100% union shop. Schweppes aerated waters were involved in a strike over wages. 350 spinners at Spondon came out on strike over a local issue. During 1922 and 1923, the union began to register considerable success in the recruitment of new members, contrasting sharply with the failure of other unions to do so. Extreme flexibility in handling any industry, in cohabiting with militancy when it seemed prudent to do so and being able to create a friendly working relationship with employers, all seemed to favour the WU. Moreover, it lacked the skill snobbery that handicapped other unions at a time when speed-up and mechanisation was deskilling much of Britain’s industry.
New areas organised were in a wide spectrum of workplace sectors: [135]
· a new branch of school caretakers in Derby, November 1922
· a branch of 30 women in Alfreton, May 1923
· a branch of county council employees at Stretton, September 1923
· 350 spinners at Spondon, September 1923
· 30 new members at Leys Foundry, September 1923
Perhaps more significant, and certainly more impressive, was the ability of the union to retain and expand membership and organisation in the railway workshops, where branch income, and therefore probably membership, increased by almost six fold in the period between the end of the war and the General Strike.
WU Railway Workshops Branch Income [136]
Loco Works Derby No. 11 branch Carriage and Wagon Derby No 9 branch
(national No. 1122) (national No. 1084)
£ s d £ s d
1918 1,083 2 6 215 14 71/2
1920 2,992 11 7 578 2 21/2
1924 2,474 13 111/2 305 12 6
1925 3,488 7 81/2 340 4 10
1926 5,472 3 91/2 422 8 41/2
Total income of Derbyshire Branches of the Workers Union 1914- 26
(figures for individual branches extracted from WU Annual Reports and aggregated)
year £ s d
1914 2,540 13 4
1915 2,560 17 101/2
1916 1,419 18 111/2
1918 2,496 1 4
1920 13,033 19 61/2
1924 8,756 8 8
1925 8,348 3 6
1926 10,858 5 5
The figures tell their own story, but the point can be re-enforced without tedium. In the militant years, there was a sudden and dramatic growth, followed by a distinct drop as the recession bit. But membership lifted once again, in the case of the Loco Works quite dramatically. The recession had certainly knocked the wind out the Workers Union as with others, but the union soon re-asserted itself. Not that life was easy for the union, even in the new industries, While the British Celanese Company accepted the fact that it had trade union membership on a large scale and had to talk to the unions, it did not encourage shop floor involvement. Indeed, this was a special feature of the company’s attitude over several decades. It was entirely a typical comment on affairs inside the plant for Stokes to report in September 1925 that he was “always receiving complaints from our members employed (at Celanese) such as unjust dismissals and the tyranny of some of the Foremen and Heads of Departments”. [137]
Unlike other trade unions which peaked at their 1919-20 membership, in a few cases forever, mostly until the Second World War or afterwards, Derbyshire WU grew over the whole of the period after the 1914-18 war. In 1918, the union had a total of 6,057 members. But, atypically, in 1924 it had more members than it had had immediately after the war - approximately 8,000. In itself this was a remarkable achievement. But the union’s success was its downfall. For the WU was almost a bankrupt organisation throughout the 1920s. The Unemployment Insurance Act of 1920 made it compulsory for workers to be insured against unemployment and allowed trade unions to administer the state scheme, where they had an additional union out-of-work benefit. The WU nationally seized upon this to launch a major recruitment campaign, with a spectacular offer of “a pound for sixpence”, immediately on joining. If a member was made unemployed and had contributed even minimally to the fund, no matter how short the length of membership was, then they were entitled to benefit. Amazingly, even unemployed members who had joined when unemployed could benefit. Payments were extremely generous; all WU benefits were like that, not just unemployment benefit. Strike pay was 12/6d a week, accident benefit was 10/-for two weeks. Optional extras, like out-of-work benefit and sickness pay were available. It was a bargain, for a minimum contribution of only 4d a week in 1921. [138]
!
The first real sign locally of impending difficulties for the union was in June 1922, when the Derby DC received a circular from the Central Office asking branches to help the union out financially. Derby WU sent £5 as a free grant and £5 as a loan to their own central organisation, which faced a serious cash shortage situation. Notwithstanding Clarke’s view that the Burton and Derby WU Division was solvent because it avoided recruitment based on these false premises; the whole union was beset with a strategic difficulty. Not only were union benefits too high, higher than any sensible insurance society would pitch them, but the organisers’ salaries had become increasingly relatively generous at a time when most of their members were facing wage cuts. This is well illustrated by the annual salary received by R E Stokes in Derby over the period from before the war:
year £ 5 d
1909 79 0 0
1915 101 15 0
1916 121 2 6
1918 216 16 0
1920 377 0 0
1926 279 10 0
While some of the reasons for these increases were to keep pace with inflation, there were other pressures. The NUGMWU paid their officers no less than £10 15s 0d a week, or not far short of £600 a year. Naturally, the WU officials pressed for similar wages, for broadly similar work. But, then the NUGMWU cut their officers’ wages by £2. The WU found it had to reconsider its outgoings on officers and lay members’ expenses. But the failure to attack the root cause of the union’s financial problems would eventually lead to the merger with the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) in 1929. [139]
iii) The Mining Industry
At the heart of the employers’ offensive was the long running battle against the coal miners’ attempts to maintain their improved standards won during and immediately after the war. The mines were finally released from government control in March 1921 and it was immediately clear that the private owners would not honour the new conditions. Specifically, there was a war bonus of 3/- a shift, the Sankey increase of 2/-, 20% in 1920 and the datum line increases. Bargaining had of course been carried out purely at a national level in respect of these increases, but the coal owners made clear their intent to revert to county bargaining, a tactic which served to disunite the miners. Against the background of recession, the MFGB was reluctant to engage in battle to resist the owners’ strategy. Despite the attitude of its leaders, Derbyshire joined a small band of coal areas prepared to stand firm. The rank and file national conference of the Federation agreed with the determination of these areas and rejected the hesitancy of the executive. The scene was thus set not for a strike, for the miners demanded nothing but what they already what they had, but a lock out for failing to accept the demands of the owners that inferior conditions be introduced, The entire labour movement had expected that it would be called upon to assist the miners from 1919 onwards and there had been many an expression of sympathy amongst the trade unions in Derbyshire. The Trades Council in Derby opposed the Government’s attitude to the miners at its September 1920 meeting and again at its May 1921 meeting in the midst of the lock out, when it donated £5 to the DMA. The Derby Builders’ Labourers gave £4 to the strikers of Orgreave Colliery in Yorkshire, when they had their own local struggle, in two payments in June and July 1919. At the start of the lock out in 1921, the ABL reaffirmed their generosity by donating £10 in two payments to the miners.
But there were sections of the movement that did not immediately react with class consciousness, The Long Eaton Co-operative Society bought supplies of wood, coke, briquettes, slack and part of the town’s allocation of Welsh coal. A motor driver, bringing wood from Watnall was stoned by some miners and “it was decided to cease fetching wood and cancel the contract for it”. The 1921 lock out was a major test for the Triple Alliance of coal, rail and docks. Britain’s miners were deserted on April 1st and, within days, the railwaymen were pressing their leaders to more positively support the miners. The Chesterfield NUR men demanded a solidarity strike. Rowsley NUR unanimously offered support to the Triple Alliance concept. Indeed, they even formed a strike committee immediately and appointed despatch riders. Volunteers were sought to inform the NUR membership in the locality of all the latest developments. Three groups were appointed to see everyone within the immediate vicinity of the marshalling yards at Rowsley. “1) all between Tor Farm and South Junction and North Wood, 2) to inform all in the cottages, 3) all in Green Lane”. [140] Derby ASLEF declared the fullest possible sympathy for the miners, but was upset at the “arbitrary attitude displayed by the Triple Alliance towards our society”. It was another case of the NUR being seen as taking decisions for ASLEF, as far as the loco men and foremen in Derby were concerned. Such rivalries apart, Derby ASLEF unanimously decided to “instruct the EC to call a national strike of ASLEF in support of the miners”. [141]
J H Thomas, leader of the NUR, ignored the obvious pressure he was under from below and delayed making any positive moves, hoping for the MFGB leadership to loose their nerve. In fact, most of the miners’ leaders were now prepared for a struggle, given the level of support from other workers that the first indications led them to expect. Although J Hancock, the MP for Mid-Derbyshire and also Financial Secretary of the Nottinghamshire miners, at last displayed his true colours as the Liberal that he had always seemed to be, when he publicly denounced the actions of the Federation. [142] As it became clear that the MFGB would not weaken, the NUR, ASLEF and the Transport Workers Federation notified the miners that they could not expect their support. The day was Friday 15th April 1921 and it would immediately be dubbed ‘Black Friday’. The disillusionment of workers throughout the country at the seemingly inexplicable cowardice of their leaders was sharply expressed. Railwaymen at Chesterfield and Shirebrook voted overwhelmingly against the actions of the Triple Alliance leadership.
W R Raynes explained that “when the news came through to Derby that the Triple Alliance strike was off he saw men with tears of vexation and sorrow in their eyes because they had been told that they must not strike in favour of the miners”. [143] The full story of the betrayal was kept quite secret at the time, the leadership implying that great affairs of state were involved and contributed to their tight lipped attitude. Under the headline: “Secrets kept Secret”, the Derby Mercury reported on the ninety minute speech of J H Thomas on the reasons for the breakdown of the Triple Alliance pact at the annual May Day rally in Derby’s Market Place. Thomas refused to tell of the “inner history of the refusal of the NUR and the Transport Workers ... to strike in support of the miners”. Whilst Raynes, ever helpful, moved a rhetorical and verbose resolution that spoke of the greater glory of the international workers’ movement. [144]
Within four years railway and other transport workers were to redeem their honour by providing firmer support for the miners, but in 1921 most workers were simply unaware of what was going on, or were totally misled by their leaders, in whom they had what today would be considered a naive faith. Rowsley NUR, which had been so geared to action before Black Friday, gave total support to their leadership on their attitude to the matter, while they displayed impatience with what they saw as divisions within the Triple Alliance, believing that “sectional’ aspects of Trade Unionism hinder the progress of ‘Industrial unionism”. [145] Staveley ASLEF, which had only a year earlier voted to strike against the war in Russia, was tired with it all and distrustful of the motives of its leaders. In a mood of despondency, the branch passed a resolution complaining that their EC spent “too much time involved in political action”. [146] Perhaps reflecting similar concerns, the branch on more than one occasion in the early 1920s seriously debated the worth of continuing to affiliate to the Chesterfield Trades Council.
Meanwhile, the miners had to stand alone. For three months they withstood adversity, during that spring and summer. Stocks of coal became scarce and parts of industry faced difficulties. Some firms were able to ride out the crisis. Leys Malleable in Derby were even able to allow their employees 100 tons of coal on the basis of a hundred-weight for 2/6d per household per fortnight. [147) The miners and their families had to endure months of hardship. Soup kitchens were set up with money donated by trades unionists. Free supplies of clothes from the same source were distributed. The miners’ communities, as always, served to bind those in dispute together. In Clay Cross, a women’s section of the Labour Party was set up after the dispute. Women involved in the soup kitchens and the like found themselves politicised during the course of the lock out. The men were subjected to tremendous pressures to concede defeat. Archdeacon Crosse published a letter in the Derbyshire Times on May 7th asking the men to return to work, claiming that the situation had been brought about by “a small number of irresponsible extremists”. [148]
The government proposal of the compromise of arbitration was rejected by the miners without hesitation, while some employers decided to resort to firmer tactics. Some owners, like Morewood of Swanwick Collieries, offered to open their pits to any that would attend work, hoping to break the strike. The DMA’s finances were stretched to the limit and the union desperately searched for financial assistance of a substantial character. Their Chesterfield offices were proposed as collateral on a loan, but the union was very disappointed with the Co-op, finding that the DMA’s bankers, Farr’s of Chesterfield were of more assistance. The miners and their families acted swiftly, and in large numbers, demonstrating wherever there was evidence of an attempt to diminish the effects of the struggle. On June 20th, a midnight demonstration took place against outcrop working, that is to say the illegal surface mining of coal. What concerned the miners was not the deprival of the owners of their property rights, but the fact that substantial quantities of coal thus mined were being sold to the public, thus undermining the effect of the strike. Large numbers of miners were charged at Whittington Moor and at Brierley Wood by the police, when protesting about the outcrop working. Such digging and the picking out of isolated pieces of coal on tips for the use of miners’ families was common, especially in Chesterfield and Ilkeston districts. After the last lock out benefit payment had been made by the union on May 5th, things got very bad.
At the Butterley Company, crowds of men and women raided the premises “withdrew the fires for the boilers, collected every bit of loose coal and wood they could find, pulled up fences, damaged gates, smashed a few windows and commenced digging of coal in the pit hills”. [149] But more common was a determination to calmly wait out the dispute, only when the authorities or the owners stupidly (or cleverly?) committed some act of gross provocation did such incidents occur. To occupy their time, miners would engage in activities such as pit pony races. In West Hallam, local stories are said to abound concerning these races. “The ponies were brought to the surface and raced bareback across the football pitch at the rear of the social club. The jockeys wore their pit caps on back-to-front and it seems they were mostly lucky if they stayed on the pony to the end of the race - a good time was had by all.” [150] But, as the hunger grew and the finances diminished, defeat looked certain. The MFGB looked for a way out and, after negotiation with the government, the EC proposed to the area councils that the strike be ended. The DMA council agreed, despite the protests that inevitably followed. Hicken thought that there had been one important lesson learned, that struggle was necessary, but that “we will choose the time and the ground when we have to fight”. [151]
Many miners had fallen into great debt, the Chesterfield Board of Guardians heard in November that it would take over 58 years for loans from the lock out to be repaid. [152] Unemployment and industrial defeat took its toll quite heavily from the miners. Over two thousand members were drawing out of work benefit when, in January 1922, the DMA decided to levy their members sixpence a week to cover the extra expenditure thus forced upon the union, so great were the numbers involved. [153] Confidence diminished and in some collieries membership of the DMA dropped significantly after the defeat. In 1920, the union had 59,035 members and this had fallen to 39,455 by 1922. [154] The employers were confident and tried to assert their authority by taking even more new ground. Disputes over fork-filling and the butty system erupted for months afterwards in the Derbyshire coalfield. The butty system was largely re-introduced, but fork filling came in only in parts of the county, albeit most parts. But some areas were able to reach local agreements on shovel-filling. Some owners demanded further wage cuts, as when notices were posted at Hartington and Ireland collieries, declaring that the pits would otherwise close. While the Staveley and Butterley companies reduced local allowances, despite a threatened strike.
Others, seriously worried by the militancy of these years believed that the way to beat the miners was to contain their ‘revolutionary’ leaders and the notions of a non-political trades unionism and indeed even non-unionism began to be fostered by the employers, The National Democratic Labour Party operated in industry under the name of the British Workers League. Meetings called by the latter organisation were held throughout Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire in 1921 and 1922. Much of the initiative came from the owners and the butty contractors in the Bolsover area, but little support was found amongst the miners themselves. It was, however, an ominous development, especially for Nottinghamshire, [155]
iv) The Building Trade
The depression naturally caused many and varied responses by the unions to the problems created by economic downturn. The Builders’ Labourers in Derby were seriously worried about the decision of the Corporation to offer relief work to the unemployed on road making. After all, it was the very work that their own employed members would normally do - and on trade union rates at that. In an endeavour to limit the effects of the recession on their members locally, the ABL made strenuous efforts to stop all overtime, Members began to be fined for contravening the branch’s policy. Particular difficulties were experienced at the British Cellulose plant, much of which was still under construction. A fine was not usually imposed for the first offence, but subsequent infringements could result in heavy punishment. One member, “Brother Wragg”, was fined £1 plus 5/6d committee costs on November 26th for working overtime, while a “Brother Dann” was fined 2/6d plus 6d costs and “Brother Cobden” 10/6d - all significant sums of money and no doubt related to the actual gain of working overtime in question. Despite the rise in job losses, clearly the union’s ability to exert discipline to some extent had not been totally discredited.
Indeed, the national basis to negotiations in the building trade revealed some progress, but there was a tendency to equal out good as well as the bad; national negotiations did not prove popular with the Derby ABL. The notion of a sliding scale of wages was discussed but vigorously rejected by the branch in 1921. The Conciliation Board, on which the ABL nationally was not represented, had with the agreement of the Workers Union approved a reduction of 3d an hour, Meeting on April 1st, Derby ABL resolved to resist any cut. Understandably, the matter was of serious concern to the whole membership and over a hundred turned up to a special meeting on June 17th to decide what should be done. A further meeting a couple of weeks later decided to get their EC to withdraw from adherence to Conciliation Board settlements and to get the National Federation of Building Trades Operatives to act on the matter. If the NFBTO did little, then Derby ABL believed their union should withdraw from that body also. [156]
The reason for the unsatisfactory representational position of the ABL, which gave rise to the dissatisfaction with the Conciliation Board and NFBTO, was the initial refusal of the craft dominated federation to admit the four national builders’ labourers’ societies unless they agreed to fusion. However, only partial success was possible for this plan. Two societies resulted, the National Builders’ Labourers’ and Constructional Workers Society and the ‘Altogether’ Builders’ Labourers’ and Constructional Workers Society. It was the latter, the ‘Altogether’ - or the ABL as it is referred to here throughout – that organised in Derby.
The builders’ labourers were amongst the last of unions to relinquish the tradition of the club house. The end of the use by the ABL of the Star and Garter clubroom was reflective of the demise of the unique ties that had existed between unions and pubs. These ties were, if not exactly relinquished, certainly were to be qualitatively changed. It was only in 1917 that the ABL committee had released its officers from a commitment to man the clubroom every Saturday night of the year. It was agreed that, to provide the branch officers with a holiday, that there would be “4 nights when the clubhouse is not opened Easter, Whitsun, Christmas and August (Bank) Holiday”.
In 1921, this was all to come to an end. The landlord of the Star and Garter gave notice of an increase to 5/- a week in the rental of a clubroom. The ABL committee considered the increase as “altogether unreasonable”. They had after all been paying only 12/6 per quarter since the last increase in November 1920 and had been subjected to successive increases in the space of only one year. The rent had remained stable at £1 a year until October 1919, when it had jumped to 30/-. Another massive increase to 12/6d per quarter followed and the latest demand caused the committee to reconsider its position. It proved no difficulty, to obtain the use of a room at the new Labour Party headquarters at 63 London Road for periodic meetings. The idea of their own clubroom could no longer be maintained. [157]
Clearly, one aspect of the forced move was the pressure of inflation on room rents, but breweries were beginning to exert monopolistic pressure on pubs by obtaining tied houses to market their own beer and drinks. There appears to also have been a semi-conscious attempt to force out unions and other benevolent societies to make room for more paying customers. There may even have been an eye cast on the political implications of restricting facilities from bodies which would have been viewed as militant enemies by the notoriously Conservative brewing industry. Sometimes, landlords would consort with breweries in this. Certainly the days when a trade could invariably count on a former colleague to be the landlord were well and truly over. Perhaps the ABL encountered just such a problem.
The massive rise in unemployment obviously had severe repercussions on trade union income generally and this was no less so for the ABL. A reflection of the difficulties is in the level of pay received by the full time officer, Brown. He was paid £6 a week in 1920, but only £4 10s 0d in 1921, further reduced to £4 flat in 1922. At the same time, shop stewards’ commission of 3/- in the pound collected in subscriptions was cut to 2/-, while delegates’ expenses for attending meetings were cut from 2/6d a meeting to 1/6d. During the course of 1922, Brown’s salary was further cut to £3 5s 0d a week. In October, the committee had to instruct the secretary that he would receive “such sum as the previous week’s income would allow”. For, with membership loss, revenue loss inevitably followed. Only 246 members were admitted during the whole of 1921, compared with 835 the previous year. In 1922, this rate of recruitment was halved down to 108. The impact on the branch was disastrous, for the union relied on a high turnover of members; a slow rate of recruitment meant in practice an actual drop in total membership. A poorly attended branch meeting concluded that the branch could not maintain a full time secretary, but would keep the 2d weekly levy on members until Brown could find a job within the building trade once more, out on the sites.
By the beginning of April 1923, this had not happened. But the ABL branch committee decided to keep Brown on as full timer. Within two weeks he was able to inform the branch committee that he had been appointed District Organiser by the central organisation and that “payment to him as Branch Delegate should cease”. He became responsible for membership of the ABL within the East Midlands area. Happily, the membership position of the Derby ABL branch much improved as 1923 progressed. Membership was 273 in July, up 60 over the previous quarter and by October membership was up by another 23, to 296. But Brown’s promotion put paid to the full time delegate’s job. For never again did Derby ABL have such a position and in many ways the loss of Brown as a purely local organiser had a material effect on the future of the branch. [158]
year quarter admissions yearly total
1919 1 31 248
2 38
3 109
4 170
1920 1 151 835
2 240
3 348
4 76
1921 1 63 246
2 74
3 70
4 39
1922 1 23 108
2 27
3 36
4 22
1923 1 28 208
2 96
3 51
4 33
1924 1 85 275
2 91
3 67
4 62
1925 1 89 258
2 49
3 75
4 45
A common problem for the unions was ‘defalcation’ - shortfalls or misappropriations of union money. Collectors, branch secretaries and shop stewards handled enormous sums of money and, in times of great hardship, it was often very tempting for individuals to dip into union funds temporarily held by themselves. Often this was with the intention of repaying the money, but sometimes the sheer scale of the debt proved too much. Workers at Gee’s of Osmaston Road complained to the ABL committee in April 1921 that they were out of benefit because Warren, the shop steward, had not paid in their contributions. It turned out that he owed £31 0s 4d and the branch decided to make him repay it at the rate of 10/- a week. By June, his failure to make any repayment at all raised the question of his expulsion, a fact which roused him sufficiently to pay 7/6d immediately. [159] Of course such problems rarely arose because of any disregard for the union and often simply reflected the dire straits which workers found themselves in.
The whole experience of cutbacks and financial stringency which unions faced was but a mere reflection of the difficulties actually faced by their members. In 1922, when some trades were just about recovering from the worst ravages of depression, the building employers had little confidence of an upturn in their industry. They proposed a reduction of 2d per hour in the national minimum rate from June 1st. There was widespread opposition to this by the workers themselves, exemplified in an ABL ballot in Derby which resulted in 120 voting against and 8 voting for the employers’ proposals. In April, the cuts were nonetheless imposed. The following year, the employers demanded a further reduction of 20%, or 1 1/2d an hour, for labourers. A ballot of ABL members in Derby rejected the idea by a vote of 55 to 1, calling on their EC to resist the cuts. The employers linked wages and hours proposing to alter the agreed 44 hour week and for the ABL in Derby, now conscious that some improvement in their organisation was being made, this was totally unacceptable. The local ABL suggested that the union opt out of all national agreements, for the branch had noted with some satisfaction that “we were making some headway in reorganising the men in the shops that had been taken in hand”. In the end, the issue went to arbitration, the award from which extended summer working hours to 461/2 hours and kept winter hours at 44. On wages, future variations would be related to the cost of living, while a clause allowing for increases due to exceptional circumstances was also removed. [160]
As for painters in the NASOHSPD New Mills lodge, they revealed a mood of desperation, remaining rather insular and not a little right wing. The branch opposed the union’s affiliation to the Labour Party in 1921 and a proposed levy in support of the engineering workers’ dispute of 1922, by a narrow majority in a nearly tied vote. In a move consciously rejecting the worldly wise trades councils, the branch decided in 1923 not to affiliate to their local one. While, in the following year, apathy over internal union elections led the branch to decide that “voting for organisers, Executive Committee and Trades Union Congress be left for the Big Branches to decide”! Even so, when it came to strictly trade matters, the obvious distaste for things political was not so evident. In the local painting shops, the union maintained a certain tightness of organisation throughout the 1920s. When non-society men were spotted in the employ of any of these, as when Jackson and Potts were reproached in 1925, these were soon sorted out. [161]
A trade associated with the building industry was woodcutting. The Amalgamated Society of Woodcutting Machinists (ASWM) had rejected amalgamation, in a ballot vote of the members, with the woodworkers, the ASW, by 5,054 to 4,540 in 1921. It was, however, as in so many sectors, a time when woodworkers were seeking organisational unity. In March 1921, the ASW and the General Union of Carpenters in Derby were pleased to announce the national merging of their unions. [162] But the narrow majority against merger in the ASWM was, in effect, a statement that many wood machinists saw themselves as more aligned to skilled engineers than carpenters. The ASWM had a reasonably strong base in Derbyshire. There were four branches: [163]
Branch Meeting Place
Derby Unity Hall
Ambergate Canal Inn
Chesterfield Hady Cottage
Glossop Gladstone Street
v) National Union of Vehicle Builders
An alliance of the ASWM and the National Union of Vehicle Builders (NUVB) in the machine woodcutting trade was formalised into the United Kingdom Joint Wages Board (UKJWB). Such a development made amalgamation inevitable eventually. The state of trade in the UKJWB companies was considered by the Derby NUVB to be good in the town itself in 1925, but fair to poor elsewhere in the county. Hours of work varied from 44 to 47 and wages from 1/6d to 1/8d an hour. [164] But the effect of the recession on NUVB membership generally was disastrous. Derby branch membership strength was much reduced over the five years from 1920 and had only begun to show some signs of recovery in 1925. [165]
year Derby NUVB members
1920 351
1921 355
1922 262
1923 235
1924 187
1925 196
While the demise of horse drawn vehicles seriously hit the NUVB’s traditional base, the skills of their members proved adaptable to the mass production of railway carriages, especially as passengers in standard coaches began to be treated to more comfortable decor and furnishing. So, the union had quite a base at the Midland Railway. The NUVB however also organised in areas which would have been foreign to the old UKSC, bus and tram garages for example. The Manchester based organiser who covered Derbyshire, while in Derby to discuss proposed reductions in wages at the rail workshops, visited various shops in the town and in Chesterfield and Pilsley. At the latter there was “a decent shop employing between 30 and 40 members”. Moreover, the Chesterfield tramway’s maintenance men rejoined the union. [166]
But one bar to growth in their field was the division between the NUVB and the Amalgamated Wagon Builders, which had a presence in eastern Derbyshire. There was also some conflict of interest between the two and the TGWU, but all three unions reached an agreement on spheres of influence in 192S. [167] This tended however to isolate the NUVB and the AWB from each other. The end result was that, shortly before the Second World War, the AWB merged with the AEU and in the 1970s the NUVB merged with the TGWU.
vi) The Engineering Industry
This period saw two lock outs of general significance, the miners and the engineers. These were important in moulding the outlook of all trades unionists, for these two sections were often seen as providing a lead to all others. In engineering, the employers unsuccessfully made demands for wages reductions of 20%. Countering this, the unions posed claims for mutuality in controlling overtime, piecework production and other sweeping demands. The employers rejected these outright and argued for management prerogative, or management’s’ right to manage, especially in determining overtime working. The AEU rejected the employers’ stance, after a national ballot decided to insist on mutuality in all agreements. The employers demanded the signing of a declaration that the AEU would not interfere in management functions and, failing this, locked out all of that union’s members from March 11th 1922. When the other engineering unions failed to concede the required declaration, they too were locked out.
Both sides dug their heels in and, by the ninth week of the lock out, the employers reopened their factories, announcing that those willing to accept the new terms could be taken on, all to little effect. But, by a slight concession in the eleventh week, the employers were able to break the ranks of the unions and all but the AEU accepted the new terms, as modified. The AEU fought on alone until June 13th, but by then it was clear that the unions were broken. The employers imposed reductions in the national minimum rate. There had already been a cut of 16s 5d at the beginning of the year, now a new cut was to be imposed of a similar amount, bringing the new rate to £2 16s 0d a week. A ballot vote resulted in a two thirds majority, rejecting the cuts, even after the long and difficult struggle. But the employers were adamant and, in the circumstances, the union’s national negotiators ignored the result of the ballot and accepted the wage reductions. The whole affair had dragged on for several months and ended in great bitterness. A legacy that would take half a century to jettison was an imposed procedure for the handling of disputes.
Wages after the lock out remained low and the engineering unions sought to remedy this throughout the 1920s, unsuccessfully until 1927. There were of course some firms which paid in excess of the minimum by giving local bonuses. In 1924, the engineering unions in Derby unsuccessfully demanded an all round increase of £1 for skilled and 10/- for the unskilled, in common with all the engineering districts nationally. The AEU was joined by the Associated Smiths and Ironmakers, the Workers Union, the Foundry Workers, the Patternmakers, the Brass and Metal Mechanics, the Coppersmiths, the Iron and Steel Dressers and the Sheetmetal Workers. [168] A mass meeting of all unions was held, addressed by Stokes of the WU, Bates and Sturgess (who was by now a councillor) of the AEU, Alderman Bower of the Smiths and Alderman Varley of the Foundry Workers.
Despite some obvious determination, the employers would not budge. A year and a half later, in September 1925, a mass meeting of AEU members at the Central Hall in Derby listened to a report on the claim. [169] The national application had been on the table all this time, with no effect, A Government intervention to discuss the 48 hour week and suspend the £1 claim stimulated further movement, at least in some localities. But the onset of the General Strike was to interfere with these moves. Localised bargaining in some industries, plants or localities did bring some restitution for the losses of the 1921 lock out. It would however take many years to rectify the position at national level within the industry.
vi) The Transport and General Workers Union
On the initiative of dockers’ unions, for some two years the unions in transport had been discussing unity. The bulk of the multi-union Transport Workers Federation joined together formally within one organisation, which came into existence on January 1st 1922. Many of the members of the new union - the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU, later more popularly shortened to T&G) - had distinct and separate loyalties and the new constitution reflected that. Six quite separate ‘trade groups’, or sections, of dockers, bus and tram workers, carters and lorry drivers, ships’ clerks and others formed the basis of the giant new body, some 350,000 strong at the outset. The initial membership of the TGWU in Derbyshire seemed to have been restricted to its new Passenger Services Group, of mostly bus and tram workers. These had been inherited from the Manchester based Amalgamated Association of Tramway Workers (AATW), which merged with a London based union bus, taxi and tram union in 1919 to form the United Vehicle Workers (UVW). But, within a very short space of time, some membership of the Commercial Services Group of lorry drivers and carters was established, initially in the Long Eaton area.
A particularly strong upsurge of trades unionism in London’s public transport system encouraged the unionisation of public passenger transport throughout the country. To siphon off discontent, the Government encouraged the setting up of Regional Joint Industrial Councils for the industry, paralleling a national body, set up in 1919. Major revisions of wages, conditions and hours were accompanied by important new transport regulations, although the framework was still rather rudimentary. While a special tribunal award saw significant improvements in the previously low wages of conductors and conductresses. The UVW greatly benefited from all these developments.
Tramway workers tended in the main to be less militant than the newer job of bus worker, for the former could expect long and stable service with a municipal employer, not necessarily on high pay, but at least with some security of employment. Bus workers were then usually employed by private companies, operating routes in rural and suburban areas, the whole operation being rather casually arranged. Little public control existed and operators, who gradually began to face unionised workforces, were presented with employees who sought to get what they could whilst it was possible, for the enterprise could be gone the next day. Moreover, the ethos of bus firms was decidedly focused on profit rather than service. Working conditions and rates of pay were therefore relatively inadequate, when compared with the circumstances of tramway workers. In Derbyshire, this meant that employees of institutions like Derby and Chesterfield Borough Councils faced quite different problems than did a private firm like the Derby based Trent Motor Traction.
In 1922, Haslam, the TGWU branch secretary covering Trent Motor Traction’s bus workers, revealed the degree to which there was apathy within the company. At the Derby Trades Council, he somewhat desperately raised the need for the entire trade union movement in the locality to “make every effort to get the men to organise to improve their present conditions”, there were then very few women, if any, even in the conducting role and none as drivers. Clearly, while there was a substantial base to the union within the company, there was a some way to go, but the momentous events of the next few years would see bus and tram workers play a vital role in the life of the wider labour movement.
viii) The Railway Industry
The final settlement of the 1919 dispute was when an Industrial Court made Award 728, which determined that legislation should be passed. The Railways Act of 1921, following the period of industrial militancy, strikes and lock outs as it did, was designed to remove the industry from the arena of confrontation, The Act ignored the vital question of nationalisation of the railways, but did recognise some of the arguments for greater efficiency by re-grouping the private firms. More positively, the Act provided for statutory recognition of the main rail unions. A complex system of legally based local and national negotiating bodies was also introduced under the Act. Local Departmental Committees, Sectional Councils for each grade and Central and National Wages Boards were created. This highly formalised approach rather took power away from local rank and file representatives and sought to incorporate the unions with the interests of the employers.
For the railway workshops, the Act was a controversial development. Other unions than the three which were based upon the operational side of the industry were concerned that the right to strike was taken away by this formal conciliation network. Unions like the WU and the AEU in particular, with its commitment to shop stewards’ systems, were very worried by the Act. Only by specifically excluding the railway shop workers from the Act was it possible for it to be effective. [170]
The Act had an instant change upon the rail unions. The Vigilance Committees, which had been a kind of shop stewards’ committee dealing with problems where they arose as soon as they arose, were sidestepped by the new machinery. Rowsley NUR reflected the shift in attitude in the union, when it decided not to invite representatives from the unofficial Manchester and Derlick Guards’ Vigilance Committee in late 1921. [171] This contrasted sharply with the obvious enthusiasm with which the branch invited a Derby workshops militant active in the NUR, Harry Pearce Senior, to speak to the branch on the work of the committees. (Pearce, incidentally, was to feature fairly prominently in Derby’s left-wing politics over the years, on the Trades Council, in the Minority Movement and in the Labour Party - a role his son, Harry Junior, was to replicate a generation later.)
A factor in Rowsley NUR’s attitude may have something to do with its torn loyalties. The Manchester district of the NUR always had a stronger reputation for militancy than the Derby District of the NUR, Rowsley, though closer to Manchester, was firmly part of the Derby District from 1919 to 1924. Peppered throughout its minutes are constant references to the need to “write to Derby”, whenever a problem arose. In late 1924, for unrecorded reasons, the Rowsley NUR branch decided to “switch to the Manchester District Council for 1925”, to which it remained affiliated for the next two decades. [172]
Despite the intentions of the new Act, episodes of militant industrial action continued for some time. In 1921, over a hundred Derby NUR loco men joined in with a strike called by ASLEF activists against the proposal to cut mileage bonus rates which operated for drivers and firemen. The NUR’s official attitude was that, like it or not, the men must accept the changes as they were the product of the new conciliation scheme. Events like this generated a sense of unease at the direction which railway trades unionism was taking, as when in August 1922 Derby’s Vigilance Committee passed a resolution expressing strong disapproval at the NUR’s tacit acceptance of the LMS’s re-classification of signal boxes, a move which de-graded many men. Dissatisfaction with the NUR was strong amongst signalmen also. [173]
The tensions already evident in the workshops between the rail unions and the engineering unions were not eased by the arguments over the 1921 Act. At the beginning of 1923, there was a proposal to reduce the bonus of the shopmen. A mass meeting of WU workshop employees was held at the Co-op Hall in Derby. In a sceptical vein, Stokes and Hind addressed the men about the posturing of not only the company, but also the NUR. A rail strike then mooted was described as being the “greatest piece of bluff’, for negotiations had yet to be totally exhausted. [174] By the end of the year a major programme of passenger and freight carriage and wagon building was embarked upon at Derby. The full complement of around 10,000 employees in all LMS workshop activities were in full time work for the whole of the next year. This positive employment situation certainly moderated attitudes in the workshops. [175] But, on the track, a major unsuccessful strike was experienced in the course of 1924 on the LMS. Derby ASLEF organised a strike committee of 20 and on the first day of the strike the union arranged a mass picket at midnight. The strike emerged from the dissatisfactions over events following the 1921 Act, which began to be seen as a poor settlement of the 1919 dispute. There were three special developments in the strike locally. ASLEF made substantial recruitment advances out of it, 96 new members were admitted in Derby after the strike. Another aspect was the special involvement of the loco men's wives in the struggle. Out of this came a women’s’ group. A subsequent open meeting of the branch attracted large numbers of women, which “spoke volumes for the women’ society”. The third interesting thing was that Derby ASLEF disaffiliated from the Trades Council over its role in the 1924 strike. [176]
The DTC secretary had offered assistance to Trent Motor Traction bus employees during a dispute they had. But when ASLEF was involved in the 1924 strike, in January the DTC made no such similar approach. This was much to the annoyance of the branch, which pointed out that, in contrast to the bus workers, Derby ASLEF had been affiliated for 20 years. Over the course of 1925, a series of trite arguments carried on between the branch and the council. [177] Relations between ASLEF and the NUR, never very sound, were not improved by the new bargaining position, despite attempts by the TUC to encourage closer working. But the move was not popular with ASLEF members. Staveley ASLEF expressed the mood well, when they voted “full support to the EC to keep out of the amalgamation” with NUR. [178] Similarly, the railway clerks, the RCA, turned down the idea of fusion of all rail unions, keeping very much to itself in its own sphere. Although the RCA was obliged to come to some kind of working relationship with a non-rail union which had a professional base in the design sector of the railway workshops, the draughtsmen of the AESD. The RCA and the AESD however aimed to promote closer working between themselves in 1925, when the two held a joint meeting at the Cavendish Cafe, because the “company had hitherto played off one union against the other”. [179] The NUR and ASLEF had a similar problem in the manual sphere, but failed, or were not willing, to reach an understanding.
6 Unemployed struggles 1920-5
Percentage of Insured Workers Unemployed 1920-23
year approx percentage
1920 5
1921 17
1922 14
1923 12
The recession really jolted Derbyshire as 1920 came to an end. Jobs were lost not only in the big towns like Chesterfield and Derby, but also in the smaller towns. There were some 600 reported as workless in remoter areas, 80 of whom were ex-servicemen, 50 were labourers and the rest were hosiery and wire workers. Women workers were, then as now, often the first to be laid off. The effect of this was especially serious where the woman was the main, or only, breadwinner, for the authorities were far from sympathetic to their plight. The Trades Council in Derby took strong exception to female unemployed “being compelled to go to domestic service or be refused out-of-work payment”. [180] Indeed, the DTC was obviously very concerned about the general unemployment situation. So was the Town Council, with 5,401 unemployed and 5,350 on short-time in Derby in May 1921, it is not surprising that the council called a special meeting to debate the widespread anxiety over unemployment. [181] One immediate result of this was that the children of unemployed parents were soon receiving free Sunday dinners at the National Restaurant on The Spot, in Derby town centre. [182]
Other proposals were more substantial, if perhaps less easy to achieve. The Town Council unanimously agreed to provide special work, mainly on improving the arterial roads in Derby, Manor Road being the prime development. However, this seemingly philanthropic gesture, supported by Labour councillors, would be dogged by controversy. Initially, the problem was that the Borough was inordinately slow to actually start the project, but subsequently the same concerns which motivated the ABL to query the very concept of relief work on public building projects came to the fore. Relief funds were also organised throughout the county. In Chesterfield, the Borough Welfare Committee appealed for second-hand boots, clothing and toys for Christmas.
In June 1921, unemployment reached a national peak of nearly 18% and the Government, in an attempt to meet criticisms of failing to look after the unemployed, especially ex-servicemen, increased male unemployment benefit from a weekly sum of 15/- in November 1920 to 20/- in March 1921. But three months later, as the sheer cost of maintaining the rapidly growing unemployed escalated, the Government cut benefits back to the 1920 level. This single act caused an enormous national campaign around the slogan of “Work or Full Maintenance at Trade Union Rates of Wages”, spearheaded by the Communist dominated organisation, the National Unemployed Workers Committee Movement. (The word `Committee’ was soon dropped and the body is referred to as `NUWM’ throughout.) At local level, campaigns against the Boards of Guardians were organised to win improved relief from economic distress. The unemployed pressed for more and more attention. A march to the Shardlow Board of Guardians’ workhouse in 1921 was a spontaneous local protest against the appalling distress. [183] But most protests were more consciously organised, within local self-help unemployed workers’ organisations, but mostly being led by the NUWM, which dominated the struggles of the unemployed in the inter-war years.
The NUWM had a mostly Communist leadership, but support was surprisingly widespread amongst the unemployed themselves and the party was not exclusively involved in the organisation. ILP militants, trade union and Labour Party activists fought side by side with Communists to advance the cause of the unemployed. 90 town’s committees, including Derby, were represented at the 1921 conference of the NUWM, testifying to its strength. The local branch naturally campaigned on the NUWM slogans and utilised the style of action which so characterised the movement. A big gathering of many hundreds of unemployed interrupted the Derby Town Council proceedings in September 1921, when a special meeting was held to consider a motion to ‘invest’, or confer honours upon, the Duke of Devonshire. [184] For the unemployed of Derby, the Borough had its priorities all wrong. No municipal work projects had yet begun, for the council dallied, arguing that the Manor Road scheme would cost £32,000 simply as relief for the unemployed, let alone taking into account all costs. Instead, other projects for the widening of roads were suggested by the authorities.
In response to pressure, the Liberal and Conservative dominated Town Council in Derby, perhaps with an eye to the forthcoming local elections, granted the use of a disused derelict house in Willow Row as a headquarters for the unemployed movement. On visiting the premises, however, the NUWM rejected the suggestion on the basis that the buildings were totally unsuitable and accepted the Labour Party’s offer of the use of part of their London Road centre. A split developed in the unemployed movement when a committee claiming to represent the unemployed, consisting of the chairman, Green, and two others, Cassidy and Hollis, asked to see the Mayor of Derby to discuss better facilities for the unemployed, so that “the headquarters would not have to be on political party premises”. [185] How serious this development was must be in doubt, for little is heard of this group subsequently, whilst the NUWM continued to dominate the scene in Derby, as elsewhere,
The recession bit harder, Ogles’ foundry closed on a temporary basis, redundancies were announced at the Butterley Company’s own railway sidings and 20 were discharged at the Waingroves brickyard. Butterley’s mines were ordered to start filling coal tubs with screens, which would sieve out the slack and hence obtain maximum production for minimum payment. Denby’s Salterwood colliery also laid off 100 men. To help with the severe hardship experienced by many, trade unions often arranged their own relief funds. Derby AEU ran a concert in November 1921, which raised £34 for boots for their own unemployed members. [186] While the DTC launched a “children’s’ Boot Fund” in early 1922. [187]
The economic recession had its consequences in the political sphere, as the authorities became concerned at the impact the Communist Party was having on the unemployed. The national Secretary of the Communist Party, Albert lnkpin, had been sent to jail for six months hard labour for publishing the Comintern’s statutes, on the grounds that these were in themselves seditious. Meeting in the New Year, the DTC demanded that the Home Secretary seriously consider lnkpin’s release from what they saw as a politically motivated prosecution, concerning possession of imported books written by Lenin and copies of the Comintern journal, Communist International.
Hundreds of demonstrations took place in Britain during February 1922 to demand scales of relief from local Boards of Guardians which would be nearer to the NUWM’s basic programme of 36/- a week for a husband and wife, plus 5/- for each child up to 16 years of age and up to 15/- for rent and a hundredweight of coal. Compared to the official rate of 20/- for husband and wife and 1/- for each child, this would have been a significant improvement in the conditions of life for the unemployed and their families. The activities in spring were rapidly followed up by more of the same in the summer. But the high spot that year would be the initiative of the first Hunger March, the first national NUWM march, in late 1922. Two separate strands of the march came from Lancashire; one came through the West Midlands on its way south. Two others, starting from Bolton, came through Manchester, Staffordshire and Derbyshire, with support joining up along the way. Labour’s Derby MP, J H Thomas, called upon the unemployed to disassociate themselves from the event, but while this must have certainly dented official labour movement support, it does not appear to have held back the activities of the NUWM amongst the unemployed. [188]
The organisation of the march revolved around the fact that the Poor Law allowed the marchers to arrive at a town and make claim for workhouse accommodation and food. No luxury involved here, by any means, but it was at least enough to keep the marchers going. Often, the authorities would try to treat them as tramps and provide only the ‘casual diet’ of bread and tea, an attitude which inevitably generated conflict when it was attempted. More sympathetic Guardians would issue instructions for more than the legally established minimum diet to be given to marchers. Derbyshire must have seemed an unfriendly county at first, the north-western strand of the march coming through Ashbourne and the rural west. The situation was described as “grim, for there was a desperate search for enough food”. By the time the marchers arrived in Derby, the welcome was much improved, despite the unwillingness of some in the labour movement to assist. The borough allowed the marchers the use of Orchard Street Schools for the weekend. The Sherwood Foresters donated a hundred tins of bully beef and the Co-op supplied £30 worth of food. Although the Poor Law inspector was to reprimand the clerk at the Board of Guardians for paying the Co-op for feeding 23 men from Bootle.
40 demonstrators from Scotland, who had marched from there in another stream tramping all the way through Yorkshire, arrived shortly after the north-western contingent, with tales of fights for work at the Sheffield Labour Exchange. Their worst experience had been at Clowne, in the north of Derbyshire. The police were quite uncooperative and the end result was that the new additions to the march, which had joined it at Sheffield, had to sleep out in the open through a cold freezing night of rain and snow. The local villagers, seeing them out in the morning, took them into their own homes. In complete contrast, at Derby, the 320 men on the north-western march ate a stupendous breakfast at the York and Clarendon hotels, along with the Scots-Yorkshire contingent, both enjoying the hospitality of the town after their arduous experiences. The next day, the joint march was yet again fed and pampered. During the course of that Sunday, a dinner, social afternoon and high tea were provided and the men marched from one event to the other, wearing red rosettes and singing the Red Flag. [189]
The chief marshal thanked the Board of Guardians in Derby for the best treatment of all the towns so far. Derby had redeemed the honour of the county, so let down at Clowne and Ashbourne. The men marched the seven miles to Shardlow for tea, bread and cheese. By the end of the day, and another ten miles, they had arrived at Loughborough to a very different reception than that which they had at Derby. Once again they experienced poor accommodation and meagre food. This newly expanded and now single column met up with a total of 20 such contingents from across the entire nation, all converging on London on November 17th. The entire march was greeted by a crowd of 20,000 supporters, the event having been eagerly awaited. On Remembrance Day, only a week earlier on November 11th, 20,000 unemployed ex-servicemen fell in behind the official parade and filed silently past the Cenotaph. The marchers wore their own medals; those of the dead and severely wounded were pinned to the red and black banners of the NUWM. At the front rank of this march was carried a wreath inscribed: “From the living victims, the unemployed, to our dead comrades who died in vain.” [190]
The massed marchers of the 20 regional contingents of the NUWM march were all billeted at various public institutions across London. Daily protests demanding that Bonar Law, the Prime Minister, see a deputation were held using these forces. While reinforcements from towns throughout the country, including Derby, arrived in the weeks up to Christmas, despite a deliberate policy of discouraging such recruits by the Guardians in very many places. The national leadership of the TUC joined in with the NUWM to organise a massive demonstration on Sunday January 7th, Unemployed Sunday as it was called. So influential had the NUWM become that it could arrange a joint committee with the TUC. Despite all endeavours, the obstacles to maintaining the protests were just too many. The impetus of the campaign began to slow down, especially when Bonar Law positively refused to meet a deputation of the unemployed. After a full two months in London, the columns of the Hunger Marchers began to disperse.
This was but one phase of the entire battle for the NUWM. A major area of action for local NUWM branches was the test introduced by the Government to determine whether an unemployed worker was genuinely seeking work. Those deemed not to be, often as a result of an entirely arbitrary and unwarranted decision, were classed as ‘Not Genuinely Seeking Work’ (NGSW) and deprived of benefit. In May 1923, R G Ansell, president of the Derby ILP, and his colleague Frank Porter reported on the work of the Guardians. 181 men were on the “test” in Derby. Their benefit had “run out” and the Board was attempting to determine whether they were NGSW. Some of these men were employed on a major public works scheme at Alvaston, the intent being to provide them with work they could not refuse on pain of loss of benefits. This was the “test”. The catch was that the work was paid 25% less than the going union rate for such a job. The majority of the Guardians refused to pay more and any unemployed workers who declined to accept this under-cutting of the union rate were simply classified as NGSW. [191] As unemployment passed its high water mark, the Guardians were able to drop the local Poor Law rate, or levy, where this existed, In Derby, the Guardians dropped the local rate in 1924 to is 9d in the pound for the latter half of the year, compared to the figure of 2s 3d which the rate had been earlier in the year. Instead of such a course, the rates could have been held at the higher rate and benefits could have been increased, but the majority of the Guardians would have none of it. [192]
As the economic situation improved somewhat, the activities of the NUWM diminished until the crisis which affected the capitalist world in 1929 onwards once again produced massive unemployment. It would be a time of the greatest activity of the NUWM. Despite its Communist leadership, which remained until the fading away of the movement in the early stages of the Second World War, the NUWM retained a mass following and in the 1920s still had official recognition from the TUC. The course of events leading up to the General Strike, in which industrial militancy was tested against political reform, would of course be decisive not only in determining the future response of the trade unions and the political parties of the working class, but also the very direction of the unemployed movement. The attitude of the trade unions towards the unemployed movement and vice-versa was especially important in conditioning the response of both to the situation that confronted each. Another Communist influenced body which turned its attention to this was the Red International of Labour Unions, a sort of Comintern for revolutionary trade unions. RILU attracted support from some sections of Britain’s trade union movement in its 1922 campaign, in which it called for a “Back to the Unions” movement, Higher wages and shorter hours were but one aspect of the campaign to reverse the serious losses of membership and power of the unions. There was a determination to achieve the “concentration of all local forces of the movement in the Trades Councils”. The Derby Trades Council, with 20,000 trades unionists affiliated to it in 1923 and with finances increased tenfold over the 1917 level in 1924, was clearly an obvious target for local Communists in seeking to implement the RILU strategy. Some success was achieved and the DTC displayed its leanings when it called on the working class study organisation, the National Council of Labour Colleges (NCLC), to “give the workers the education they need i.e. that known as the Marxian philosophy”; although this was not a Communist Party inspired organisation.
But the main concern was over the “apathy of members of Trades Unions and the failing off of interest taken in Trade Union matters and the present method of organisation”. In an endeavour to put some life back into the local movement, the DTC launched a “Back-to-the-Unions” campaign for the summer of 1923. The campaign was kicked off by calling a conference on industrial unionism, that is to say creating mergers and amalgamations in particular industrial sectors. 16 full time organisers were invited to visit Derby during one week from July 30th to August 5th. The Shop Workers, the Foundry Workers, the NUR, the Building Trades Federation, the AEU, the TGWU, the Municipal Employees, the Metal Dressers all sent officers to assist in the membership drive. Ben Tillett MP, figurehead leader of the TGWU, and famed for his involvement in the dockers’ strike decades before, was the main speaker, along with George Hicks of the Building Trades Federation. The approach reflected the breadth of representation on the DTC, which is exemplified by the wide ranging character of its Executive Committee and affiliated membership.
Successful Candidates in the Derby Trades Council Executive Committee Elections of 1922
(details from DTC minutes of February 8th 1922)
Name Union Votes received
Cllr E Paulson Boilermakers 43
Mrs Chalkley Darley WU 42
Mr C Brown Builders Labourers 41
Mr A E Field Shop Assistants 34
Mr F Guest Typographical Assn 30
Mr W Gamble ASLEF No 1 29
Mr J Trowell Bricklayers 28
Mr I Amatt Hosiery Union 28
Mr G Reader NUR No 2 25
Mr P Wilton NUR No 4 27
Known Local Union Branches Affiliated to the Derby Trades Council 1913 - 1926
Details extracted from DTC minutes, when an affiliate was either new or the subject of some dispute, hence it cannot be taken as an exhaustive list. The terminology used is generally that detailed within the minutes book, thus the names are not necessarily entirely historically accurate, but reflects the popular name for the bodies concerned. The names of newly amalgamated unions are sometimes also used, so some societies are named twice in different forms. However, there is some value in reproducing this analysis, since many of the unions mentioned in the minutes are entirely local or not otherwise touched on elsewhere in the text.
Society Post Office Workers
Amalgamated Musicians Union
Amalgamated Society of Farriers
Amalgamated Tramway and Vehicle Workers
Amalgamated Union of Co-operative Employees
ASLEF
Association of Engineering & Shipbuilding Draughtsmen
Asylum Workers (first affiliated in 1913, then lapsed and re-affiliated in 1919)
Bakers and Confectioners
Basket Makers
Boilermakers Society
Bookbinders Union
Boot and Shoe Operatives
Brassfounders Society
Bricklayers Labourers Society
Carpenters and Joiners
Chemical Workers
Coachmakers (later the NUVB)
Elastic Web Weavers
Electricians Trade Union
Garment Workers
Hairdressers Association
Hosiery Workers
Journeymen Butchers
Licensed Vehicle Workers Union
lronspring Trades Union
Moulders and Iron Founders
Municipal Employees
National Brass and Metal Mechanics
National Union of Clerks
National Union of Life Assurance Agents
National Union of Paper Mill Workers
National Union of Railwaymen (several branches but especially Derby Nos 3 and 4)
National Union of Shop Assistants
National Warehousemen & General Workers
Operative Bricklayers
Operative Plumbers
Operative Stonemasons
Postal Telegraph Clerks
Pottery Workers
Prudential Assurance Agents
Railway Clerks Association
Rubber, Cable and Asbestos Workers
Steam Engine Makers
Stove and Grate Workers
Tailors Society
TGWU
Toolmakers Society
Tutbury Plaster Mineworkers
Typographical Association
United Machine Workers Association
Upholsterers Society
Woodcutting Machinists
Workers Union (several branches including Lacemakers, Women’s’ Branch, Carters, Brick makers)
In all, 42 meetings were held as part of the campaign, but unfortunately several were cancelled due to the very thing the campaign aimed to eliminate - apathy! But, apart from the new membership gained by a few unions, the campaign for all its intentions faced a formidable enemy in the despair and disillusionment that fear of unemployment brought. The role of the NUWM in stiffening the resolve of the employed in standing up for their rights, by demonstrating that the unemployed were prepared to do so, was especially important. The NUWM organised the unemployed not to break strikes, to undercut trade union negotiated wage levels and to respect trade union won rights. [193]
7 Electoral Battles 1921-5
At the 1921 local elections, anti-socialists of all kinds combined together, as in many places, into the “Municipal Association”, fielding candidates jointly under the guise of a supposedly non-political body. No doubt for many involved in the alliance, the aim was to ward off what the Derby Mercury called the “Labour attack”. While that year, in Derby, the attack was fairly successfully rebuffed by the Municipal Association device, Labour was able to console itself with the largely ceremonial position of Mayor. W R Raynes was elected Labour’s first Mayor of Derby, not the first in the county, however. William Smith had become the Mayor of Ilkeston the year previously. Raynes’ election was secured by the fact that, while the Liberals dominated the council, Labour did potentially hold the balance of power should the combined forces of Liberals, Tories and ‘independents’ ever see their shaky alliance dissolve. Thus, it made sense to placate Labour to some degree. Especially since Raynes could claim seniority and was a respected figure in the council chamber across all parties, by virtue of his dedication and competence.
One of Raynes’ first acts as Mayor was to set up a “Mayor’s Fund for the Unemployed”, which attracted immediate support, especially from trades unionists. £627 was donated within ten days and the eventual total was almost doubled. The Fund provided a Christmas dinner, a gift and a cinema or music hail visit for over 5,000 children. Over 600 pairs of boots were distributed as well. Within three years the Labour group on the Derby Town Council was able to boast of a second Labour Mayor, Allen Mycroft, a Typographical Society official. The Labour Party began to experience many a trade union official, lay and full time, begin to take on the job of a local councillor. Soon, there was not a councillor or a union that was not in some way inter-connected. Trade union relations with the party became organically very close. When the Derby Labour Party (DLP) launched its own local weekly paper, the Democrat, in 1922, this was the culmination of a project which had been mooted first in August 1919. The unions offered immediate and enthusiastic support for the Democrat. The Builders Labourers, which had never been very close to Labour Party circles, came nearer. Derby’s ABL branch had re-affiliated to the DLP in June of 1921 and Brown, their secretary, was adopted as a candidate soon afterwards for the Kingsmead ward. Months only after the union had affiliated to the party, Brown was a town councillor. Meanwhile, also reflecting this new sense of purpose, Derby’s ASLEF set up a weekly fund for “the purpose of running ... for local bodies such as the Town Council and the Board of Guardians”. [194]
The party approached the 1922 general election with high hopes. Its electoral fortunes had progressively improved from 1918 onwards and their Parliamentary leader, Ramsay MacDonald, was well respected. By now, his war time pacifism -oddly contrasting with his decidedly right wing stance - stood him in good stead. As a former leader of the ILP, even that left-leaning body favoured him. While the group of ex-Liberals, who deserted that party after the war to join Labour, naturally gravitated to his leadership. Derby was still a double member constituency and, for the first time, Labour put up two candidates for the two seats in 1922. One of them was Raynes, a natural choice given his municipal reputation. He had hoped to stand in 1918, but that had been vetoed by the party’s national executive. There had then been the suspicion that the sole Labour MP for Derby, J H Thomas, favoured an unofficial Lib-Lab situation and feared that Liberal support for him would dissolve if he had a running mate. But the local party was determined to break the Liberal connection and Raynes was thus selected to stand alongside Thomas, who did not take kindly to the decision. The outcome was a close result, the bottom and top of the poll being less than four percentage points from each other. Raynes was bottom of the poll and the two seats were divided exactly as before, one Labour and one Liberal. So Thomas had got his way, but things would never be the same again. Three party politics had arrived for good in Derby.
At Ilkeston, G H Oliver, standing for the second time, took the seat against a National Liberal and a Conservative. His share of the poll was somewhat diminished compared to the straight fight he had waged on the previous occasion, but he took a bigger, actual vote, He was to hold the seat for the next three decades, with a break of only four years out of Parliament. In North East Derbyshire, Frank Lee took the seat for Labour by only a handful of votes after a series of recounts, beating the former MP, a Liberal. In the first recount Lee had a majority of only two, in the second recount this had increased to a majority of only three! However, the third count boosted this to 201 and by the fourth he was ahead by a thousand votes. Even so, the Liberals persisted, demanding and getting a further four recounts, none of which were decisive. At the end, five ballot papers appeared to be missing, but Lee was declared elected. Holmes, the defeated Liberal, afterwards went to court, seeking a new election, but the judges eventually ruled in Frank Lee’s favour. As for the two Liberals who had been elected with miners’ support in 1918, one was not allowed to stand unchallenged by a genuine Labour candidate. This was Oliver Wright, who was selected as early as 1921 to stand for Labour, as an officially supported Derbyshire Miners Association candidate, in the Belper division against the sitting MP, Hancock, who was also a Nottinghamshire miners’ official. When Wright was adopted formally as candidate at a meeting in Belper, the Red Flag was sung for the first time at such an event. The Labour candidate’s commitment to socialism contrasted sharply with Hancock’s ambiguous position, but the sitting MP was to retain his position in Parliament on this occasion. [195]
Barnet Kenyon was the other Liberal who had miners’ support, but he shrewdly stood in Chesterfield as a “Radical”. Kenyon had been returned unopposed with Labour support in 1918 and this was the case again in 1922. Support for him as an individual was still very strong and his connections with sections of the miners gave him an important base. So much so that he was able to win the backing of the Chesterfield Co-op, which followed the lead of his key supporters in disaffiliating from the Labour Party in April 1921, on the basis that “by introducing politics into our society they were shaking the very foundation of the movement’. [196] Nonetheless, the DMA itself was increasingly dissatisfied with Kenyon. “Ours is the only mining county in the kingdom in which a Miners’ Agent is sitting in Parliament as a member of a Capitalist Party, and supporting Capitalist employers.” [197] This was a reference to the aggravating fact that he was still technically a retained official of the Derbyshire miners.
The Clay Cross division was taken by Labour with a convincing majority by the Charles Duncan, a non-mining candidate and senior official of the Workers Union. That the Liberal vote was spilt between a National Liberal and the official candidate had some effect, but on the other hand there was no Tory standing. Some thought it a minor miracle that the seat had been won with a candidate such as Duncan. He had been a Labour candidate before, but neither Keir Hardie nor Ramsay MacDonald had ever supported his candidature. MacDonald was supposed to have said that Duncan had run in 1906 as a LRC candidate in the Conservative interest and with Conservative money, since his candidature had clashed against the Lib-Lab electoral pact of 1903. [198] Whatever the case, his extreme ‘moderate’ views caused his rejection as a Labour candidate by the local Labour Party in Barrow and his subsequent defeat in the 1918 general election. Once in Parliament as the MP for Clay Cross, Duncan’s contribution was not one of great significance. He was chiefly remembered as “the best dressed man in the House of Commons”, not the best or the most inspiring of memorials to have! [199]
As for the less militant and largely rural areas of Derbyshire, there was no Labour candidate in West Derbyshire, but the party contested High Peak for the first time, a constituency which was to be a permanent preserve of the Tories. Nonetheless, in 1922 Labour pushed the Liberals to the bottom of the poll. In South Derbyshire, Sam Trueman put up a brave fight once more. The Derby Daily Telegraph openly campaigned for the Liberal, declaring the Labour man to be a revolutionary candidate. But Trueman came nowhere near the eventual victor, the Tory. Despite press support, the Liberal was pushed to the bottom of the poll. Interestingly, the turnout was significantly higher than in 1918, rising from 57% to 80%.
In 1918, Derbyshire had returned only one Labour MP, along with two Tories and no less than seven Liberals of assorted hues, National, Coalition and Independent. But in 1922 there were equal numbers of Liberal and Labour MP5, four each, to the two Tories in the county’s seats. Labour had more than showed that it was set to challenge the Liberals. However, the election settled little in parliamentary terms and the new Government soon declared another election on the issue of tariff reform, with the Labour and Liberal Parties favouring such a policy and the Tories opposing it. The election was held in 1923, with the results declared in January 1924. It was notable for the elimination of the Liberals as a serious contender for government and the appointment of Labour as a minority government - the first Labour ministry ever.
The national trend was reflected in the results in Derbyshire. Oliver Wright stood again in Belper for Labour in a three corned contest in which the Lib-Laber, Hancock, was pushed into last place. His attacks on trade union and labour leaders as “wild men”, “extremists”, “those who want another Russia” and other such choice epithets lost him much support, especially by the strident and aggressive tone in which this onslaught was carried out. The seat was actually won for the Tories by Herbert Wragg, who was to hold the seat for the next two decades, all but for three years. In Chesterfield, Barnet Kenyon was at last challenged officially by Labour. His connection with the DMA as an official was finally terminated as a result of his refusal to endorse the Labour candidate at this election. Despite this, using his strong personal following and exceptional local base, he was able to retain the seat in a three cornered contest. Duncan kept his seat at Clay Cross, despite complaints about his failure to visit the constituency even once during the period of his tenure as MP.
Derby returned two Labour MPs, for the first time, with Thomas at last being joined by Raynes in a fairly close run race against the sole Tory nominee. Significantly, the Liberal vote more than halved compared to the previous, recent election, There was also an interesting and unusual intervention of a fourth candidate, T C Newbold, who saw himself as representing the interests of ex-servicemen as an “Independent’. The day following his nomination, a meeting of the Full Street branch of the British Legion in Derby adopted Newbold as their candidate by 25 votes to 7 with 4 abstentions. Due to the shortness of time to polling day, it was claimed that other Legion branches which might have supported Newbold were unable to do so, their normal meeting dates coming after the election. There were resignations at the Full Street Legion, as some members claimed that Newbold’s adoption was unconstitutional and undemocratic. The circumstances of his candidature remain obscure, but he did admit that there were several Conservatives amongst his sponsors and it “appears probable that he had the backing of a number of Conservatives supporters in Derby who felt that their party should have contested both seats”. [200] Given the fact that electors had two votes to cast and that some traditionalists might not have wanted to back Raynes, the more left wing of the two Labour candidates, it is clear that Newbold’s candidature was designed to assist rather than harm the sole Tory. Whatever the case, his creditable 11% of the poll did not affect the outcome.
G H Oliver was returned again for Ilkeston, as was Frank Lee in North East Derbyshire. This time, Lee was well ahead of his closest rival, the Tory, with the Liberal at the bottom of the poll. In High Peak and South Derbyshire, Labour fared badly. In the latter, the lace manufacturers held a meeting at New Sawley, with some operatives declaring the Tories to be the only salvation for their industry, no doubt arising from their concern over free trade. In West Derbyshire, Labour once again failed to stand a candidate.
Nationally, the Conservatives took 257 seats, while Labour had 192 and the Liberals had 157. Thus, with Liberal support, it was possible for Ramsey MacDonald to become Labour’s first Prime Minister. J H Thomas was elevated to cabinet rank, a matter “learnt with satisfaction” by many in the NUR. [201] As the Liberals had agreed with Labour on the key election issue of tariff reform, it was not perhaps unnatural for them to propose the larger party as the new Government. Clearly, Labour could only form a ministry if the Liberals were prepared to back them. Yet, there were dangers and the relative wisdom of accepting the challenge could be a matter for debate. Labour had after all only recently formally arrived at the point of a socialist programme. An anti-socialist majority in Parliament would not make it easy for Labour to introduce radical measures and maybe this had attractions for the party’s enemies. Placed in the invidious position where Labour had office, but very little power, it was almost inevitable that disillusionment with the performance of the new Government would be great amongst its supporters, whilst those who opposed Labour would have their fears simply confirmed.
Needless of these considerations, which in any case are made strong with the benefit of hindsight, the labour movement enthusiastically celebrated the forming of the first Labour ministry. The Clarion Club in Derby gave a concert party to 130 children at the Co-op Hall, while the Labour Party invited Raynes and Thomas to a “Victory Social” at the Central Hall. [202] During its brief life of nine months, the Labour Government did not gain a reputation for any intent to radically change British society. There were major industrial disputes and the Government displayed a reaction very little different to that which would have been adopted by a Tory, Liberal or Coalition government. Moreover, preparations were made, as part of a general policy, to set up procedures to enable the Government to withstand any key strike; these would be followed assiduously by a Tory Government in 1926 to beat a solidarity General Strike with the miners.
The new “workers” Government took a distinctly aloof attitude to the grievances of workers in struggle during its lifetime, an attitude which may explain the cooling of feeling for it amongst those who ought to have been its greatest supporters. The immediate technical cause of the downfall of the Labour Government was the affair surrounding the prosecution of John Ross Campbell, editor of the Communist Party of Great Britain’s journal, Workers Weekly, on the grounds that he had published an article calling on soldiers not to fire on strikers when so ordered. Despite the fact that the Government had initially decided to proceed against Campbell, the fact that it had reconsidered was much criticised by both major opposition parties, the claim being made that undue pressure had been put on the Attorney General to drop the legal proceedings against Campbell. Both anti-socialist parties combined to force an election just at a time which would be most unfavourable to Labour.
The Tories benefited strongly during the election campaign from the so-called “Zinoviev Letter”, which purported to be a communication from the leader of the Communist International to the British Communist Party. It was supposed to prove the Soviet Union’s interference in British affairs, with Labour consigned to the role of benignly watching on. Over the years, many have believed that the letter was a forgery, created by émigré Russians with the connivance of Conservative Central Office as an election stunt designed to boost the campaign of the Tories. Document releases at the public record office now establish clearly that Stewart Menzies, a security forces operative, later to become head of Ml6, was indeed responsible at the very least for the dissemination to the Tory press of the `letter’. Menzies ordered the destruction of documents relating to his youthful activities in April 1952.
Linking the Campbell affair with the Zinoviev Letter was a stroke of brilliant proportions, for its effect was devastating. Four days before the election, the Daily Mail splashed headlines saying: `Civil War Plot by socialists’ masters; Moscow Orders to our Reds; Great Plot Disclosed’. In Belper, the Tory leader, Strutt, freely cast doubts about the political background of the Labour candidate, Jack Lees, implying without justification that he was a member of the Communist Party. Despite these dubious tactics, Labour actually gained ground at Belper in a straight fight with the former Liberal votes apparently divided evenly between Lees and the victorious Tory, Wragg. In North East Derbyshire, the Tory candidate, Bowden, called the Communists the tail that wagged the Labour dog. But this did not affect the re-election of Frank Lee, who was in for the third time and actually took very many votes from the Liberals. In South Derbyshire, Alfred Goodere, a local newsagent stood in the Labour interests and only narrowly failed to beat the Conservative. The Tories produced a leaflet accusing the mild-mannered Goodere of assisting in Labour’s plan to help the Soviet Republic paralyse the armed forces. A big effort was made by them, the Conservatives spending £1,267 in the campaign in the constituency to Labour’s £432. [203]
The out-going premier, Ramsey MacDonald, had visited Derby during the election, passing through by car and stopping for lunch at the Royal Hotel. Not that his rather detached style of campaigning seemed to have made any difference to the result in Derby. Raynes was defeated after his brief sojourn as local MP, the Tory pipping him at the post, although with the Liberal vote halved Thomas retained his seat. Barnet Kenyon, in his charismatic way, retained Chesterfield in a straight fight with Labour, the votes dividing three to two in Kenyon’s favour. In another straight fight with the Tories, Duncan took Clay Cross again quite comfortably. Oliver retained Ilkeston with an improved vote, while the Tories cut very sharply into the Liberal vote there. Labour did not bother to contest their weak areas of High Peak and West Derbyshire.
It was a mixed pattern of results, reflecting the continuing trend of electoral contests in the 1920s. More straight fights, a transformation of some industrial districts into Labour strongholds, a polarisation of the vote which tended to crush Liberal strength where Labour seemed in danger of not winning. Nationally, the Tories benefited most from all this. Not only had they the stunning propaganda effect of the Campbell affair and the Zinoviev Letter, but they had also jettisoned the unpopular and controversial policy of tariff reform. The party took the astonishingly large number of 413 seats, while Labour had 151, a similar number to that previously held. The Liberal Party in Parliament was but a shadow of its former self, having a mere 40 seats. It was the main loser of the whole campaign and the character of British politics for many decades to come was thus set.
The Labour Party in Derby had regained much of its membership strength, after suffering from the recession in a similar way to the trade unions. In 1922, membership had plummeted to the position it had been just after the war, but it began to improve almost immediately. The ILP maintained its sceptical separatism within the overall Labour Party set up, although one veteran of the time has argued that the “ILP ran the Labour Party”, perhaps an exaggeration but, certainly, some of the party’s key activists were ILPers. [204] ILP membership affiliated to the DLP rose from 120 in 1922 to 180 in 1927 and the detailed figures show how dominant affiliated membership was, compared to individual membership.
Year* DLP DLP
individual membership affiliated membership
1918 750 7,634
1919 1,877 14,244
1920 2,395 24,719
1921 1,579 21,754
1922 783 18,039
1923 1,088 16,692
1924 1,597 18,589
1925 1,815 20,358
1926 1,777 19,719
(* Figures cover the periods from March to March from the previous year to the year stated, the year of the annually published report of the Derby Labour Party.)
Throughout the 1920s, the reluctance of ordinary people to contemplate war, having had the experience of the carnage of 1914-18 so recently, fuelled the desire of the labour movement to campaign around questions of peace. For example, the DTC in September 1922 was concerned over Government policy in the “Near East’, or North Africa. Whilst in February of the following year, the council was disturbed at the situation concerning French action in the occupied Ruhr area of Germany, declaring that “no assistance (ought) to be given by this country in their (i.e. the French) attempts to cause another war”. [205] Towards the end of 1924 the ILP, the Labour Party, the Co-operative Party and the Derby Trades Council all came together to organise a “No More War” demonstration. [206] Also, when the newly elected Conservative Government embarked upon imperial ventures in China, utilising British troops, organised labour was determined in its opposition. [207]
The vicious election campaign of 1924 revealed not only a polarisation of politics, but also a new trend in right wing thinking. The revolutionary tide which had swept Europe in the aftermath of the war and the Russian revolution had been averted in Italy by the adoption of a strong conservative state. Mussolini’s Fascists (or ‘Fascisti’, to use the Italian name widely utilised in Britain itself at this time) attracted much interest. A Fascist movement grew in Britain itself, as the established politics of consensus seemed to fail. The “British Fascisti” established a branch in Derby in the middle of 1924. Brigadier General E Pearce-Sercold, one of the executive heads at British Celanese, was the first commander of the local group, which claimed 150 members in the county. They described their aims to be to “support Christianity, the King and the British Empire”. Pearce-Sercold used his position to win young recruits at British Celanese, where a small Fascist cell was established. To most right wing Conservatives there seemed to be a great attraction in the basic tenets of Fascism, especially its violent anti-communism. [208]
It was an ominous development, presaging the tragedy of mass war and genocide only a decade and a half away. Yet for all the concern of the working class movement that war be avoided, the DLP was preoccupied with carnival like activities, exemplified by the first ‘outing’ organised in the summer of 1925, when 22 charabancs assembled in the Market Place preparatory to setting off to Monsal Head. [209] Labour’s parliamentary leaders had tasted nine months of government, a delight to any serious orthodox politician. This seemed to have been snatched away from them due to the radicalism, in both the political and industrial spheres, of the 1919-23 period. The identification of Labour with Russia by the increasingly powerful daily popular press was strengthened by the Campbell and Zinoviev Letter affairs. The leadership reasoned that the defeat of 1924 was the result of the fear of the winnable centre ground of the electorate that a vote for Labour was a vote for red revolution. If this was so, then the answer to future electoral popularity must lie in projecting a more ‘safe’, more conservative political line.
The presence of Communists within the Labour Party was argued to be an electoral handicap, although where individual members of the Communist Party stood as official Labour candidates this did not prove to be the case. For some time before the election of the first Labour Government, hostility to the Communist Party within certain sections of the Labour Party had increased. This was especially so in Derby, where the labour movement was led in the main by the right wing. The chairman of the Derby branch of the Communist Party was refused access to the platform at the annual May Day rally at the Market Place in 1923 by Councillor A Slaney, who was chairing. This action was considered to be a “significant rebuke” by the Derby Mercury. In complete harmony with this approach was the tenor of J H Thomas’ speech, the main one of course. This was marked by the determination to achieve what Thomas called “industrial peace” at all costs between capital and labour. [210]
Administrative difficulties had been placed in the way of Communist-Labour candidates. So as to resolve the problem, the Communist Party applied formally for affiliation to the Labour Party as a socialist society, reasoning that its main constituent organisation - the BSP - had been affiliated and there should therefore be no obstacle placed in the way of its direct heir to the same relationship. The argument over this raged, as the 1925 conference of the Labour Party approached. In Derby, a crowded meeting of 100 delegates attended the half-yearly conference of the local DLP, to decide by a large majority to oppose affiliation of the Communist Party. The minority argued that the Communists gave strength to the movement, that solidarity and unity were needed. Others were suspicious and believed that only the electoral success of the Labour Party could benefit the working class and that might be jeopardised by affiliation. Significantly, the DLP’s delegates to the annual conference were given a free hand on all matters other than this question. John Cobb and Mrs Clarke, the two delegates, were mandated to vote against affiliation. [211]
One month later, the opposing view was put with considerable force and authority in the town when Josiah Wedgwood, Labour member for Newcastle-under-Lyme and a former cabinet minister, spoke at Derby’s Central Hall. His local Labour Party had mandated him to vote for the Communists to remain within the party. Opposition to affiliation was effectively tantamount to voting for expulsion of those Communists involved in local Labour parties and the banning of delegates who held Communist Party membership from attending party conferences on behalf of trade unions. Wedgwood argued that he for one did not want the Labour Party to “lose the rebel spirit by being too goody-goody”, a line received with considerable applause at the packed meeting. He would rather have “the Communists inside than outside”. While he personally did not support the general line of the Communists’ strategy, Wedgwood was afraid that Labour might become a “social reform movement instead of a socialistic one”. [212]
Despite the significant, but perhaps minority, views such as this which were expressed quite strongly inside the Labour Party, the annual conference voted marginally to reject the affiliation of the Communist Party. This act was an important symbolic step away from the militant years. Yet, whilst Labour turned right, at the Scarborough conference of the TUC, the unions took a determined stance decidedly to the left. The scene was thus set for the fateful events of the 1926 General Strike. The unions would remain a key target for destabilisation by the establishment. As for the Labour Party, while the right most definitely held the reins of power within the party, the heart and soul still lingered in the left wing camp. Arguments and controversy over the direction the Labour Party should take would grow. One of the leaders of the left at this time would show just how volatile politics can be. The young Oswald Mosley was an extremely charismatic person and his particular branch of criticism of the cautious approach of the parliamentary leadership caught the imagination of many. In Parliament, he was an MP who adopted a most dashing style of oratory and action. They were qualities which would serve him well in the next decade as leader of Britain’s Fascists.
Mosley had local connections by marriage to the aristocratic Curzon family and his own father was a major landowner in the area. He and his wife were regular visitors to Derbyshire labour movement events. His radicalism and personality were an attraction. Mosley addressed a meeting called by the ILP in October 1925, at which he argued the case for nationalisation of the banks and a generally radical social and economic programme of reform. [213]
The General Strike was to be the ultimate confrontation between the coal owners and the miners, a test of strength which would determine the course of the next few decades. The strike was to prove to be a defeat in more than one way, but before defeat came stunning success. In 1925, the TUC offered positive support to the miners, threatening to embargo all movement of coal when the owners had threatened a lock out which aimed to roll back any gains made in the previous decade. The owners and the Government were unprepared for such a confrontation, backing off completely but temporarily. A subsidy was provided which would allow the lock out notices to be withdrawn. The announcement came as a vindication of the movement, more than making up for the unsavoury events of Black Friday. The victory was hailed as Red Friday. But it was short lived, since another Royal Commission was set up to review the situation in the coal industry. The subsidy was only limited and, as it ran out, the Commission reported in favour of the employers’ demands. The TUC joined in with the parliamentary leadership of the Labour Party in desperate efforts to avert a dispute. But the Tory Government had deliberately planned revenge and aimed once and for all to silence the militancy of the miners. The experience of 1926 and the run up to it would mark the end of any possibility for the road. In 1919, many in the working class had genuinely debated the question of revolution or reform. By the end of the General Strike the answer had been provided.
CHAPTER NINE REFERENCES
1 “The Labour Party Constitution and Standing Orders” The Labour Party (1980)
2 ed Asa Briggs and John Saville “Essays in Labour History 1918-39” Vol 3 Croom Helm (1977) p100
3 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes November 16th 1918
4 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes December 4th 1918
5 Derby Mercury October 25th 1918
6 Derby Mercury March 22nd, July 26th 1918; G Kingscott “Long Eaton Co-operative Society Ltd - A Centenary History 1868-1968” LECS (1968) p112; John Beadle “346,159 - the story of the 14 General Election Campaigns Fought in South Derbyshire between 1918 and 1966 (1968) pp3-6
7 Derby Mercury January 3rd 1919
8 Derby Mercury March 7th 1919
9 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes June 14th 1919
10 Derbyshire Times August 9th 1919
11 Derby Trades Council Minutes June 13th 1917 and February 12th 1919
12 Derby Trades Council Minutes January 8th 1919
13 Derby Mercury May 9th 1919
14 W R Raynes unpublished memoirs p71
15 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes June 14th 1919
16 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes September 10th 1919
17 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes October 8th 1919
18 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes November 12th, December 13th 1919
19 Staveley ASLEF Minutes January 20th 1920
20 Derby ASLEF Minutes June 13th 1920
21 Derby Trades Council Minutes August 11th 1920
22 Derby Mercury August 20th 1920;Derby ASLEF Minutes August 15th 1920, September 12th 1920
23 Derby Trades Council Minutes October 8th 1919
24 ABL Minutes November 27th 1919
25 Rowsley NUR Minutes December 28th 1919
26 Derby Mercury October 31st 1919
27 Derby Mercury December 12th 1919
28 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes December 20th 1919
29 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes February 21st 1920
30 Derby Mercury April 30th 1920
31 Derby Mercury May 21st 1920
32 P S Bagwell “The Railwaymen - the history of the NUR” Allen and Unwin (1982) Vol 2 p74; L Clay - conversations with the author
33 Derby Mercury May 21st 1920, June 8th 1923
34 Derby Master Printers Association Minutes March 24th 1919, DMPA letter reproduced in the minutes August 18th 1919, December 6th (letter) and August 26th 1919 (minutes)
35 J E Williams ‘The Derbyshire Miners” Allen and Unwin (1962) p583;H M Parker and L M Willies “Peakland Lead Mines and Miners” Moorland Publishing (1979) no page numbers - note to plate concerning Hillcar Sough
36 Derby ASLEF Minutes December 1st 1918, January 12th 1919; Rowsley NUR Minutes January 26th 1919
37 Derby Mercury December 24th 1920
38 Rowsley NUR Minutes June 29th 1919
39 Derby ASLEF Minutes September 29th, October 1st, October 3rd 1919
40 Derby Mercury October 3rd 1919
41 Derby Daily Telegraph September 29th 1919
42 Derby Trades Council Minutes October 8th 1919
43 Derby Daily Telegraph September 29th 1919
44 ABL Minutes October 17th 1919
45 Derby ASLEF Minutes December 14th 1919, March 14th 1920
46 Derby ASLEF Minutes May 9th 1920
47 Rowsley NUR Minutes July 27th 1919, August 28th 1921, June 5th 1922; Derby ASLEF Minutes August 28th 1921
48 Derby Mercury January 24th 1919
49 Derby Mercury April 16th 1920
50 Derby Trades Council Minutes June 13th 1919
51 Derby Mercury October 11th 1918
52 A V Sellwood “Police Strike -1919” W H Allen (1978) pp56-7
53 Derby Mercury November 28th 1919
54 New Dawn (NUDAW journal) March 5h 1921
55 W L Unsworth “75 Years of Co-operation in Derby 18S0-192S” DCS (1927)
p218-9; G Kingscott “Long Eaton Co-operative Society - a Centenary History 1868-1968” LECS (1968) pp112-113
56 New Dawn July 1921
57 Derby Mercury June 15th 1923
58 Derby Mercury October 12th 1923
59 G Kingscott “Long Eaton Co-operative Society - a Centenary History 1868-1968” LECS (1968) p111
60 Derby Trades Council Minutes July 9th 1924
61 ABL Minutes for the years stated
62 ABL Minutes October 17th 1918
63 ABL Minutes January 1st 1920
64 ABL Minutes September 20th 1920
65 ABL Minutes March 29th, June 28th 1916
66 ABL Minutes May 13th, May 27th 1920
67 ABL Minutes July 5th 1920
68 ABL Minutes April 5th 1921
69 R W Postgate “The Builders History” NFBTO (1923) Appendix 1
70 ABL Minutes April 23rd 1918
71 ABL Minutes July 13th 1920
72 R Gurnham “200 Years - history of the trade movement in Hosiery and Knitwear Industry 1776 1976” NUHKW (1976) p75
73 English Sewing Cotton original poster 1919
74 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes September 6th 1919
75 Derby Mercury November 28th 1919
76 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes July 12th 1919
77 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes March 9th 1918
78 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes February 8th 1919, September 6th 1919
79 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes January 20th 1920
80 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes April 17th 1920
81 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes August 9th 1919
82 Derby Trades Council Minutes November 15th 1919
83 Workers Union Annual Reports 1914, 1920
84 Derby Mercury December 24th 1920
85 Rowsley NUR Minutes February 19th 1920
86 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes August 9th 1919
87 Derby Mercury April 16th 1920, May 9th 1924; R Groves “Sharpen the Sickle” Merlin Press (1981) p253
88 Derby Mercury October 1st 1920; Clarence Daniel “The Plague Village - a history of Eyam” W Warrington & Sons, Tideswell (1938) p58
89 NASOHSPD New Mills Branch Minutes March 29th 1915
90 NASOHSPD New Mills Branch Minutes June 2nd 1919
91 NASOHSPD New Mills Branch Minutes June 30th 1919
92 NASOHSPD New Mills Branch Minutes April 19th 1920
93 NASOHSPD New Mills Branch Minutes April 4th 1921
94 NASOHSPD New Mills Branch Minutes April 25th 1921
95 Rowsley NUR Branch Minutes March 30th 1924; J E Mortimer “History of the AESD” DATA (1960) p46
96 Derby Mercury December 14th 1923
97 Derby Mercury March 17th 1922
98 Charles Doherty “Steel and Steel Workers - the Sons of Vulcan” Heinemann Educational (1983) p62
99 Derby Mercury April 30th 1920
100 Ilkeston Borough Minutes 1919-1920
101 Derby Mercury May 6th 1921
102 Derby Mercury October 22nd 1920
103 Derby Trades Council Minutes April 14th 1920
104 Derby Mercury December 24th 1920
105 Derby ASLEF Minutes February 13th 1921, February 20th 1921
106 Derby Trades Council Minutes February 8th 1922
107 G D H Cole “A Short History of the British Working Class Movement 1789-1947” Allen and Unwin (1948) p469
108 Derby Mercury March 14th 1919
109 W R Raynes unpublished memoirs p120
110 Derby Mercury October 15th 1920
111 Derby Mercury July 20th 1920
112 Official Report of the Communist Unity Convention - London July 31st to August 1st 1920 Facsimile Reproduction - CPGB (June 1968)
113 John Mahon “Harry Pollitt” Lawrence and Wishart (1976) p35; James Klugmann “History of the Communist Party of Great Britain 1919-24” Vol I Lawrence and Wishart (1968) p361; Information supplied by Fred Westacott, CPGB East Midlands District Secretary.
114 Derby Mercury March 27th 1920
115 W L Unsworth 75 Years of Co-operation in Derby 1850-1925” DCS (1927) pp 177-8,180,183; Derby Monthly Record (DCS) January 1923, June 1923; G Kingscott “Long Eaton Co-operative Society - a Centenary History 1868-1968” LECS (1968) pp112-113; Derby Mercury May 7th 1920; DCS Derby Monthly Record October 1916
116 Derby Trades Council Minutes January 12th 1921
117 J Hinton and R Hyman “Trades Unions and Revolution” Pluto Press (1975) ppl4-15, quoting A Gleason “What the Worker Wants” (1920)
118 G D H Cole “A Short History of the British Working Class Movement 1789-1947” Allen and Unwin (1948) p469
119 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes November 13th 1920
120 Derby Mercury December 24th 1920
121 Derby Mercury October 8th, November 26th 1920
122 Norman H Cuthbert “The Lacemakers Society” The Society (1960) p131
123 Derby Mercury September 23rd 1921
124 Derby Mercury May 9th 1924
125 Derby Trades Council Minutes July 9th, December 10th 1924
126 R Gurnham “200 Years -history of the trade movement in Hosiery and Knitwear Industry 1776 1976” NUHKW (1976) p92, p96
127 R Gurnham “200 Years - history of the trade movement in Hosiery and Knitwear Industry 1776 1976” NUHKW (1976) p117
128 R Gurnham “200 Years -history of the trade movement in Hosiery and Knitwear Industry 1776 1976” NUHKW (1976) pplOl-3
129 Derby Mercury March 18th 1921
130 R Gurnham “200 Years - history of the trade movement in Hosiery and Knitwear Industry 1776 1976” NUHKW (1976) p108; Ministry of Labour Gazette 1924
131 Derby Mercury January 7th 1921
132 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes December 10th 1921, April 8th 1922
133 Derby Mercury February 17th 1922
134 Derby Mercury April 11th 1924
135 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes - various dates
136 Workers Union Railway Workshops Branch Minutes and papers of H A Hind
137 Workers Union Derby District Committee Minutes September 19th 1925
138 Workers Union Membership Card 1921
139 Workers Union National Reports for years stated
140 G Kingscott “Long Eaton Co-operative Society - a Centenary History 1868-1968” LECS (1968) ppll2-113; Rowsley NUR Minutes April 3rd, April 12th 1921
141 Derby ASLEF April 10th 1921
142 Derby Mercury April 15th 1921
143 Derby Mercury April 22nd 1921
144 Derby Mercury April 10th 1921
145 Rowsley NUR Minutes July 24th 1921, undated minute between May 1st and May 15th 1921
146 Staveley ASLEF June 26th 1921,
147 Derby Mercury April 29th 1921
148 Derbyshire Times May 7th 1921
149 R H Mottram and C Coote “Through Five Generations - a history of the Butterley Company” Faber and Faber (1950) p145
150 B J Hunt “The West Hallam Heritage” Moorley’s, Ilkeston (1978) p51
151 Derbyshire Times July 2nd 1921
152 Derbyshire Times October 7th 1922
153 Derby Mercury January 13th 1922
154 J E Williams ‘The Derbyshire Miners- a study in industrial and social history” Allen and Unwin (1962) p610
155 Derbyshire Times December 24th 1921, January 7th 1922, January 14th 1922, January 28th 1922
156 ABL Minutes April 1st, July 17th, August 5th 1921
157 ABL Minutes July 11th 1917, June 20th 1921, November 12th 1920, June 30th 1921, August 5th 1921
158 ABL Minutes January 4th, January 5th, March 9th, March 30th, April 14th, April 22nd, October 10th 1922, April 5th, April 24th, July 5th, October 4th 1923
159 ABL Minutes April 5th, June 30th, August 5th 1921
160 ABL Minutes March 13th, July 5th 1923
161 NASOHSPD New Mills Branch Minutes December 23rd 1921, May 1st 1922, May 4th 1923, June 11th, June 23rd 1924, April 27th 1925
162 Derby Mercury March 4th 1921
163 ASWM Monthly Report May 1925
164 NUVB Quarterly Reports 192S
165 NUVB Quarterly Reports for the years stated
166 NUVB Quarterly Reports July 1923
167 NUVB “A Short History of the NUVB - 1834-1959” p25
168 Derby Mercury April 18th 1924
169 Derby Mercury September 11th 192S
170 ed H B Lees-Smith “The Encyclopaedia of the Labour Movement” Vol II Caxton Publishing (1928) p83-5
171 Rowsley NUR Minutes October 30th 1921
172 Rowsley NUR Minutes December 28th 1924
173 PS Bagwell “The Railwaymen - the history of the NUR” Vol I NUR (1963) p433
174 Derby Mercury April 20th 1923
175 Derby Mercury December 21st 1923
176 Derby ASLEF Minutes January 13th, January 20th, December 7th 1924
177 Derby ASLEF Minutes April 12th 192S
178 Staveley ASLEF April 29th 1923
179 Derby Mercury September 27th 1925
180 Derby Mercury April 5th 1925
181 Derby Mercury May 6th 1921
182 Derby Mercury May 13th 1921
183 Derby Mercury October 14th 1921
184 Derby Mercury September 9th 1921
185 Derby Mercury September 16th 1921
186 Derby Mercury January 27th 1922
187 ABL Minutes March 9th 1922
188 P Kingsford “The Hunger Marchers 1920-40” Lawrence and Wishart (1982) pp 39-40
189 P Kingsford ‘The Hunger Marchers 1920-40” Lawrence and Wishart (1982) p46, p61
190 A Tuckett “The Blacksmith’s History” Lawrence and Wishart (1974) p200
191 Derby Mercury May 4th 1923
192 Derby Mercury September 11th 1924
193 J Hinton and R Hyman “Trades Unions and Revolution” Pluto Press (1975) p25’ Derby Trades Council Minutes July 11th 1917, February 14th 1918, December 13th 1922, January 10th 1923, March 9th 1923, December 10th 1924
194 ABL Minutes May 10th 1922; Derby ASLEF September 14th 1919
195 Derbyshire Times November 4th 1922
196 Derbyshire Times April 16th 1921
197 J E Williams “The Derbyshire Miners - a study in industrial and social history” Allen and Unwin (1962) p816
198 J E Williams “The Derbyshire Miners - a study in industrial and social history” Allen and Unwin (1962) p816
199 J Hinton and R Hyman “Trades Unions and Revolution” Pluto Press (1975) pl55
200 F W S Craig “British Elections 191 8-49” Parliamentary Research Service -
Chichester (1983) p125
201 Rowsley NUR Minutes January 27th 1924
202 Derby Mercury January 4th 1924
203 John Beadle “346,159 - the story of the 14 General Election Campaigns Fought in South Derbyshire between 1918 and 1966” privately published (1968) p12
204 Les Clay - conversations with the author
205 Derby Trade Council Minutes September 13th 1922
206 Derby Trades Council Minutes September 10th 1924; Derby Mercury September 26th 1924
207 Derby Mercury June 3rd 1925
208 Derby Mercury November 14th 1924, July 2nd 1926
209 Derby Mercury July 24th 1925
210 Derby Mercury May 11th 1923
211 Derby MercurySeptember 25th 1925
212 Derby Mercury October 23rd 192S
213 Derby Mercury October 16th 1925
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHAPTER 10
“NO SIGNS OF WEAKENING” –
THE GENERAL STRIKE OF 1926 IN DERBYSHIRE
“There were no signs of weakening. On the other hand more workers were coming out and joining the strike.” [1] Report of the Derby Trades Council on May 12th 1926 at the end of the General Strike.
1 “Class fear’ or “magnificent generation”? - the stage is set
2 “Hamlet without the Prince” - the strike in Derbyshire at the beginning
3 From “soakie to a “gold mounted fountain pen” - the miners battle on
4 “The miners could have won a wage reduction without Thomas’ help - by way of an epilogue
5 Appendix - Calendar of key events: April to May 1926
6 Chapter 10 References
1 “Class fear” or “magnificent generation”? - the stage is set
The 1914-18 war had solved nothing and had yet created the potential for much economic and political instability. Industrialists very much preferred a continuation of the wartime boom, while financiers and bankers looked to a return to pre-war fiscal certainty generally, and the Gold Standard in particular. In the end, these incompatible aims would continue to be reflected in a conflict between industrial and finance capital. The miners had achieved much in a decade of strong bargaining, an eight-hour day, a minimum wage and the establishment of a national basis for negotiations. The defeat of Black Friday in 1921 had been, however, the start of a reversal of these advances. This trend would culminate in the General Strike, having serious consequences not only for the miners but also for the working class generally.
As the post-war boom began to ease off, the demand for British coal overseas diminished. The central coalfields of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire chiefly supplied the home market and were thus not as badly affected as elsewhere. Even so, in these areas miners’ wages fell rapidly with the slump in demand for coal. An index of real wages per shift for 1922 has shown that in real terms wages were only 86% of the level attained in 1914. [2] The strategy of the Tory Government, elected in 1924 with Baldwin as Prime Minister, was to revive the old pre-war, imperial economy and the workers would pay the cost of doing it. Churchill, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, thus masterminded the return to the Gold Standard, which immediately and drastically affected those industries reliant on export orders by making their goods dearer. By the middle of 1925, coal exports had declined dramatically, causing a crisis. To preserve profits, on July 1st, the owners declared a return to the 1921 level of wages. At the same time, the much fought for national minimum wage was withdrawn, so that there could be no limit to wage reductions in the future. The immediate effect in Derbyshire was the reduction of day wages of coalface workers to 11/- a shift, a cut of 8s 14d. [3] Elsewhere, cuts double or even treble that were sought.
The Prime Minister called upon the miners to help him meet “the difficult situation with which the industry is confronted”, declaring, “all the workers of this country have got to take reductions in wages to put industry on its feet”. [4] Despite the familiarity of such an appeal, the miners would have none of it and declared their readiness to act. Fortunately, the entire trade union movement seemed behind them. Faced with the difficulties this would produce, an emergency Cabinet meeting was called in the early hours of Friday 31st July 1925. After this hurried consideration, it was announced that a subsidy would be granted but only for nine months so that a complete inquiry into the industry could be made. This would be known as the Samuel Commission, after its chairman, Sir Herbert Samuel - a Liberal. Only days before, such a prospect had been totally ruled out, now the masters withdrew their lock out threatened unless the men accepted the new conditions.
The day was to be immortalised as ‘Red Friday’; it seemed that the movement had redeemed itself and it was more than compensation for the debacle of ‘Black Friday’, four years earlier. The TUC had acted decisively and militantly, so much so that the Cabinet had been instantly recalled. Derby’s Councillor Brown, of the Builders’ Labourers, attended a special recall TUC to review the events of Red Friday. On hearing the fulsome praise of the leadership in his report back at its August 1925 meeting, the local Trades Council sent a telegram to the TUC and the MFGB expressing Derby’s congratulations. Contrasting sharply with this was the Trades Council’s forthright condemnation of the Government’s approach to the coal negotiations. [5] Victory though it was, Baldwin was in reality no more than stepping back in a shrewd tactical move. The subsidy was simply conceded to enable the preparation of an effective resistance to a repeat of Red Friday. In the meantime, much of the trade union movement turned to the left. Fred Bramley the TUC’s Secretary in 1925, reported that its recent delegation to the Soviet Union had concluded that the October 1917 Revolution had given expression “to the resolutions we have passed at TUCs for many years”.
The Vehicle Builders moved a resolution at the TUC, calling for a militant approach to what they recognised as an inevitable and impending conflict. They called for the General Council to be given the power to levy all unions, to call for a stoppage of part or the whole of the TUC and to liaise with the Co-ops to ensure the plentiful provisions of food supplies. The big wheels of the TUC - Thomas, Bevin and others - were against the motion. J R Clynes of the General and Municipal Workers Union, made the view of the right wing entirely clear. “I do not fear on this subject to throw such weight as I have on the side of caution. I am not in fear of the capitalist class. The only class I fear is our own.” He proposed that the NUVB resolution be withdrawn in favour of putting “Our trust in our leaders”. [6] By an alliance of the fearful right and the cautious centre, a compromise resolution was passed referring the NUVB call to the General Council, which had to later report to a special conference of the executives of all the unions. The conscience of the movement was thus salved, but the power was firmly placed in the hands of the General Council. Strategically, it was a fateful mistake.
While the TUC leadership were determined to avoid preparations at all costs, the establishment was out to face the coming battle head on. There was no doubt in the minds of the coal owners and the Government that Red Friday had delayed the inevitable showdown of a General Strike and that “public opinion would have to be educated into a state of preparedness to accept the consequences”. [7] On September 25th 1925, the press announced the formation of the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies (OMS). The aims of this body were quite clearly defined from the beginning that, in view of the “movement to promote a general strike”, the OMS bodies had been concentrated “in many metropolitan boroughs and in all principal centres of the Kingdom”. This was a clear declaration of intent to smash the forthcoming defensive General Strike. [8] More sinister was the fact that, while the formal leadership of the OMS was rooted in the establishment, the growing fascist movement made a conscious decision to give support to the British State via this organisation. The President and Vice President of the British fascist movement assumed prominent positions in the OMS. The coal owners, for their part, relished the prospect of the battle to come. Charles Markham told the Chesterfield Rotary Club on the 26th September that he did not believe that “this trouble is going to finish without bloodshed”. Asked after the strike whether he realised that miners were in prison for saying less than that, he unconcernedly replied, ‘Oh, yes.” [9]
If the establishment knew what it was doing, the labour movement did not. Hardly any protests were raised against the creation of the OMS. The Daily Herald simply believed it to be an insult to Baldwin. There was a failure to understand that the OMS, the State and the Government were as one. Only the left wing, through the United Front style paper the Sunday Worker and Communist Party, were decisive and clear about the role of the OMS. The Communist Party’s Workers Weekly viewed the organisation as the “most complete scheme of organised blacklegging and strike breaking yet devised, and it is the most advanced form of Fascism yet reached in this country~’. [10] Leading theoretician of the Communist Party, Rajani Palme Dutt, worried that the settlement of Red Friday was only a truce. “The government has made it clear that it regards the present strategic retreat as only a preparation for a decisive conflict in the future.” No one could have seriously suggested any other interpretation of events. Derby ASLEF noted that the reprieve was “only a pause in the fight between the workers and the capitalist class”. Referring to Baldwin’s statement that all workers would have to accept wage cuts, the union branch called for the consolidation of “our forces for the strenuous fight that has to got to come and when the next attack on the workers takes place this branch suggests that our EC propose to the TUC General Council that they call a general stoppage”. Evidence, therefore of some understanding of the impending struggle at the grass roots and that there was a popular feeling for action in defence of the miners and all workers. [11] Throughout 1925, the Workers Weekly carried a box giving the diminishing countdown of the weeks of subsidy left; so many weeks left to prepare for the struggle. Yet the General Council dallied, refusing to prepare right up to the eve of the strike, which was inevitably to follow the end of subsidy. Pressure was repeatedly exerted on the miners’ leaders to accept the new deteriorated conditions. Nothing practical was done, there seemed to be a deliberate policy of averting strike action at all costs. Bevin was to confirm this at the post-mortem conference of joint union executive committees in January 1927: “with regard to preparations for the strike, there were no preparations until April 27th, and I do not want anyone to go away from this conference under the impression that the General Council had any particular plan to run this movement”.
Contrasting with the general militant mood of the 1925 TUC, Labour’s conference that year in Liverpool was seen by some critics as “the signal to the Government to intensify its anti-working class drive”. [12] The conference implicitly invited the Government to launch an offensive against the Communist Party, which would only serve to intimidate the entire left. On October 12th 1925, twelve key national figures of the Communist Party were arrested and subsequently sentenced to terms of six and twelve month’s imprisonment. Protests came flooding in from trade union bodies, especially the miners who foresaw the general intent. Seventy Labour MPs joined the protest and some 300,000 signatures were collected on a petition presented to the parliament by Saklatvala, the Communist MP, in February 1926.
In December 1925 Oswald Mosley, then a leading left wing Labour MP, visited Derbyshire. He had considerable local family connections, especially after the death of his father, Sir Oswald Mosley (Bart) of Hilton Lodge, Derbyshire in 1929. It was revealed that the son had been left out of the will because of his then left-wing views, two years later he had become Britain’s fascist leader. “Comrade Mosley and Lady Cynthia”, his wife, both spoke at the Spondon branch of the Labour Party in 1925. There, they condemned the imprisonment of the twelve Communists. Somewhat ironically, considering Mosley’s later political shift, he unfavourably compared the “prosecution of the Communists and the action of the public prosecutor in withdrawing charges against Fascist young men”. The latter had criminally hijacked a lorry load of Daily Heralds, whereas the twelve Communists had “been sentenced not for doing anything violent, but for expressing their opinion”. [13]
It was this theme of free speech that helped the campaign win such widespread support as it did. In January 1926, Derby’s Labour Party protested at the double standards in imprisoning the twelve COMMUNIST PARTY members, but releasing the “fascists who were responsible for the outrage on the Daily Herald”. [14] Similarly, the month before, Derby Trades Council on the proposition of Reader and Rolley, decided that it “renders its most emphatic protest. This prosecution is contrary to the right of free speech and demands that these working men should be immediately released.” [15] But it had more to do with minimising the power of the militants in the labour movement to act, than with restricting free speech. Despite its tiny size, the Communist Party was able to exert effective leadership that contrasted sharply with the inactivity of the General Council.
In the meantime, the Samuel Commission was meeting. Chaired by Sir Herbert Samuel, the body also consisted of General Lawrence (who was also a banker as well as a military man), Kenneth Lee (chairman of Tootal Cotton Company) and Sir William Beveridge of the London School of Economics. There were no miners, trade unionists or workers’ representatives. Meeting to receive evidence from October to January, the Commission reported in March 1926 when it opposed nationalisation, along with the eight-hour day. Although national agreements and nationalisation of royalties in the future were also vaguely recommended by the Commission. The only immediate and concrete proposal was for 13.5% pay cut A J Cook, the miners leader who was also a member of the minority Marxist trend of the ILP, voiced the reason for their outright rejection; they demanded the slogan of: “Not a penny off the pay, not a second on the day”. [161 Against this was the intransigence of the owners. Samuel offered no way out other than conflict, as the nine months subsidy ran out. Anticipating a re-run of 1925, the COMMUNIST PARTY launched a campaign in March for unity between the Triple Alliance and the metal unions. The Party warned of the employers’ general plan to “tie the workers up in a number of enquiries which will begin and terminate at different times and so make united action difficult”. The coal owners threatened a lock out in May and the miners responded by giving notice of a strike. The battle lines were thus drawn. [17]
The necessity of a continuation of the subsidy or some similar solution was clear to the coal miners. Their job was still desperately difficult and dangerous. Youngsters still started their long hard life in the pits at the age of fourteen. Accidents were frequent and horrendous; a miner was killed on average every five hours while, every day, 850 suffered injuries causing more than a week off work. Earnings varied from as little as 8/- a day. Wages had lagged far behind price increases. Yet, despite the coal owners’ pleas of poverty, considerable profits had been made over the previous decade; a total of £261.1 million since 1913, or an average of well over £20 million per annum. A loss was recorded only in one single year - 1922 - and then of only £1.8 million. As well as the profit, considerable royalties were paid to wealthy landowners for the privilege of allowing mining underneath their land. Nobility, such as the Marquis of Bute, Lord Tredegar, the Duke of Hamilton and others, including the Church of England, took vast sums ranging from £80,000 to over a third of a million pounds a year. All of which ate into the profits of the coal owners, who in turn determined that the men would pay for it. [18]
While the coal industry faced enormous difficulties due to the rapacious demands of the owners, hopes of a revival in industry generally were very strong as the 1926 New Year passed. “TRADE OPTIMISM”, read a headline in the Derby Mercury. J A Aiton’s engineering firm was “quite happy regarding the future” and reported a general tendency “towards a more stable condition akin to a pre-war state of affairs”. The large printing firm of Bemrose looked forward to “great things”. British Celanese hoped for a ‘steady trade” in 1926, Brown’s Foundry “continued improvement”, Derwent Foundry for ‘big things”, while English Sewing Cotton Ltd hoped only for ‘fair conditions”. Handyside’s expected “new orders”, Haslam’s Foundry had “a good deal to be thankful for” and Ley’s Malleable hoped for ‘improvement”. Boden’s believed that the new year would be less “unfavourable than 1925”. [19] Everywhere, there was a sense of upturn coming; but if that was so, would industry be back to the revolutionary years of 1919-20? If so, it was absolutely vital to the employer class to arrange a showdown with the unions, so that workers could be kept at bay during the revival in trade. The miners were in the front line of potential conflict and they knew it. Hurriedly, they tried to prepare and alert the labour movement.
Les Clay, then a young man active in the ILP, recalled in later years how, on one of Cook’s visits to Derby in this period, the Grand Theatre was hired for £25. To advertise the meeting, six ILPers “walked around the centre of Derby on the Saturday afternoon wearing sandwich boards and black masks”. A J Cook spoke in a determined way: “We shall be ready in May - prepared to meet the attack on wages better than we were in July” (i.e. Red Friday). Spurning the idea that Thomas might yet ditch the Triple Alliance, Cook believed that the ‘Railwaymen ought to control Thomas”. The audience was doubtful about it all, but Cook made his position clear. “No one man, neither Cook, nor Thomas can control a Union. I am the miners’ servant, and every official ought to express and represent the views of the rank and file or get out. The NUR will come into the Alliance in spite of themselves.” [20]
But, if the miners were ready, their hope that other unions were equally prepared was misplaced. In Derbyshire, the key local officials were noted for their moderation. R E Stokes of the Workers Union was particularly prominent in this regard. “By reason of his work in the Alliance of the Employers and the Employed, and his moderate views, Mr Stokes has not always pleased the extremists”, the local press noted. [21] His view was that collaborationist activities were necessarily in the best interests of the workers. Speaking at the Derby Area Committee of the Industrial Alliance of Employers and Employed, he revealed that he believed that the cautious trade union leader was not always the mere coward that some critics seemed to suppose”. Deprecating the concept of strike action, he argued that “to hold our own in the world’s market, there could be no room in the Trade Union movement for shirkers and slackers”. [22]
Except for the bold and intemperate language, such views were shared by the majority of the elite of MPs, councillors and full time officials that ran Derby’s labour movement. In the countdown to the General Strike, the railways locally seemed more than unusually placid. The NUR rank and file had been pre-occupied from early January with a relatively trifling local argument over meal times, but otherwise there were no major difficulties facing the workers in the rail companies that might match the miners’ problems. It was a deliberate strategy of the employers to keep it that way and most local leaders were happy to go along with that. A private meeting of representatives of the unions and the Labour Party was held at the TGWU offices in the Wardwick in Derby in March. Although furious and fierce criticism of Thomas, both as an MP and as a labour and trade union leader was made, he was easily able to carry the day. He did this by cunningly attacking his opponents as intriguers and “Reds who were ruining the Labour Party”. While some were “striving for revolution”, Thomas declared that he ‘would have nothing to do with the Revolutionary Party”. The meeting overwhelmingly endorsed his report justifying his stance and ended with a rendition of “For he’s a jolly good fellow”. [23]
This set the tone for how the labour movement was supposed to react in Derby and the apparently private meeting was leaked in great detail to the press, perhaps to condition the mass of the workers to accept the inaction. Faced with the sheer fact that a strike would soon begin, the TUC pledged its support to the miners on the 14th April. But, such was its supreme reluctance to move, plans for the conduct of the strike were not made until 27th April. Within three days, a state of emergency was declared. If the TUC had acted with the utmost moderation, the Government did not. Emergency regulations were formulated, local authorities told to enact previously arranged measures, troops were moved to working class areas, and even the Navy was alerted. The Sherwood Forresters’ regimental depot at Derby was placed on alert during the emergency, while many of its four battalions of part time territorial soldiers signed on as special constables. Still no official call had yet been made for strike action.
On Saturday 1st May, this call came at the reconvened conference of trade union Executives, the mandate for which had been the NUVB resolution at the 1925 TUC. At this meeting, J H Thomas made an impassioned speech declaring that no government had “made such a blunder as this Government had made. Not until 1.15 on the day when the notices expired was a definite concrete proposal submitted to the miners ... which would have meant such degrading terms that no decent minded man or woman would tolerate.” Again and again, Thomas underlined his distaste for action. He attacked the Government for failing to find a compromise, missing the point that no compromise was intended. “They (i.e. the TUC) begged for peace and still wanted peace” was all Thomas could say. [24] So, even as the TUC was deciding on the General Strike, the seeds of defeat were sown. Ramsay MacDonald was at the conference in his capacity as Labour leader. Sensing the mood of the hall and the movement, he played to the gallery. Yet, he hoped and believed that “something will happen before (the strike) which will enable us to go about our work cheerily, heartily and hopefully during the next week”. [25] The conference emotionally burst out into singing the ‘Red Flag’, when the overwhelming vote for strike action was announced. However, MacDonald was quietly, but absolutely, opposed to the decision and at no stage - even at the height of the strike - did he indicate support for the solidarity action. Amongst workers at large, the general mood was one of enthusiastic readiness to take action. Like most workers, C S Hollis, a NUR activist in Chesterfield, did not hesitate for “we all thought the miners had got a good case”. Desperate though the majority of the TUC General Council was to head off the strike movement, the pressure was too great. Yet, from the start, the workers were handicapped by a leadership more afraid of victory than defeat. On the employers’ side, the Tory Party, the Liberals, Church, Press and State were intent on winning and ready to use every weapon from open conflict to underhand manoeuvring.
Why was this so? The labour movement leadership was motivated by a reformist philosophy, believing that socialism could be won only by step-by-step reform within the existing framework of British society. Their view was that the state was somehow a neutral force, above class and political bias. That the armed forces, the police and the civil service would unhesitatingly serve whichever party won office in Parliament. The notion of class struggle was rejected and the very concept of classes, as distinct and conflicting entities, was denied. Mass struggle was rejected, especially mass struggle outside Parliament. The be-all and end-all of this reformist philosophy was to capture Parliamentary and local council majorities. Within this narrow vision of the world, the role of the worker was simply to vote Labour and the role of the activist merely to win these votes at elections. While the leadership waited in vain for a reprieve, Bevin (then more a centrist than strictly speaking of the right) expressed on the Sunday before the stoppage the sense of passion that existed. “If every penny goes, if every asset goes, history will ultimately write that it was a magnificent generation that was prepared (to strike) rather than see the miners driven down like slaves.” [26] History most certainly records that this was a magnificent generation; whether their leaders, who feared struggle, were so is entirely another question.
2 “Hamlet without the Prince” - the strike in Derbyshire at the beginning
Thomas had cancelled an appointment in Derby on the Friday evening - the 30th -due to the crisis, but indicated his intent to attend the traditional May Day celebrations on the Sunday. In the event, this proved impossible and the excited crowd had to be content with a solidarity telegram from Thomas. However, his notion of solidarity consisted of warning: “outlook intensely black ... all who desire peace should strive for settlement. That we will continue to do and I hope we will be successful.” The strike had been called but had not yet even begun and Thomas was seeking its end. His absence from Derby was an important factor, in that no major counter-weight existed to prevent a slide to political militancy in the town and its environs in this highly charged situation. While Thomas has been accurately described as the “greatest buffoon the Labour Movement has known”, he was nonetheless the King of movement in Derby. One local paper thought the Sunday May Day event like “Hamlet without the prince”. [27] As it was, Derby would have to do without its monarch. He had difficulties of his own, having to plead with the NUR executive to “keep out of it”. But he was spurned by his own union, receiving no support at all for this outrageous outlook. More important, in occupying Thomas, was the role he assigned for himself during the strike. For he saw himself as needing to be the one man who kept his finger on the pulse of negotiations between the TUC and the Government, with the aim of finding the first available opportunity to stop it all.
Nationally, most mining areas were locked out from Friday 30th April 1926, although in Derbyshire the men were involved in sympathetic action from that date, technically strikers rather than lock outs. The Derby Telegraph thought it significant that, in most cases, miners took their tools home with them at the end of the Friday shift. It was an odd attempt to imply sinister events were afoot. No one could have seriously doubted that the Derbyshire coalfield would be completely stopped, but perhaps few thought that the miners would not work again for seven months. The coal owners’ ultimatum ran out on midnight on Friday. The next day was Saturday May 1st, international workers day, a day of solidarity, May Day itself. That weekend, with its special almost symbolic significance, was spent in excited anticipation.
St Werburgh’s church in Derby was filled to capacity on the Sunday afternoon for the annual church parade, which in the 1920s was held in conjunction with May Day. The vicar, Canon Blunt, along with Alderman Raynes and Councillor John Cobb, the Labour Party’s agent, addressed the congregation. The keynote of their speeches was to “keep within the law”. Raynes spoke of brotherhood and the need to “keep their courage high”. His call to the workers of Derby was for an example of quiet solidarity and his address was loudly applauded. This display was to the displeasure of Canon Blunt, who urged the congregation to desist from clapping in church even though it was a “silly convention” not to do so. Blunt’s contribution was to preach the parable of the good Samaritan, drawing the lesson that “fair play all round was what was wanted”. [28] The May Day meeting was held that day - the Sunday - in the Central Hall, rather than the traditional venue of the Market Place, supposedly “in view of the uncertainty of the weather”. Nevertheless, such was the turnout that there was an overflow into the Market Place itself. A V Knowles chaired the event, while the secretary of the Trades Council, E Gadsby, of the No.1 branch of the NUR, read Thomas’ telegram and the instructions from the TUC to an audience that showed “intense earnestness in its manifestations of approval of the course adopted by the TUC General Council”. Gadsby viewed the possibility of troops being called out to deal with the situation quite calmly, reminding the meeting “that happened in 1911 and again in 1919 and they knew with what result”. The implication was that such a prospect had already been experienced in highly charged struggles without serious consequences.
Kate Manicom, a London based organiser, spoke for the Workers Union. Promising the active support of women, she drew sharp contrasts between the impoverishment of the workers and the extravagance of their employers. Quoting another trade union official, she ended her speech with the refrain “Thank God for Jim Thomas”, to loud applause. Similarly, Alderman Raynes confirmed that they were all proud that the “great member of Derby was right at the head of that great dispute”. In ten days time such pride would seem misplaced to most unionised workers. Both Manicom and Raynes were at pains to call for restraint and the latter declaimed loud and emotional pride in the “Socialist International Movement”. Rhetorically, he demanded, “Are the workers of Derby this time going to rise to the occasion and be loyal?” His audience responded with cheers, applause and cries of “YES!”. The enthusiasm had to be tempered though; “sit still and keep the law, whatever happened ... disregard any instructions that were not signed by the president and secretary of the TUC”, Raynes warned the crowd. The rally ended by acclaiming an enthusiastic resolution, moved by Stokes of the WU and seconded by Cobb.
The main speakers at the Derby meeting were philosophical about the use of troops and this was the case everywhere. At Long Eaton, the prospective Labour candidate for South Derbyshire, Major David Graham-Pole, an ILPer and former secretary of the Indian Home Rule League, told the May Day demonstration that he thought the miners were right to stand firm and that “troops were already being moved about and reserves were being called up, but if the workers sat down with folded arms the lock out would end within a week”. Again, the message was sit tight and do nothing.
In the meantime, rather than wait a week, Thomas tried to do a deal that very day by selling out the miners. However, the Tory Cabinet refused to play along with this; they wanted a battle to the very end, deciding the problem of the coalfields once and for all. The refusal of the Daily Mail print workers to print a vicious scare story, which implied armed revolution was about to break out, was seized upon by the Government to end the negotiations. They had prepared for this for nine months and did not want to be cheated of the satisfaction of total victory, which Thomas’ actions told the Government was now possible. The Government’s careful preparations were brought into play. Derbyshire and five other counties formed the North Midlands Division, under the control of Captain H Douglas King MP, who was deemed Civil Commissioner and based at Nottingham. Local councils were well prepared for the dispute and immediately sprang into action, in an attempt to alleviate the impact of the General Strike. In Derby, Mayor S Collins appealed for volunteers to sign up at the recruiting office at the Town Hall and 1,677 people rapidly enrolled for emergency work. The Food Committee laid plans for a rationing scheme, should it prove necessary. Derby’s Postmaster asked the public to refrain from using postal, telegraphic and telephone services if at all possible.
Posters and leaflets were released by the Derby Borough under the signature of the Town Clerk, G Trevelyan Lee, detailing the “Coal (Emergency) Directions 1926”. As these were dated the 3rd of May, they had presumably been printed well before the strike and in anticipation of it. The regulations dictated that no more than one hundredweight of coal be used in any home in one week, or 50% of the usual supply in any works. The use of light for advertisement was prohibited and the supply of gas or electricity was restricted to 50% of the average quantity used by the last reading of the meter. Exemption could be granted, but only by obtaining a special permit from Frank Cooper at the Borough accountants’ office in Babington Lane and then only when very good reasons prevailed. In the north of the county, the Civil Commissioner opened offices at the Market Hall in Chesterfield to receive the 625 volunteers who subsequently enrolled to transport food and fuel and to assist in the maintenance of light and power. A recruitment sub-office was established at Buxton very soon afterwards and 130 strikebreaking volunteers were enrolled there.
Local authorities, even where they were Labour controlled, willingly assumed the responsibilities asked of them by the central Government. In Chesterfield, the Labour Lord Mayor, Alderman H Cropper, claimed that the council “represented the whole of the ratepayers and (their) position should be entirely neutral ... (they were) acting on specific instructions from the Government”. [28] While the Government was imposing duties on local councils, which might certainly have limited the opportunities for Labour councillors to act in assistance of the strike, the notion that they did not have to act as representatives of their class came straight out of reformist ideology. This saw central and local state machinery as somehow neutral, apolitical and above class. The role, which such authorities as the Chesterfield council adopted, was in practice a strike breaking one, as the Government played a clever political game with the organs of state power in what was essentially an industrial dispute.
A special meeting of Chesterfield Borough’s General Purposes Committee on the 4th May resolved to take whatever steps were necessary to maintain electricity and gas services. The Tramways Committee met the same day to decide on a skeleton motor omnibus service, to be operated by the council during the emergency in place of its normal service. An emergency committee for Chesterfield’s volunteer services was set up by Cropper. The town clerk was responsible for food, the borough surveyor for roads. Both the LMS and the LNER provided officials responsible for railways. While an agent for a local coal merchant’s was responsible for coal distribution. The postmaster was responsible to the committee for postal services and the borough provided a committee member concerned with finance. Ministry of Health circulars were enthusiastically put into operation by the council.
Although Cropper was at pains to distance his emergency committee from the semi-governmental Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies (OMS), which managed the entire strikebreaking operation, he did repetitively quote Ramsay MacDonald’s view that there could only be one government at a time of national crisis. Indeed, Cropper reminded Labour councillors that the skeleton of the emergency organisation had been set up under MacDonald’s government. Whatever the convoluted logic employed by Cropper, the practical result of the Council’s actions were to undermine the strike in the area covered by the Borough - Chesterfield, Dronfield, Bolsover, Clay Cross, Clowne, Blackwell, all mining districts. Mayor Cropper went further, announcing the provision of recreation and sport and music services by the authority. An appeal was made to the local cinemas to open their premises for Sunday evening concerts, all in the name of keeping the strikers happy, contented and above all quiet.
[29] Ilkeston Borough Council rationed food and coal supplies and asked for reports of profiteering. More positively, soup kitchens were opened for the children of strikers. The Derby Gas Company considered itself in a good position “in regard to supplies of coal”, while the Derby Corporation Electricity Department reported that there were no dangers of a “curtailment of services”. Indeed the department prided itself on “having made provision for all difficulties that may arise”. [30]
While preparations of such a character were brought to fruition throughout the country, the TUC was unmoved and little was done to counteract this hostile preparation. None of it could possibly have been a surprise. Quite apart from the connivance of Labour authorities and councillors, it had (as Cropper repeatedly reminded his Labour councillors) been Ramsay MacDonald’s Government that had introduced the strike breaking mechanisms in 1924. There was therefore no way that the Labour leadership could have been unaware of the Government’s steady preparations. While the links between the TUC and the Labour Party, at the level of senior leadership, were close. Thomas, for one, would have been aware of the plans. The TUC did at least see some value in propaganda, for both the Government and the TUC produced their own newspapers, in the absence of Fleet Street and much of the provincial press. The Government paper, the British Gazette, was edited by Winston Churchill and printed on the Daily Mail presses, it was distributed in Derby by a fleet of vehicles loaned by George Usher, the owner of International Combustion. While supplies were erratic at first, after some days most of Derbyshire was able to receive at least some copies of the Gazette. In Chesterfield, newsagents helped to distribute and sell the paper, which maintained a vigorously hostile attitude to the strike throughout. In its first edition, it opened the propaganda war by accusing the TUC of open political revolutionary aims, a claim so wildly far from the truth that in retrospect it seems farcical.
Counter to this, but after some delay, the TUC published the British Worker on the presses of the Daily Herald, utilising volunteer print workers who were on strike. The Worker replied to the Gazette’s wild accusations with the mild rebuke that the TUC politely but firmly wished to “emphasise the fact that this is an industrial dispute”. While this was essentially true, the TUC blindly refused to face up to the obvious political implications of the strike. This attitude had important practical as well as ideological results. For the importance of the situation demanded that there be a strike committee in every locality, mobilising every striker out on the streets in picketing or propaganda work. The TUC thought otherwise and could only have thought so on the basis that it did not intend to effectively prosecute the strike. The British Worker told the strikers: “The General Council suggests that in all districts, where large numbers of workers are idle, sports should be organised and entertainments arranged. This will both keep a number of people busy and provide amusement for many more.” [31]
Only three unions out of 1,100 failed to honour the strike, which started from midnight Monday May 3rd. The General Council reported stupendous solidarity, which “surpassed all our expectations ... The difficulty of the General Council has been to keep men in what we might call the second line of defence rather than call them all out.” A telegram dispatched at 6pm on Saturday called out only “front-line workers”, i.e. some builders, all transport workers, the printing industry, steel, chemical and power workers. The ‘second-line’, that is to say the rest of the movement, was to be held in reserve. [32]
In Derbyshire, all Trent Motor Traction bus services stopped from midnight without any hesitation. Tramway workers employed by Derby Corporation met on the evening before the deadline, stopping the scheduled trams for the night while they considered their position, They too responded solidly from midnight, after their mass meeting. Thus most public transport was out of action in the Derby area, only the Blue Bus Company of Willington kept going throughout the strike. However it was only a tiny service, privately owned and non-unionised, The company’s historian has revealed that ‘it had been said that in case of trouble a gun was carried aboard the bus”! [33] By the morning, Derby’s streets were crowded with workers showing “the extensiveness of the industrial stoppage in Derby. Only 2 trains ran on the LMS this morning ... No trams and only a few buses ran. The whole of the transport services are paralysed”, the local press revealed.
Despite not being called out by the TUC, the AEU membership at Rolls Royce in Derby spontaneously came out on strike that Monday morning and other unions followed their lead. Compositors at the Derby newspapers came out, causing the Express to produce a duplicated typewritten sheet. All of the workers at Bemrose printers, both men and women, came out and the coal deliverymen at the Co-op stopped work. Cardboard box workers at the Foreman Street factory walked out. [34] Most of the stone quarries in Derbyshire were immediately closed, if for no other reason than lack of transport, although most quarrymen came out in the solidarity action except for the Wirksworth area. [35] The railway workshops closed completely and pickets remained at the Loco Works throughout. Les Clay, an AEU activist, recalled the work of the picket: “Occasionally a bloke would arrive for work. We persuaded them it was pointless to go in, because there was no work to do.” [36] Beer deliveries were held up at some of the big breweries in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, but the Gazette reported that “tenants of public houses are motoring to the breweries and bringing away supplies”. [37]
Thousands stopped in Derby, many more than were requested to do so. There were so many that special signing on places for union benefits were arranged and publicised, The AEU paid out at the Labour Exchange in London Road, while the NUR’s Nos. 2 and 3 branches shared Unity Hall with the joiners. Nos. 1 and 4 NUR branches signed on at the Temperance Hall, along with the TGWU. All the building trades, except the joiners, used the Clarion Club. While the Railway Clerks, the Bookbinders and the printers went along with the shop workers to the Labour Party headquarters. [38] Apart from union benefits, there was the possibility of public relief payments from the Board of Guardians for some strikers and their families received over £727 from the Derby Guardians during the dispute. [39] Shop committees of direct representatives from the workplaces were affiliated to the Derby Trades Council’s strike committee. [40] The DLP executive joined the committee as well, making it deeply representative of the town’s labour movement. There were two representatives from each of the following trades and workshop committees:
Printing Railway and Transport
Building Railway Carriage and Wagon Shop Committee
Engineering Railway Allied Engineering Shop Committee
The overall strike committee set up specialist sub-committees - some with more serious intent than others: [41]
Engineering Publicity
Transport Sports
Dispatch Distress
Entertainment
The Transport sub-committee was formed of road and rail unions, its formal title was the “Derby and District Joint Transport Strike Committee”, and there were a total of 21 delegates. As elsewhere, it was given delegated authority by the TUC to deal
with transport permits. A presentation photograph of the committee survives and used to be displayed at the TGWU offices in Derby. The members of the committee were:
B Green S Pickering
A W Smith R C Werrett
W Rose E Hutchinson
J E Gapp W G Clarke
F Humphries E W Key
R Bridge E Naylor
H B Walton W Ball
F Haslam H Beeson
A Goodwin W Hurst
E Gadsby A W Mallett
E Garratt
The Co-ops were magnificent. In Derby, arrangements were made for the issuing of food vouchers on the guarantee of the various trade unions. The DCS Board set up a sub-committee to confer with the strike committee, for the society believed itself to be the “feeder of fighters” and in consequence would seek to maintain food supplies. Moreover, the Co-op was able to assist the unions directly, by ensuring that branch secretaries of trade unions in the town were able to cash cheques forwarded to them by central offices for dispute benefits. While the quarterly DCS meeting in May sanctioned the paying out of £50,000 in `dlvi’ money, which naturally helped many. The Ripley Co-op offered its halls for the use of strikers’ meetings. [42] Indeed, throughout the area, ILP halls, Labour Party rooms and miners’ welfares were turned into communications centres from which came instructions. These centres and committees gradually became, in effect, almost like an alternative government. In some areas, as councils of action, they were potentially a direct challenge to the established power, practically running the locality. The State’s official emergency committees often had to liaise with the strike centre, to obtain sanction for the movement of certain goods.
Most newspapers being out of action, the NUJ executive agreed that, to allow strike bulletins to be produced, it was “permissible for our members to work on make-shift papers which are being produced by labour which cannot permanently displace men who are out on strike”. [43] So the strike committees were often able to produce quite well written duplicated newssheets. The ‘Sheffield Forward’ strike bulletin had a worker correspondent in Chesterfield who provided details to the newssheet about events in the Derbyshire coalfield. Another miner, Albert Vincent Williams (better known as Vin), a Mossborough man, produced the ‘Derbyshire Chronicle’ daily with assistance from Joe Lynch. Williams was also a part-time organiser for the Labour Party. The Derbyshire Chronicle was produced as a halfpenny newssheet at the Chesterfield Trade Council offices in the Miners’ Welfare. Twelve despatch riders toured the county, bringing in news and the papers were collected by them at around 4am or Sam, for distribution each morning. The Derbyshire bulletin differed sharply from the Derby strike bulletin, in that the former was thoroughly vitriolic in style. Its third issue declared, “Blood is thicker than water, as the trite saying goes. The ruling class can don our class in soldiers’ clothes, but the working class heart pulsates beneath.” [44] This was in response to the news that Welsh Guards in London were supposed to have refused to act against strikers. The statement was subsequently to have grave legal consequences for Williams and only three issues of the Chronicle were issued after this controversy, for fear of involving the unions in libel actions.
The Derby strike bulletin was produced officially on behalf of the central strike committee by the Labour Party’s agent, Councillor John Cobb, and the DTC secretary, E Gadsby, on a Gestetner duplicator at the Labour Party offices at 63 London Road. It appeared from the first day to the last day of the strike, often with mid-day as well evening editions. Selling it at a penny a copy, local newsboys took them off the strike committee for thirteen copies for 1/-. The total income received over the ten days by the strike committee for sales of the bulletin was £92 17s 2d. So, taking into account the profit to the sellers, over 24,000 copies were sold, presumably at the rate of a couple of thousand copies a day. In Ripley, a local bulletin was produced but only in small quantities, enough to post outside the committee room and similar places. [45]
These bulletins were an open and obvious direct target for the authorities, especially the more militant publications. In a flagrant attack against the effectiveness of such bulletins, the Communist Party headquarters in Birmingham were raided and presses, papers and people were seized. The Party had printed four issues of the Birmingham Worker, which circulated widely in the Midlands. Issues specifically designed for Wolverhampton and Derby were confiscated in the raid. [46] Strikers and supporters who distributed strike bulletins were subjected to intimidation by the law as much as were the printers. Joseph Fretwell of Pinxton was bound over in the sum of £20 for six months and had to pay costs of £3 7s 0d for having “on premises in his occupation a document likely to cause disaffection amongst the civil population.” He had displayed a copy of the strike bulletin issued by the Alfreton strike committee in the window of his home on May 10th and the Hyde Park story had been printed in it. Arthur Wilkinson of South Normanton was similarly dealt with for the temerity of selling six copies of the Alfreton bulletin. [47] Apart from these strike bulletins, some parts of the country were starved of news. However, in Derbyshire all the local newspapers were generally available, albeit in reduced form. Needless to say, they were intensely biased against the strike. While the printers at the Derby Daily Express struck, the journalists remained to produce a scab newssheet throughout. The quality and size of the paper desired much, mostly due to the journalists’ inability, or unwillingness, to solve the difficulties of setting typeface.
Some compositors at the Sheffield Telegraph returned to work, enabling a rough edition to come out on Wednesday. While, the next day, the Sheffield Independent came out as a newssheet. Both circulated in the north eastern part of the county. The weekly Derbyshire Times was printed in its usual format, for it was normally produced by non-union labour. (The paper was to be the last significant printing firm in the county to become unionised.) The Derbyshire Times made great play of its neutrality and its intent to “give all sections of its readers a fair and un-biased account of the position as it affects both sides”. It claimed that it would be strictly non-political. These lofty aims set for itself were not in fact reflected in the columns of the paper. If news was always distorted according to whether it was a scab journal or a strike bulletin, in general hard news was limited and scarce throughout the strike. For example, Belper was reported as being “completely isolated as far as news is concerned. Not a single paper of any description was on sale after Tuesday and this absence of news gave birth to some extravagant rumours”. Sandiacre and Stapleford were deprived of newspapers until May 7th, when an edition of the Ilkeston Pioneer arrived. Ilkeston itself was without papers until late Friday, when a car appeared from Leicester laden with newspapers. The local strike committee warned a newsagent not to bring any more strike breaking newspapers into the town, but Sheffield, Nottingham and Derby newspapers were on sale from the weekend onwards. [48]
The strike was as solid amongst trades unionists outside Derby in the county as in the town. In Chesterfield, some of the engineering works tried to keep going if they could. But the major ones, like those of the Sheepbridge and Staveley companies, completely closed down for the duration of the strike making no attempt even to try to open. One week before the start of the strike, 400 workers at Staveley’s Devonshire works and foundries were given notice that, during the crisis, they would be on day-to-day contracts instead of the usual weekly ones. This was to facilitate the immediate suspension of the workforce, in the event of lack of work due to shortage of supplies. Some 1,300 came out on strike on May 3rd, while another 800 or so came out at Sheepbridge works.
Only eight of Chesterfield’s corporation buses and only one of its trams ran on Tuesday 4th. Six corporation employees who were not union members, plus some dozen ‘volunteers’, ran the service as conductors, conductresses and drivers. This was much to the displeasure of the strikers, who gathered that evening in large numbers at their depot to voice disapproval at the strikebreaking. The next day eleven buses were on the road, yet most of the volunteers left a lot to be desired in their ability to do the job. At all Chesterfield Corporation bus stops messages were chalked on the pavements: “Please do not ride on the buses - Blackleg labour”. For the council allowed untrained drivers, young middle-class students and the like, having a great lark while strike breaking, to take control of the buses. The strikers saw this as putting the public in grave danger, at a time when not only were legislative controls on driver quality generally very weak, but public service vehicle regulations were minimal. Strike committee member Joseph Lynch wrote to the Derbyshire Times, stating that he had been talking to a ‘volunteer’ driver who admitted to only a short experience in driving and that only by lessons given to him by his father. How could Labour councillors ignore this sort of thing, considering the borough’s motto ‘safety first”, Lynch wanted to know?
The railwaymen of Chesterfield were as solid as bus workers. Only three trains came through or left the town on Tuesday May 4th. There were no trains at the Market Street station. However, two ran from the Central station on the Manchester to London route. One strikebreaking signalman manned the vital Tapton junction, a bed being placed in the signal box and provisions being delivered daily from Hasland by a light engine. The NUR strike headquarters were in the Marquess of Hartington pub in Chesterfield’s Salisbury Street and this, with the overwhelming majority of men out, proved to be a hive of activity.
A private bus company, Underwood’s, proved a source of much activity. A non-union firm, it kept a skeleton service going, most employees being fearful of their job. Although all of the conductresses came out on strike. Conditions of work at Underwood’s were described as “slave labour”. Five NUR pickets turned out at Sam one morning during the strike, locating themselves outside the single entrance to the depot in Pond Street with the aim of stopping the buses. The leaders of the small group were Jack Wilkinson, the NUR branch secretary, and 1 J Mitchell, later to be a Mayor of Chesterfield. Mitchell’s house was kept under constant police surveillance during the strike. But the picket was unable to persuade the drivers not to cross the line, so on Thursday May 6th a large crowd gathered outside Underwood’s Clowne depot. Stones were thrown at a bus as it left the depot and glass was scattered across the road. Later that morning, police boarded the buses in service, so that they could protect the scab drivers. Despite this, the company decided to suspend operations from Clowne altogether for the time being.
Some Underwood’s services were allowed to run through however. Up to the Thursday, the Chesterfield to Barrow Hill and Clapwell to Matlock routes were kept on after the DMA asked for this to allow miners the opportunity to pick up their previous week’s wages. But the battle against Underwood’s continued at Clowne, when some 50 strikers gathered to fill three lorries, which were “chartered” by three men and three women. Travelling to Chesterfield the lorries stopped just inside the borough, blocking the road to Underwood’s buses and forcing the passengers off. The local press claimed that the bus crews were “assaulted”. Whatever the nature of the incident, the six organisers of the picket were charged under the emergency regulations with acting in a manner likely to ‘impede, delay or restrict the measures taken for maintaining the means of locomotion”. Not, it should be noted, for an offence of violence, Subsequently, the men received one month’s imprisonment, The women were bound over for three months, a punishment which restricted their future strike activities.
In common with other towns, Chesterfield had its own strike committee. The twelve members of which met from the very first day of the strike until the end, Its members were:
393
Frank Hall (DMA secretary)
George Spencer (DMA compensation agent)
Henry Hicken (DMA treasurer)
Joseph Lynch (possibly NUR)
Vincent Williams (miner and editor of strike bulletins)
Alice Wild (NUDAW)
Anne Astwood (Communist Party)
The strike committee would hold its special tactical meeting at 6pm each evening, but otherwise met in permanent session at the Miners’ Welfare in Chester Street. Alice Wild presided, while 24-year-old Communist Anne Astwood was secretary. The latter worked at Robinson’s, the surgical dressings manufactures, The manual workers at this firm were solidly out on strike, despite the TUC directive for such workers not to take action. Most of the manual workers were in the AEU, but the office staff was not at this stage organised. Anne Astwood was the only office worker who came out. Recalling all this, in an interview in 1973, she remembered that her father had said: ‘You’re a member of a Trade Union, you come out.” It was as simple as that. Anne Astwood had the advantage of her father’s strong views to sustain her in these dramatic times. He was an engineer at the Scarsdale Poor Law Institution and he had never hesitated to support any group of workers in struggle. In a previous battle, when locked out miners marched through Chesterfield, he had taken the clothes of the marchers to fumigate them at the Institution. [49]
In Ripley, the Trades Council called an immediate meeting of all trade union branches to form a central strike committee. A good response from both affiliated and unaffiliated organisations was reported. Although, the strength of the strike in the building trade in Ripley was especially thought of as being “bad” by the Trades Council in its post-strike report. This noted that other trades could be described as having a “good” strike response. Skilled tradesmen seem to have particularly responded well, for the strike committee was driven to comment that, in industries other than the building trade, general labour was badly organised. [50] There were regular meetings at the Ripley Co-op Hall, where the ‘Labour Party and miners leaders lent their voices to the cause”. [51] At the Ripley collieries, a federated labour board was set up to ensure that authorised safety men, employed at the pits during the strike to maintain the workings for the eventual return, were properly issued with permits by the unions to do so. There was also a check that they were themselves trades unionists and would confine their activities to normal duties.
llkeston had a particularly active central strike committee, which sent a daily message to the TUC on its work, On the 7th May it reported that the “stoppage is proceeding in a most orderly fashion, with determination to stand fast until victory is won for the miners”, On the following day: “All workers solid.” Only a few buses ran from Ilkeston after the first Tuesday. On Saturday two went to Derby, one to Hallam Fields, two to Nottingham and three to Heanor, The private bus owners met the strike committee and it was agreed that the works services would operate from Monday only, so long as the passengers were using the same bus as before the strike. [52] There was an “almost total suspension of rail, bus and tramway services at Ilkeston. Private bus proprietors attempted to run the usual service to Nottingham, but were stopped there, and returned empty, passengers having to walk back.” [53] There was a ‘feeding centre’ in Ilkeston’s Gladstone Street, This concerned itself with providing meals for needy children, During the long months that were to follow, as the miners stayed out alone, the centre was overwhelmed with the demands of many extra mouths. In the month of April alone 1,899 meals were provided at a cost of £30 9s 7d. [54] In the seven days from May 8th, at the height of the General Strike, 3,914 meals were served, at the cost of £200, This was almost double the usual level which applied during the miners’ lone dispute, since so many were now out on strike, [55]
Alfreton, then mainly a pit village, was of course solid from day one. There, as elsewhere in the county, the Miners’ Welfare committee arranged talks and concerts, for little picketing was needed in the coalfields. On Wednesday, the Derby Daily Express was to deny that buses had been overturned, but suggested that attempts had been made to intimidate drivers and conductors of the small private firm of Barton’s, Chapman’s of Belper, maintained a service and the owner denied that any interference had been made with his buses. In general, there was little sign of violence and only good-humoured exuberance, But strike breaking ‘volunteer’ services continued to expand rapidly. Alderman Ling, the chair of Derby’s volunteers, reportedly thought that “things are going smoothly”. Branches of the service were opened in Alfreton, Matlock and Swadlincote. In the meantime, the Derby Strike Committee was more concerned to get the massive numbers of people, seen on the streets on Tuesday, off the streets and pro-occupied with ‘safe’ matters. To that end, a concert was held for strikers at the Central Hall on Wednesday and the strike bulletin advised strikers to “go into the fields and gardens to avoid congestion”. That evening, W R Raynes told the Town Council that the strike would not interfere with the house-building programme: “The workers in Derby ... would see that house building went on.” [56] Raynes should not have had any difficulty in delivering on his promise, The TUC had exempted social responsibility building work and his own old union, the NASOHSPD painters, had sent telegrams instructing ‘all members not engaged on Housing and Public Health services to refrain from starting work on Tuesday morning”. [57]
Moreover, there was currently a major slum clearance programme taking place in the town. A massive target of 1,240 houses actually under construction and 562 more with approved contracts only marginally bit into Derby’s particularly severe housing problem. However, Raynes had reckoned without the spirit of solidarity and enthusiasm for the strike, which spread rapidly. All building operatives in the town were asked to cease work at 5.30 pm on Friday evening, in notices signed by local officials of the various trades, Paviours employed by the Corporation and workers of companies engaged on housing contracts all came out without notice to their employers. The decision to do so was motivated by a feeling that the TUC’s instructions on housing and hospital work were unfair, in that some members of the construction unions would lose wages while others were working normally. ‘One out all out’ was a time honoured motto in the building industry and Derby followed it with a vengeance, Some contractors tried to carry on with apprentices and non-union men, who were not usually time-served. One can only guess at the structural consequences from the little work that was done. [58]
Many industries had to cope with the damage done by strikebreaking and ‘volunteer’ labour. There were many serious examples of how inefficient and indeed dangerous the railways had become under the non-union labour. One rail worker, walking from Spondon to Derby via the railway line held up his hand to a passenger train and the driver stopped to pick him up! Some cases were less dangerous, but equally comic. One scab driven train left Derby for Leicester, but got lost around the Trent River, arriving nearly four hours late. While it was a standing joke that the ‘volunteers’ had a “new set of gates for every train”, after amateur drivers had “fetched down once or twice” the level crossing gates at Beighton. [59] With much of Derbyshire’s transport strike-bound, people found other ways of getting around. Owners of the few private cars that then existed took to giving lifts to complete strangers. Although Barton’s did occasionally get its hourly service from Derby to Nottingham running, in the main, most towns and villages were isolated from one another.
Thursday and Friday were pay days for most workers and there were problems everywhere over the payment of wages. A crowd of two hundred gathered outside the Carriage and Wagon works, hoping for their wages as usual, But the Midland Railway Company used an excuse, that so many clerks had taken solidarity action, to delay the payout by several days. [60] The Thursday edition of the strike bulletin reported that the “chairman of the Derby Shops Committee had been informed that the LMS have not sufficient money at Derby to pay wages to those at work.” Despite such experiences, there was still in general a spirit of almost carnival gaiety, On the Thursday afternoon, a concert was held at the Central Hall at 3pm and a film was shown at the Temperance Hall at 7.30 pm. Both were followed by a voluntary collection for the strike committee’s funds, but were otherwise free to strikers.
An idea of the sort of concerts laid on for the strikers is revealed by a printed programme of the time. The still-existing, typed Gestetner cyclostyle stencil presumably contains the front and back of the programme - perhaps inside there were song-sheets? The stencil was deposited with original copies of the strike bulletin at Derby’s Local Studies Library. There is no certain identification of it as being from the strike period, but it seems very much like the sort of entertainment that would have been provided. [61]
6tr~k~ ‘ii~r~, ~Jko 1cit”e~4 Cro s~ ~ ~ tp ~
&AQfl~’ ‘tsr SO~~p 1~I+~&%*2 .~S
39~:~
(Front side of programme)
~QJ~LC E R T
by the
VAGABONDS COSTUME CONCERT PARTY
Presented by Mr Albert E Baker
~IL~TES
Miss Wynne Robinson Soprano
Miss Kitty Boston Pianist & Accompanist
Little Babs Kinsey Juvenile Prodigy
Mr Bert E F Bainbrigge Tenor
Mr J Marsden-Starkey Scottish Comedian
Mr Albert E Baker Light Comedian
(Rear side of programme)
GENERAL MANAGER & PRODUCER
Mr Albert E Baker
43 Handel Street
Derby
BUSINESS MANAGER
Mr Francis Fisher
The House
Litchurch Gas Works
Derby
STAGE_MANAGER
Mr J F Flint-Bainbrigge
79 London Road
Derby
In a similar vein, the local press reported that “most of the Amusement Houses of Derby are attracting large audiences in the evenings, but business is reported to be below normal in the afternoons.” The large crowds which gathered in the streets during the day seeking excitement, much to the consternation of trade union leaders, did not find it in the picture houses.
There was a desperate desire for news, which when it came gave no hint of the disappointments to come. After all, even J H Thomas was quoted by the Derby strike bulletin as having “confidence in the Derby workers” and believing that “the most remarkable feature (was) the wonderful response made by the Railway Clerks Association”. [62] Moreover, had not Thomas stated in the House of Commons that he had “IN HIS POCKET IN THE PRIME MINISTER’S WRITING THE BASIS OF A SETTLEMENT ... THE PRIME MINISTER DID NOT DENY THIS”. [63] Thus proclaimed the strike bulletin. Victory must have seemed very close.
The following day, Rolls Royce agreed to pay wages at the usual pay stations from 4.30 pm. With pay in their pockets, the weekend approached and the dispute was solid. Everything must have seemed perfect to the strikers. Friday’s mid-day strike bulletin revealed that a special messenger had arrived from the TUC the previous night. He had reported that the position was solid “all the way along” from London. Ever anxious to avoid accusations of revolutionary activity, the General Council’s message was again emphasised in the strike bulletin: “we are engaged in an INDUSTRIAL DISPUTE”. Nationally, all transport was reported to be at a halt. “All tram and busmen out solid.” [64] While new sections continued to enter the dispute, often unasked. Members of the Sheet Metal Workers, Heating and Domestic Engineers Union pledged to withdraw labour, while those expected to remain at work would levy themselves 5/- a week during the dispute.
As the weekend approached, the position at Ilkeston was considered quiet, All the collieries there were out solidly and the blast furnaces at Stanton were damped down. [65] All the blast furnaces in the country were out, except parts of Staveley and one other, At Ilkeston, miners drew chalk circles on street corner pavements for passers-by to drop coins into for their fund. Only 5% of clerks and 2.5% of traffic grades had reported for duty at the LNER establishments in the North Midlands generally. This was a phenomenal response for what some saw as one of the weakest unionised companies. The Derby strike committee was still worried about crowds in the streets. Making the point that “the men in Derby are as solid as ever and as keen”, the local bulletin demanded strict discipline from the strikers, Yet another concert was arranged at the Co-op Hall and a cinema showing was held at the Temperance Hall on Friday evening. All to keep spirits high and order certain. Some strikers made their own entertainment, that of disrupting the efforts of strike breaking labour! [66]
At 8 pm on Friday evening, about 25 busmen who were on strike boarded the scab private bus of Messrs Dean and Tailby at Derby’s Cheapside, Only a few other passengers were able to get on the bus which was bound for Burton, so that the rest of the queue had to stay behind. But the strikers refused to pay their fares before the bus moved off and again after it had travelled about 50 yards. As two policemen then got on the bus, a few did agree to pay their fares by the time the bus had got to Littleover. Some scrambled out through the windows to avoid paying and all of the strikers, after getting off at Littleover, marched back into the town in military formation. No doubt after appropriate refreshments, the strikers tried their hand again - for another bus was highjacked at 11 pm in Derwent Street. [67] Very late that night the MP for Ilkeston, G H Oliver, arrived in Derbyshire from London, having travelled all the way by road, Only one of about 60 signal boxes were open that day, making it impossible for even the very few scab trains to operate. Oliver reported that “everywhere the strike was solid.” [68] To keep morale high, plenty of activities were arranged for the weekend.
On both Saturday and Sunday, R Taylor MP addressed meetings held under the auspices of the TUC. Mass meetings were arranged for the Saturday in Normanton Recreation Ground at 3 pm and Chester Green at 7 pm. On Sunday, the meetings were held at Alveston Recreation Ground at 3 pm and Markeaton Park at 7 pm. Large numbers turned out to listen and applaud at the various rallies. The Sunday events were particularly well attended, despite the fact that a wireless bulletin had broadcast that ‘an appeal has been made to observe today as a day of rest”, Even during that weekend it was reported that buses were still coming off the road, as crews - probably non-unionised at that - joined the strike. A BBC wireless, or radio, bulletin at 1.00 pm on Saturday the 8th May was recorded verbatim by the Derby strike committee. It revealed, without stating the location or the name of the company, that 160 buses of a large North Derbyshire omnibus firm had stopped. [69] Perhaps Underwood’s had finally succumbed?
As the strike developed, the Government showed clearly that it took for granted that the full apparatus of the State was its to utilise at will. All of the coercive and administrative powers in society were gathered around the Government, The British Gazette informed the armed forces that any action they found necessary “to aid the Civil Power will receive, both now afterwards, the full support of His Majesty’s Government”. [70] With this carte blanche, there was no formal restraint on any action to beat the strike and the law was geared to defend the establishment. Strikers, not strikebreakers, were arrested for trivial matters. Strikebreakers could do no wrong. The rowdy and often drunk young ‘volunteers’ crashed trains, lorries and buses in many parts of the country and not a word was said, For the strikers, it was a crime to even put their point of view to soldiers, even to the extent of Possessing a leaflet which the State believed could cause disaffection. The strike was widely declared to be illegal very quickly, despite the normal slow movement of the judicial system and without a single court hearing to determine this. Censorship was the order of the day for every journal, except the British Gazette which daily falsely proclaimed the strike to have revolutionary intent. Even after the end of the General Strike, it was not uncommon for working class papers to appear with large portions of their columns quite blank, other than an explanatory note to the effect that the deletion had been ordered under the Emergency Powers Act.
On May 8th, the Chesterfield magistrates met under the chairmanship of C P Markham, director and owner of Staveley Coal and Iron Company, Markham Engineering, Sheepbridge Works and numerous collieries, it seems superfluous to speculate on Markham’s impartiality or otherwise, Especially considering the terms of his statements from the bench. Markham made an appeal for law and order, while favouring the conspiracy theory of history as far as the strike was concerned, “Any changes that were desired”, he commented, “must be brought about by constitutional methods and not by German money which came into this country under the cloak of Bolshevism. The present trouble was brought about by nothing but the money which had poured into this country. The Government had ample proof of that,” Markham believed, No such proof has to date emerged, nor is it ever likely to. But, as with all smears, it is the immediate impact of outrageous claims that is of value to those who make them, In response to such utter rubbish as this, all Councillor Wicks for Chesterfield’s Labour Party could do was to call for law and order at a mass meeting in the Market Square.
The State mobilised all its resources, even those that were ostensibly part of civil society. An official communiqué argued that “an organised attempt is being made to starve the people and wreck the state.” [71] Cardinal Bourne, for the Catholics, declared the strike to be a “direct challenge to lawfully constituted authority ... a sin against the obedience which we owe God”; and man presumably? [72] The leader of the established church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, did eventually call for a “reasonable but generous settlement of the present difficulty”. However, he was deliberately kept off the air by the BBC until mid-day on May 10th. The Liberal leader Sir John Simon, a former Attorney General, claimed the strike to be unconstitutional and that every striker could be sued for personal breach of contract, Every trade union leader, he argued, could be called upon to pay damages, even to the extent of bankrupting individuals. Mr Justice Astbury said that the strike was contrary to British law. Despite all this authoritative comment, no such prosecutions ever followed under the constitutional aspects of law cited. The point was to blast all of this over the air via the BBC, which still refused to broadcast the Archbishop of Canterbury’s conciliatory statement, for the reason that it included calls for Government subsidies. In the face of all this, the TUC advised football matches!
It is naturally difficult to assess the full impact of the strike in the county, because of the distorting work of the various strikebreaking newspapers. Strike bulletins reported on outside activity in the main, as a lively ‘bush telegraph’ operated between nearby localities, Working class communities were much more closely-knit than in the present day, so it was common knowledge which workplaces were on strike and which were not. The Derby Daily Express consequently stressed those firms which worked normally, almost as if were the general situation. Whereas, in fact most of the industrial districts of Swadlincote, Derby, the Erewash Valley, Amber Valley and Chesterfield and its immediate surrounds were at a near standstill, The Express did concede this in a roundabout way, but went on to list all those still working. “Despite the fact that thousands of men are on strike in Derby, many firms are carrying on as usual, All the craftsmen were out at Aiton’s, but the works were left open and a few men mostly unskilled stayed at their jobs.” Pegg and Ellam-Jones, colour manufacturers, carried on as usual - but then “union men are not employed”, revealed the Express. Clemson’s boot factory on Burton Road carried on working, as did F Longdon’s of Agard Street, a surgical bandage firm and Oliver Wilkins and Co, another colour manufacturer, Loades’ match factory failed to come out, despite the efforts of pickets.
However, many of those firms quoted as working normally were actually working under the considerable handicaps of shortages of labour and materials. Only violently anti-union firms like Ley’s, which evaded union recognition until the Second World War, seemed to function with relative ease, I F Panton, General Manager of Ley’s Malleable, was able to say that ‘up to now the works are still in full operation thanks to the loyalty and common sense of our workpeople”. A few men at Brown’s Foundry carried on working, producing domestic fire grates for the local authority housing scheme. The rest of the men were solidly out however, G Fletcher’s & Co carried on in much the same vein. At Moore, Eadie & Murcroft Goode Ltd, machine operators worked from 8 am to 1 pm because of supply problems, Haslam’s Union Foundry was open, but only a few men were at work. Only one department worked at Albert Green Ltd, although it worked overtime by starting the shift two hours early. Some work was carried out at Fletcher’s Malleable, but with considerably depleted staff. The men who stayed at work there had to go on short time because transport difficulties interfered with supplies.
Along with Bemrose’s, Rolls Royce, Midland Railway workshops and the bus and tramway workers, most skilled engineering workers in most companies came out in Derby and all of the large firms and most of the small ones were totally or partially stopped. Those that were not yet affected began to be in the second week of the strike, as more and more workers came out. In the second week, both John Smith’s brass foundry and Newton Brothers’ engineering works were at a standstill. Transport difficulties meanwhile considerably affected fruit and vegetable prices. The Food Controller in Derby warned on May 10th that potatoes would rise by 1d a pound weight and green vegetables by 1/2d to 1 d per pound. The previous week, potatoes had risen by 2/- a hundred-weight, almost 21/2d per pound.
With both passenger and commercial transport still solidly on strike, ‘volunteers’ and a few strike-breakers tried to run 30 LMS trains out of Derby on Tuesday 11th and 28 on Monday 10th. While the Trent bus services were totally stopped, the company lent a few buses to the Volunteer Service Committee. With the seats taken out, they were able to act as temporary ‘lorries’ to transport food. The sole commercial form of public transport by this stage in Derby was a lone taxi, which ran a bus service from Victory Road to The Spot, charging 4d per passenger. Every last bus had been stopped, even the private non-union firms tended to avoid Derby itself. The weekly traffic return of the Derby Corporation Tramways Committee for the main week of strike activity showed that only 97,617 passengers were carried compared to 383,958 in a comparable week the year previously. Almost £2,000 in receipts was lost. Those passengers carried that week were only transported very early on by trams manned by ‘volunteers’ and this soon ended. In the second week, almost no transport was moving at all. [73]
There were some key areas that did not strike, but only because of the TUC directive. Stokes, the WU full time organiser, was “surprised at the strike committee in Derby wanting to fetch our people out at Spondon (British Celanese) seeing that the committee at Long Eaton of which he was a member did not wish to draw our members out”. Locally, the WU resisted the enthusiasm evident elsewhere and insisted on the formalism of the TUC’s call for phased stoppages. Their Divisional Organiser, Jim Clarke, revealed that “he knew what the miners were ... his father and brother (were) miners. Where the WU had been called out, Clarke was “proud of the way in which the union had played its part in the strike and the members had demonstrated that they (were) prepared to obey the EC”. The main thrust of the WU contribution had been considered by the local lay executive member, H A Hind, to be ‘nothing to be ashamed of’, for they had placed their “members and money in the hands of the TUC General Council”. [74]
By Tuesday 11th May, the mass of the strikers were more solid and more determined than at the outset. Calls to the constitution, to God, to country had not swayed them. On the contrary, strikers became more political and more militant in their outlook. The Government’s strategy of politicising the dispute could have backfired. Sensing this, greater efforts were made on the propaganda front. British Gazette distribution figures were doubled in Derby, when extra copies were dispatched to the town on Tuesday. Enough supplies were received to send extras to the surrounding towns and villages.
In line with this political offensive, the local Tories decided to try to take over the Derby Co-operative Society, at its quarterly meeting on Monday 10th May. An unparalleled interest in the meeting was shown, so many members turned up that over a thousand were unable to get into the already packed Co-op Hall. Queues had begun over one and a half hours before the meeting and, by 7 o’clock, these stretched along Exchange Street, East Street and the Morledge to the Palais de Dance. Despite the fact that some of the candidates for election to the ruling body of the DCS were outside in the queue, the meeting went ahead. The overwhelming mood of the membership of the society was clear, when the Tory inspired motion proposing disaffiliation from the Labour Party was easily and devastatingly defeated, even without the thousand votes outside. Mrs E A Leese moved the resolution, which was later detailed in the June issue of the DSC Record: “That in the opinion of this meeting the Derby Cooperative Provident Society should not be affiliated to the Socialist or Labour Party.” Out of the vast attendance a mere six votes were cast for it. The debate was lively though! One member forcibly argued that “the Conservatives and Fascists were trying to smash (the) movement in this country by diplomacy as they did in Italy by force”. Not one of the Conservative nominees to the various positions up for election succeeded, while a radical Political Council emerged composed of Messrs Wheeldon, Haywood, Wilkinson, Appleby, Kelly, Larrad and Graham. [75]
Amidst all this ferment of ideas and activity, the Volunteer Services Committee tried to achieve some semblance of normality, largely in vain. However, work on the postal services was supposedly performed so effectively by the ‘volunteers’ that they claimed that the service had improved to three deliveries a day by the second week. Normal collections were being made, but transport difficulties caused problems in delivering on time. Delays in transit were “already much reduced” and “likely to become less as the days go on”, it was claimed. Some LMS trains ran on the Wednesday morning from Derby station, but these were still manned by ‘volunteers’-of whom, it was reported, “there are plenty”. [76] Railway workers’ wives picketed the Friargate Gate goods yards. Some women even ran in to physically pull out any drivers contemplating working. [77] The problem of maintaining supplies to the towns was enormous. Something like 1,200 tons of foodstuffs a week entered Derby in normal times, perhaps 150 to 200 lorry loads a day according to the Emergency Transport Office in Derby. There seems to have been some ‘misunderstanding’ on the part of the strike committee ‘regarding the TUC decisions with road transport”. [78] Perhaps this was the reason that on Monday 11th eight out of nine Co-op bread van deliverymen came out on strike. The strike committee refused permission to the Society to deliver to their retail shops and tried to get it to ‘withdraw the vegetable drays from the streets”. [79] Towards the end of the General Strike, there was a “fair supply of coke in the town” but the coal shortage was being acutely felt. The Coal Emergency Committee asked that some of the stock of 300 tons of coal held by the Co-op in Derby be released to them, but the board of directors refused, contrary to the Derby Daily Express report of 14th May that they had done so. Co-op coalmen returned after the strike and the coal was then only released to DCS members and only at the price prevailing before the mines had stopped. [80]
In advance of an expected settlement of the dispute, the Directors of Stanton ironworks opened their establishment on 10th May in order that arrangements could be made to re-open as quickly as possible. For it took days to prepare the giant furnaces for production. Only a tiny minority took the opportunity to turn up for work on the morning of the 12th. The bulk of the workers awaited official instructions, which everyone expected to come imminently in view of the comments of Thomas and the meetings involving the TUC, the Cabinet and the miners, A general sense that the strike was all but over was strong. Only the terms were at issue. The strikers at large wanted only two things, that the miners not be let down and there be no victimisation of strikers. Most employers were still taking a strong line on the question of disciplining their own strikers, The LNER flatly contradicted the idea that there would be immunity for strikers from victimisation, which Thomas suggested had been agreed. On Monday, the company announced that ‘they wished it to be understood that at the conclusion of the strike they will give preference of employment to those of their staff who have remained at work or who offer themselves for re-employment without delay”. [81]
Shrewdly, the Derby Daily Express observed in its editorial on the 11th, “seemingly little or nothing is being done to approach the problem of the mining industry”. The TUC leadership seized upon the intervention into the dispute of Sir Herbert Samuel, the Liberal chair of the 1925 Royal Commission, who produced a compromise memorandum as a basis for settling the dispute. It is certain that Baldwin was more than in touch with Samuel and that their thinking was not so far apart. Thomas, still with Liberal connections, arranged a General Council meeting at the home of his friend, the South African multi-millionaire, Sir Abe Bailey, and it was here that the TUC accepted the Samuel Memorandum as a basis for negotiating a settlement, But there were the miners to consider.
Only at 8 pm that evening was the full MFGB executive eventually called into the General Council to hear that it had accepted the Memorandum, There had been no consultation with the miners, but they were led to believe that the Government had also accepted it as a basis for negotiations. The implication was that the Government saw the whole affair in the same way as the TUC. There were however no firm guarantees, but this weakness was not pointed out by Thomas. A J Cook pressed Pugh, the TUC chair, for details of the guarantees, but got no real answers. J H Thomas then revealed the snobbery for which he was justly famous, saying quite seriously to Cook, the Marxist: “You may well not trust my word, but will you not accept the word of a British gentleman (Samuel) who has been Governor of Palestine?” The MFGB and the Labour Party executives then met in joint session to hear the same message from Bevin and MacDonald. The miners left the TUC at a little after midnight, while the General Council stayed until 1.30 am. The cabinet was in session the whole time, but would not receive the General Council until the following morning.
The Derby Daily Express headline for that following day was dramatic: “GENERAL STRIKE TERMINATING TODAY - OFFICIAL”. Gleefully, the paper declared that it had received the news less than a minute after it was announced at Downing Street. A special edition “speedily spread the glad tidings all over Derby and district”. The local paper might well have been elated but trade unionists were simply stunned. At Long Eaton, the TUC’s telegram calling the strike off was thought at first to be a forgery. It had been passed on by the local police station. [82] Everywhere, the mood was one of puzzlement or hostility to the TUC. Some thought at this stage that there must have been a victory, but could not understand the nature of this. A dance for the strikers was already arranged at Derby’s Central Hall that evening, a trade union membership card would guarantee admission. How much gaiety was there that night, after the bewildering news? The most puzzling aspect was that no secure terms had been secured and yet the strike was gaining strength every day. The Derby strike committee reported that the position on May 12th was that “there were no signs of weakening. On the other hand more workers were coming out and joining the strike.” At Ilkeston, the central strike committee reported, “no weakening whatsoever” and that the position was ‘stronger than ever ... spirit shown here splendid”. Ripley reported much the same mood and commented that “everybody (was) furious when (the) settlement was known”. It was commonly accepted, as the Chesterfield No.1 NUR branch secretary C S Hollis put it, that if the TUC leadership “had stuck it out we should have eventually won”. [83]
In the memories of strikers, Jimmy Thomas was to be allocated the prime responsibility for what was not a defeat, but a surrender. Years later, one old Derbyshire miner still spoke of “Judas H Thomas who sold we miners for thirty bits of silver”. While, in the immediate period after the strike, others posed the humorous pun: “Question - why do the miners drink beer? Answer. Because the TUC is weak!” The joke may be thin, but the bitterness was most certainly not. A trades unionist, uncertain of himself and his colleagues in struggle, would now often be nick-named ‘Jimmy Thomas’ for his weakness. [84] For Thomas was seen by all, eventually, not to have ever had his heart in the strike. He had said so publicly, right from the beginning, that he disliked the very concept of general strikes and feared the consequences of the constitutional issues raised by them. What is less forgivable is that he made this very clear to the government that this was so and they played it for all it was worth. While it would be wrong to assign all of the responsibility for betrayal to Thomas, it is clear that he had a decisive role in those fateful events that left the miners standing alone. But more important was the generally accepted analysis motivating the trade union leaderships represented on the General Council. In particular, the acceptance of the main reformist ideas of neutrality of the state, gradualism and fear of class struggle. Thomas merely drew attention to himself by virtue of his particularly snobbish outlook, compounded by a distinct relish for the good life. One Labour leader, Phillip Snowden, no mean slouch himself when it came to the delights of officialdom and rank, calculated that Thomas spent “three whole weeks each year attending Labour conferences and 150 days attending lunches and dinners of various societies ... at these he consumes nine gallons of champagne and that his laundry bill for starched shirts” amounted to £18 a year. [85]
The Samuel Memorandum proved to be less than useless and Thomas and his cronies knew it. Apart from a hint that a temporary subsidy might be introduced pending negotiations, there was not a single concession to the miners. Yet the wages cuts sought by the owners were to be accepted, if the Memorandum was to be followed. The British Worker spoke of assurances from the Government and suggested that a victory had been won, The miners’ view was simply ignored, while it was implied that meaningful negotiations were now underway. To the sheer bewilderment of ordinary trades unionists, the BBC and the press screamed that it was totally the opposite situation. By the time the settlement, or lack of it, was clear on Friday, it also emerged that a series of unpalatable reverses were to be inflicted upon the miners with the connivance of the TUC. Not only were there to be wages cuts, but also the minimum national wage was to be abolished, collective bargaining was to be replaced by compulsory arbitration, the 7-hour day was to end and district settlements were to come in. The miners had no option but to reject this, deciding therefore to stay on strike alone for as long as it took to win. It also now became clear that Baldwin - even before the rejection of the Memorandum by the miners - was saying that the Government could not force employers to take strikers back without victimisation, No wonder, for it was an ideal opportunity for every company and enterprise to weed out militant leaders, to cut wages and break agreements. Intimidation of returning strikers became the order of the day, even the 19th century ‘document’ tactic resurfaced. Both the railway clerks and the Trent bus workers saw such an attack in Derby, along with many others, The Loco Works went back in a spirit of great enthusiasm en bloc, with “200 or 300 ... assembling at the top of Babington Lane and marching back”. However, they also went back to a three-day week.
Many manufacturing firms returned to some degree of normality fairly soon. By Thursday morning in Chesterfield, Markham’s engineering works were back, along with the tube works and Plowright’s. 54 moulders who had struck at Bryan Donkin’s returned and Whittington’s jam factory was back to normal, [86] But other workers faced open challenges from their employers, Railwaymen gathered in Chesterfield, Derby, llkeston and elsewhere to hear the cessation telegram read out. In Brimington, a bell was rung in the streets on Wednesday evening to call a railwaymen’s’ meeting at the local school. Like some Derby workers, the Chesterfield NUR men went back en bloc, lining up outside their headquarters for a march to the station. But it was to be to no avail, for the railway companies intended to pick and choose who would work and who would not. Ilkeston railway workers faced the same prospect. After they met on Wednesday to hear the reading of the telegram, some returned that night to discover the same attitude as elsewhere. The railway companies’ position was formally put by a notice posted on the walls of railway buildings in Derby: [87]
NOTICE
Members of the staff who have absented themselves from duty without giving the notice prescribed by the terms of their service are notified that unless by 12 noon on Friday May 14th they offer themselves for re-employment, steps will be taken to fill their places.
H G Burgess
General Manager
Reassured by the false idea that Baldwin had made a guarantee of no victimisation, the 600 RCA members who had struck in Derby presented themselves for work on Thursday 13th as instructed by the TUC. Yet none of them were taken on. It could not be clearer that the company intended to discriminate against strikers, especially union activists. There could only be one answer to such a stance, all of the workers walked straight out again demanding no victimisation,
The Derby strike committee covering the three rail unions sat for several hours at the Unity Hall on Friday 14th. Outside, a notice was posted to the effect that acceptance of the company’s terms for a return to work would be disastrous, Only a last-minute settlement at national level averted further difficulties on the railways. However, the price for re-instatement was absolute humiliation, in that the unions had to concede that ‘in calling the strike they committed a wrongful act and agree that the companies do not by re-instatement surrender their legal rights to claim damages ... from strikers and others responsible”. [88] Somewhat cynically, the Midland Railway general manager sent a message to all employees asking them to “pull together” in late May. [89] By late July, some 57 clerks were still not reinstated in Derby and over 200 were on short time. The position locally seemed to Alexander Walkden, the RCA general secretary, to be a particularly slow re-instatement. Union benefits were being paid to those out of work, as long as the £1 levy called for by the RCA executive continued to be met. [90]
Immediately after the end of the strike, the Ilkeston Pioneer reported the sighting of the “first Trent bus for over a week in Ilkeston ... along the Lord Haddon Rd on Wednesday evening”, almost as if it were rescuing the town from isolation back into civilisation. But it was not to be that easy. Throughout Trent Motor Traction, large numbers of returning strikers were cleared out of the garages by police because they refused to accept the company’s return to work conditions. Only a very few men were prepared to take services out on Friday. The company issued a notice saying that no negotiations would take place with the union, which was party to the “present illegal combination against the safety and welfare of the state”. The firm deemed all strikers to have terminated their employment and declared that only those who accepted their employer’s terms would be re-instated. However, the terms were lengthy, complex and harsh. Clause 10 in particular hit at the union very hard. The condition was that “any changes in rates of pay or conditions of service shall in future be negotiated with the employees attached to each garage”. This effectively cut the union out of collective bargaining, by dealing directly with employees. Moreover, the firm was aiming for the elimination of company-wide wages and conditions, by dealing with each depot in isolation. The whole strategy was something that could not possibly be accepted. It was tantamount to de-recognition of an effective union.
F W Haslam, the TGWU branch secretary, had spoken to a mass meeting of the men on the Thursday night. He urged support for the union by reporting to work the next day, but only unconditionally and on the previous terms. “I said good-bye to your General Manager (Mr Campbell Taylor) on clause 10.” Haslam told his members that “if he wants to see me again he will have to send for me”. The branch secretary had become so frustrated by the contemptuous attitude of the management that he thought himself now the “dead set enemy of the Trent company. . .but I am not going to coerce you”, he told his members. “You are the union, not l.” Given such a choice, the vast majority of the bus workers fell down on the side of Haslam and their union. Both Nottingham and Derby Corporation Tramways and Midland Red had returned to work on more favourable terms than the Trent management required. Ilkeston Tramways were still off the road, while the workers held meetings on back to work conditions on Thursday morning. These problems were quickly resolved to their satisfaction. Sadly, such a solution was not to hand for the Trent bus workers.
Campbell Taylor refused to meet with official union representatives and held a meeting with unofficial representatives of Nottingham and Derby garages. On the basis that a meeting of the men was due to consider a return to work, given reasonable terms, the management had agreed to consider a negotiated settlement of the conditions. Clearly, the spirit of the bus workers in their employ was stronger than the employer had believed would be the case. The management effectively climbed down, claiming that “the wording of some of these conditions did not make the views of management quite clear to the men”. It was now claimed that clause 10 did not intend to repudiate recognition of the union. However, the wording of clause 10 was unambiguous and had been written by Campbell Taylor himself. Haslam had spent a long time with management, probing their intentions, about which there was no doubt in his mind. It seems very likely that the company had retreated from what had initially been a very hard anti-union position. The meeting between Campbell Taylor and the rank-and-file representatives was taking place while a mass meeting of the Derby men was being addressed by Monk, a TGWU official, at the Temperance Hall. Monk told the assembly that 150 Nottingham men were on their way to Derby to hold a demonstration. However, the news of the company’s retreat came through and preparations were made by Trent to transport employees from Nottingham, Loughborough, Ilkeston and Alfreton to Derby for a “peace meeting” addressed by Campbell Taylor. In the end, given alteration of clause 10 and by guaranteeing existing rates of pay until January 1st 1927, when the next pay round would be negotiated with the union, the men returned to normal working with their organisation and pride intact.
The General Strike was over, there were those who had been eager to get out of the battle and were most reluctant to condemn the TUC. Stokes, at the Derby WU District Committee, noted that “still the Miners (were) out. But no blame should be put on the General Council until they had made their statement.” Hind hoped that “no-one would criticise the General Council ... he did not think that the strike had been a failure ... he had made 16 members in his branch”. [91] Whilst this latter comment might be viewed as being a little trite in the circumstances, it was the case that the immediate effect of the end of the strike was not by any means one of total disillusionment. Unorganised workers were greatly impressed by the solidarity and strength of trades unionists. Hind’s experience was not an isolated one, the Rowsley NUR branch reported substantial blocks of recruits. For that small branch, 27 new members was an important development. In the immediate wake of the strike, trades unionism had arguably been strengthened. [92]
The longer-term consequences were mostly negative, as the miners faced a slow defeat and the State extracted revenge. The Derbyshire Times issued twelve writs against the Chesterfield strike committee. Vin Williams, the editor of the strike bulletin, was charged with committing an act calculated to cause ‘mutiny, sedition or dissatisfaction” for the report on the alleged episode in Hyde Park in the third issue of May 10th. Anne Astwood later recalled Vin Williams’, arrest: “that night, while the meeting’s in progress I can see three policemen, an inspector and two constables coming through t’grounds”. She rapidly told Dennis Webster (later the Labour Party secretary in the town) to hide the strike bulletins in the dustbin. While, as she put it, “I put the minute book in my bosom”. The next day, Williams was brought before the Chesterfield court, where the Deputy Town Clerk, S Walker, claimed that he ‘held strong communist views” and had come to the area with the ‘avowed intention of creating strike disturbances in what had hitherto been a peaceful area”.
A F Day, a council employee, had bought a copy of the strike bulletin and passed it over to Colonel Little, the military intelligence officer for the area. Williams pleaded that he had been told the story (now clearly just a rumour, but which had originally seemed plausible) by an MP and had published it in good faith. Colonel Little denied any truth in the story at all. But there had been large numbers of troops at Hyde Park and it may well have been the case that some Welsh contingents expressed their displeasure at the possibility of being used in the dispute against their compatriots. Perhaps there had been no open or organised mutiny and more significance was attached to the rumour than was deserved. The response of the State was unnecessarily harsh, since there had been no military consequences. Beyond a display of parading troops through London, they were not utilised at all. The court predictably found against Williams and he was sentenced to two months imprisonment with hard labour with a £5 fine. The costs of the defence - Sir Stafford Cripps represented him - were taken up by the DMA. After Williams came out of jail, on July 1st, he was greeted by enthusiastic applause at a meeting of Eckington miners. [93]
There were many other victims of the judicial offensive, mostly in mining districts. Only a week after Williams was sentenced, two miners, Joseph Fretwell of Pinxton and Arthur Wilkinson of South Normanton were bound over for six months at Alfreton for possessing copies of the Derbyshire Chronicle, On 7th May, a miner had put a tree in the path of a bus at Kimberly. For this, his punishment was three months’ hard labour. Two men were sentenced to a month’s hard labour for an incident on May 10th, involving a lorry on its way to Robinson’s of Chesterfield, when the windscreen had been smashed. In another incident, six people were brought before the courts for blockading the road to Underwood’s buses. At Ripley on May 11th, four miners stoned a strikebreaking bus, injuring two passengers, for which they received two months imprisonment. [94] In Derby there were no arrests made. Two prosecutions were taken out against employees of the LMS Railway Company by the firm, but these failed at the local court. [95] Most of these offences were trivial, yet they were treated excessively seriously. More damage to life and limb was often created by the antics of ‘volunteer’ drivers of trains, lorries and buses, but a benevolent blind-eye was turned here. This intimidation of strikers and miners must surely have been intentional. Not only had maximum revenge to be extracted to prevent such an occurrence again, but solidarity with the miners had to be deterred, While the miners themselves needed to be broken before final victory could be claimed by Baldwin and his Government. Trades unionists awaited the TUC’s review of the strike, many actually believing that there might be another call to action. The strike committee in Derby was still in existence several weeks after the end of the strike, almost as if in touching belief that the miners would not be let down.
3 From “Soakie to a Gold-Mounted Fountain Pen” - the miners battle on for seven months
The miners stayed out until nearly the end of the year, while the emphasis of trade union activity moved from supportive strike action to fund-raising, to avoid starvation amongst the miners and their families. For a short while, the left wing of the labour and trade union movement tried to stimulate concrete solidarity action once more, by halting the movement of coal. The COMMUNIST PARTY called on the ILP to join them in a campaign along these lines. However, the leadership of the ILP, some of whom had been intimately involved in the TUC-Labour Party heading off of the General Strike, dithered. Some local ILP branches did act swiftly. A joint campaign on the embargo of coal was agreed on by the ILP and COMMUNIST PARTY in Derby. [96] With most miners still out solidly, the country had to rely on stocks of coal to meet its energy needs. The small amounts of coal being mined by strike breakers was totally insufficient to supply the country’s needs and it was still very difficult to import coal into the country through the docks. Lay-offs due to the coal shortages began; by June 19th, seven thousand employees of the Stanton Ironworks were put out of work. [97] Had the TUC and most unions been won to support the embargo, it might have given greater strength to the miners. While the ILP did initially vaguely support the concept of an embargo on coal, it grew increasingly quiet over the issue. The MFGB’s call for a widening of the embargo was hardly mentioned in the ILP’s paper. By the next month, the ILP had formally dropped the strategy in favour of an unrealistic call for a general election, which was supposed to solve all of the miners’ problems by the election of a Labour Government.
The coal owners had attempted to get the Derbyshire men back to work once the General Strike had been called off The DMA had been locked out for sympathy action with other coalfields. In common with all other areas, the DMA remained quite solid. A special DMA area council felt that the General Strike had been called off before an honourable settlement had been reached. Although the union paid 10/- a week strike pay (5/- for juniors), this was less than one-fifth normal income. As the struggle continued, hardship of a desperate nature became the order of the day for miners, their families and their communities. One old miner later recalled that many in Derbyshire lived on a staple diet of ‘soakie”, a basin of tea and bread with “the top of an egg if we were lucky”. The only variation might be “bread and lard with sugar on”. [98] Another recalled that ‘bread and butter or bread and jam” was the mainstay of the daily diet of many families, but it was usually home-made bread and home-made jam. People also lived on vegetables out of their gardens, and by “pinching turnips and swedes out of the fields”. Whilst yet another recalled that they lived “from hand-to-mouth on rabbits we could catch, turnips from fields and plants from hedgerows. We’d pick blackberries, nettles, nuts and mushrooms and dig up pig nuts. I would fetch dripping from the kitchens at Locko Hall. It tasted marvellous.” [99]
Fuel was very scarce, even in the coalfields. There was no money to buy coal and a great deal of scavenging on the pit tips went on. One miner, then a young lad at Ripley, remembered ‘sliding down these tips on a shovel, bringing home the bags of pickings on carts made from pram wheels and old boards”, Another recalled that they used “to go (to the tips) from about 10.30 pm until about 4am without the cops to drive us away”. This night shift subterfuge was often necessary, for the police tried hard to prevent illegal picking of what was in fact scrap mineral and coal. But their efforts were mostly in vain. Even outcropping, or digging for coal near the surface, took place in the Kennings Park area. Eleven men were fined at Ilkeston for sinking coal shafts on Corporation property.
Naturally, many miners now found themselves with a great deal of spare time on their hands and with no money to enjoy it. After the daily battle to acquire food and fuel, there were opportunities for self-made amusements, One participant recalled that the young miners ‘ranged about for weeks. We helped pass the time by playing brag for matches in the stables of the New Inn - now the Eagle Tavern - in Ripley Road, Heage.” [100] All sorts of adventurous and clever ideas for fund-raising were tried out, jazz bands, football and cricket matches, sports galas. Most families had to pawn or sell all of their valuables, even wedding rings. Pawnshops especially did a brisk trade at 2d per week. Communal soup kitchens were set up everywhere. Some feeding centres managed to fare quiet well in ‘cadging’ food, At Somercotes, there were four centres, which fed up to 1,200 children with two meals a day. The figures for meals given at the Gladstone Street Feeding Centre, an official relief centre for underprivileged children in Ilkeston, show a peak being reached that summer in the number of meals provided.
Month Meals
May 30,512
June 25,914
July/August 36,396
Elsewhere in the town, butchers like Mrs Bentley of Cotmanhay Road, shopkeepers of all kinds, publicans at the Durham Ox and the Ancient Druids contributed meat and vegetables for broth making. Children would queue up for jug-fulls of broth and stale bread, White’s chip shop gave away scraps at the end of each opening session.
The Co-ops continued the assistance that they had earlier given in the General Strike throughout the long months of the lockout. Employees of lkeston Co-op donated one shilling in the pound from their wages to the miners’ relief fund, providing vouchers for Co-op goods. Credit was extended to striking miners and dividend paid out early. A special meeting of two hundred Derby Co-op members on July 5th endorsed “the action of the Directors in subscribing £1,000 to the Co-operative Union Relief Fund for Co-operative societies and co-operators in mining areas”, Big food manufacturers with benevolent leanings, such as Cadbury’s and Fry’s, were asked for food, There were two marches to the Belper workhouse to try to force the Guardians to accept responsibility for the children. Three busloads of children went ‘to stay and made them feed us”. [101] With all this going on, the coal owners must have thought that it would be relatively easy to get the men to return to work. Colliery officials bought men drinks in the local pubs in order that they might be softened up, but all that seemed to happen was that the men gladly supped the ale before refusing to go back. [102] Such was the vindictiveness of the Tory Government that Baldwin wrote to the US authorities, as a deputation from the MFGB was about to set out for America on a fund-raising tour. His message was that there was no dire need in the coalfields, that there was good grounds for thinking that the children were better fed as a result of the communal kitchens than before the dispute! The miners were isolated and beginning to starve. The Government introduced a Bill in Parliament in June that would permit the lengthening of the working day to an underground average of 8 hours 30 minutes, thus suspending the 7-hour day won in 1919. While the TUC claimed to oppose the Bill, little or nothing was done about it by the trade union movement. Still the miners would not give in. Only a very few men returned to work. Some did so at Staveley’s Markham No 2 colliery, despite the hostility towards them by their colleagues and their community. The weekend after this minor return, five thousand strikers demonstrated in the village, with their lodge banners flying and a brass band at the head of the march, This display of defiance stiffened the resolve of many who might have weakened. [103]
Wherever there were signs of some miners returning, the community responded. At Ripley, the words “scab” were chalked on the appropriate doors and one street had the word “Scab Row” painted over the street sign because of the reputation it acquired through some of its occupants’ activities. One local woman, Elsie Gadsby, then a young girl, remembers how the women responded when the few strike breakers passed by on their way to work, ‘You should have heard the amazons: ‘Get back home, you dirty blacklegs!’ Strike’lI last for ever if it’s left to you dirty creeps!’ Then they’d start (singing) The Red Flag’ again. The men would leave off their games to shout encouragement to the women. I wouldn’t have been in those blacklegs’ shoes for all the coal left in the pits. And these men were shunned for a long time after the strike was over. Even their children were stamped with the dreaded “blackleg’s kids”. I was glad I wasn’t one of them.” [104]
After only ten weeks the DMA’s funds were all but exhausted and from mid-July only charity and scavenging kept the miners and their families alive. In Chesterfield, the Guardians had five thousand cases of distress to deal with and had become so pressed in coping with the situation that men fainted with hunger, as they stood for hours on end in the endless queues. The offers of a return to work must have seemed increasingly tempting to some, in July, the DMA council voted two to one to ask the MFGB to consider a ballot on the question of the working day. Some employers now tried to reopen their pits at terms even less favourable than at the outset of the dispute. Notices were posted to that effect at Staveley, Shipley, Ilkeston, Heanor and elsewhere. But most men stood firm, although by the end of July some 250 were back at Markham No 2, 100 at Oxcroft and 130 at other pits. By mid-August there were around 1,800 in all who had returned.
The employers in some areas were very conscious that a chance existed of being able to break the union. The Bolsover Colliery Company concluded an agreement with the British Workers League, which saw itself as an ‘anti-Bolshevik’ union. Although, this was largely to no affect, Some men did start back there and owners of some Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire pits did try to re-open them on the basis of the BWL agreement, but it came too little. Despite suggestions that back-door deals were being contemplated by DMA officials, the union remained fairly solid. At the end of August, A J Cook toured Derbyshire in an attempt to stop the drift back to work, A great crowd of over 4,000 gave him an emotional reception at Chesterfield on the 24th. After singing the Red Flag, they listened to Cook for two hours as he told them that “Derbyshire had a glorious name”. He was carried from the hall over the shoulders of the men, in an outburst of emotion, [105] Cook also visited South Derbyshire, when he spoke to several thousand miners and supporters in Swadlincote, He became 50 exhausted by the tour of the county that at Bolsover the enthusiastic crowd had to be kept away from him while he walked to the car. Cook’s oratory and sense of purpose won him the passionate loyalty of the ordinary miner in a way that few leaders of the British working class have been able to lay claim to. His complete identification with the miners caused him to insist on forgoing his union salary during the long months of the lock-out, Even when offered a hotel while on a speaking engagement in Derby he would not accept it, preferring “a lodging house (in Park Street) at 5 shillings a night”. [106] The Derbyshire Times thought his personal intervention in the county ensured that “many men were kept from ... going to work”. [107]
During Cook’s visit to the county, much disorder was caused by the provocative announcement of the Home Secretary, Joynson-Hicks that any men wishing to return to work would receive police protection. The emergency regulations continued to be used against the miners and their supporters, Henry Webb, a Communist Party organiser, was prosecuted at Chesterfield for a speech made at Shirebrook, C E Mason of Bakewell was charged with a speech calculated to cause disaffection. Pickets tried to prevent men from returning to work and the authorities had no hesitation in using their powers against them. John Mosley, Ellen Hill and Thomas Hill were all charged in Derbyshire with intimidating one William Crich with the aim of getting him to stop work. Each were fined the impossible sum of £5 with costs, A measure of the sharpness of the situation is provided by the fact that two strike breakers and their bicycles were thrown into the Erewash canal by striking miners at the end of August. [108]
Police from Manchester and elsewhere were sent in huge numbers to reinforce the local constabulary. In Bolsover, the police were billeted at Bainbridge Hall, the home of the Managing Director of the local coal company. The Labour Mayor of Chesterfield swore in special constables at Bolsover, whose job was to ensure that the little coal that was available still went out. Joynson-Hicks claimed that prosecutions were at their greatest in the Midlands counties. As men returned to work, the numbers of prosecutions in Derbyshire soared from four in August to 131 in September. [109] Sentences became more severe. John Davis, a Welsh miners’ leader, was prosecuted for a speech and sentenced to two months jail at Chesterfield. A spate of similar prosecutions took place in Clay Cross and Alfreton. Tommy James, a Rotherham Communist, got three months hard labour for breach of the peace after a speech in Chesterfield. The chairman of the bench was Sir Ernest Shentall, a local coal owner who “had a habit of passing harsh sentences on communists”. [110] A woman was fined £2 for chalking on the road: “don’t be a scab!”, near Holmewood Colliery. Four miners were fined £5 for hostility to a strikebreaker, an action that might lead to the “restriction of the supply of fuel”. [111]
This constant legal sniping was impossible to counter and the arrogance of the police, now in a position of unrivalled strength, went to extraordinary lengths. DMA notices were removed by police at Grassmoor on the grounds that they were inaccurate! The true role of the State was starkly revealed as all pretence at impartiality was dropped. Police began to knock men up in the morning to tell them it was time to start work. Strikers standing on street corners were asked why they were not at work, as if it were a criminal offence. It seemed almost as if that was the case. [112] The pressure to return to work was intense, By the end of September over 10,000 men had gone back in Derbyshire, perhaps a fifth of the total workforce, Numbers of free meals claimed by children at Ilkeston’s Gladstone Street Feeding Centre dropped from almost 26,000 in July to 11,426 in September and to 6,389 in October, a dramatic example of the demise of the resistance. Other areas were perhaps more solid, but generally it was a difficult time for the MFGB. The government proposed a settlement on the basis of district agreements, thus demolishing the very concept of a national minimum rate and unity of all Britain’s miners, something cherished by them as an ambition for generations,
A flood of men returning in Nottinghamshire encouraged the view that these proposals should be accepted, although the line of the MFGB was still to resist such suggestions, The Nottinghamshire Miners Association’s funds were exhausted and little assistance could be given by other areas, Derbyshire had given £10,000 in May to the NMA, but was itself now in dire straits. Despite this, the TUC declined to organise a penny a head levy on all trades unionists to help the MFGB and once again concentrated its efforts on settling the dispute over the heads of the miners, by trying to resolve the contradiction that district negotiations could not allow for national negotiations, The end was very near for the miners in the long battle. Beaten by the slow process of starvation and isolated from all but a few friends within the labour movement, the miners voted at a special MFGB conference only very narrowly to accept the Government’s terms. Yet this position was reversed subsequently in a national ballot by ratio of five to three, but another national delegate conference endorsed the settlement, which allowed for local bargaining.
Attempts were made to reach a settlement on these lines in Derbyshire and most felt optimistic that reasonable terms could be won, After all, the DMA had voted in the national ballot by 28,300 to 2,650 to carry on the fight. Even the hard-line Bolsover Company had intimated that they would agree to a ‘no-victimisation’ clause, in a mutually agreed settlement that catered for district negotiations. [113] But, in the event, the terms offered by the coal owners were totally unacceptable, Even though the NMA was collapsing, the DMA continued the struggle. The collapse of the NMA was all but total and was partly due to the influence of one of their leaders - George Spencer - who subsequently was expelled for his activities by the Federation. A Lib-Laber of the old school, Spencer had long been at odds with the prevailing mood of the miners, He had been a determined supporter of Hancock, the NMA leader and MP for Mid-Derbyshire, in his opposition to MFGB affiliation to the Labour Party, a decade and a half ago. In the intervening period he had not essentially changed his political outlook.
Cook came back to Derbyshire in an attempt to stop the rot spreading across the two counties, Spencer’s name, he declared, stank “in the nostrils of honest men”, Cook visited every mining village in Derbyshire, speaking night and day. On one particular day he put in 15 hours of solid talking. Herbert Smith, the MFGB national president spoke in Chesterfield: “Derbyshire helped build this Federation up, and I am not going to let you pull it down.” [114] The miners still resisted defeat, as the coal shortages bit harder and winter approached, Derby’s chief executive, G Trevelyan Lee, issued instructions on November 2nd that no coal or coke over 28Ibs could be supplied for domestic use unless a permit had been obtained from the Fuel Officer at St Werburgh’s Church School in Curzon Street. [115] There were further arrests and harassment, Police officers boldly sat in at DMA branch meetings. The Communist MP, Shapurji Saklatvala was told by Alfreton police that all public meetings were banned. Tom Mullins and Vin Williams were prevented from speaking at Clowne and Ripley respectively. James Maxton and Davie Kirkwood, ILP MPs from the ‘Red Clyde’, were stopped from speaking at Staveley and Eckington, At Kirkwood’s court hearing, five MPs appeared and the Red Flag was sung by a crowded courtroom. The police were kept back by the crowd at Eckington to allow farewell speeches. [116]
At the end of November, the Nottinghamshire coal owners signed a five-year agreement with Spencer. Ramsay MacDonald sent him congratulations on the signing of a district settlement. But, to achieve this, he had to force a breakaway from the NMA and the MFGB. Thirty-nine delegates founded the Nottinghamshire and District Miners Industrial Union, the Spencerite breakaway, (NDMIU). It was effectively a ‘company union’ and its principal stated policy was to oppose political and strike action by unions. Spencer was an existing MP for Broxtowe and his subsequent expulsion from the Labour Party enabled him to sit in comfort on the Liberal benches. For the leader of a supposedly non-political union, it was an act of stunning hypocrisy. Generally recognised in the Nottinghamshire coalfield the NDMIU organised to some extent in Derbyshire. The Bolsover and Creswell owners immediately recognised the NDMIU. A Spencerite split was avoided in Derbyshire, but at a price. An agreement that followed exactly the Nottinghamshire formula was presented by the coal owners. Frank Hall signed the document for the DMA, two days after the NDMIU agreement was concluded. He later recalled that the conversation between the employers and the union side was very pleasant and he “was presented with a gold-mounted fountain pen by Mr H E Mitton”, the owners’ chief negotiator. [117] The DMA officials instructed their members to return to work immediately. It was all over.
The November 29th agreement, which ended the dispute in Derbyshire, lowered wages, increased hours and introduced a sliding scale principle in which a miner’s standard of living could very quickly be dropped. Wages were to be fixed not to the price of coal, or as a result of collective bargaining, but by a complex financial formula. A District Wages Board was to be set up with representatives of the union and the owners, The wages structure, which was to be its property, would be based on audits from the owners’ books. The relative profitability would alter wages at any one time in a percentage basis over a standard rate. There was an agreed formula which related costs, which obviously diminished profits, to the agreed minimum wages rates, This district minimum was to be 38% above basic rates, Day workers would get 8/9d a shift, so long as this did not mean more than 6d a shift subsidy. Hours of work were increased by thirty minutes a shift, while piecework percentages were cut from 14.17% to 7%. If the coal owners’ profitability was ever less than the agreed costs formula, then any deficit would be carried forward until it was recovered within a three month ‘ascertainment’ period. Where a surplus existed, it would be balanced against deficits and 85% of the residue would fund the wages structure.
The accounting principles of the ascertainment procedure were detailed at length. The eight miners’ leaders who signed the agreement (including Hall, Hicken and John Spencer) were determined to avoid any manipulation by the owners of the financial figures, if they had to accept the notion of relating wages to profitability on a sliding scale. The standard, or ‘basis’ rate, incorporated scale-downs to enable the ascertainment concept to be phased in without hurting more than absolutely necessary. Wages paid would actually relate to the ascertainment period finishing two months before, so there would be a breathing space and some notice of what was to come. The percentage phase down was: December - 90%; January/February - 80%; March/May 70%; June/August - 60%, The agreement was to last for five years, until December 1931, and of course only covered the northern coalfield in the county - a separate agreement covered the southern end, There were some protective measures negotiated in the agreement, but mostly the owners had got what they wanted.
4 “The miners could have won a wage reduction without Thomas’ help”
The entire struggle had ruined the miners’ funds. By the end of 1926 the DMA had only £43,461 in reserve, having entered the year with £250,054; only eight years before it had double those reserves. The titanic battles of the 1 920s drained the union’s vigour. [118] Short of £2 million had been raised by trades unionists for the MFGB Relief Fund. A gift of £1,161,459 was made by Soviet trades unionists and this lead to allegations that the dispute had been financed by ‘Moscow Gold’. [119] In fact, even such a generous donation fell far short of what was actually needed. From May to December some 0.75 million miners, together with their wives and families - maybe as many as 3.5 million people - had suffered great privation. Clearly the funds raised did not stretch far at all.
The practical effort in raising the funds was none the less a magnificent response, even if it often salved the consciences of those who knew that the miners needed supportive action of a more decisive kind before they needed soup and bread. But the enormous sums raised were in themselves evidence of the support the miners had in working class communities. Derby Labour Party’s appeal for funds for boots and clothes for the miners families raised the phenomenal sum of £2,555 5s 4d. [120] Entirely voluntary levies were sometimes instituted by some organisations, such as Rowsley NUR whose members gave 10% of their wages for the first two weeks of work back after the General Strike had been called off. [121] It might have only been conscience money, but it was money. Yet not all union branches responded favourably. The traditionally isolationist New Mills painters’ branch voted twice against a levy in national ballots of their union. In June the vote was eleven members against such a levy, with five for; in November there were six members against and two for a levy. [122]
The General Strike severely undermined the finances of the trade union movement. A potentially dangerous view, that industrial strategy ought to be considered principally in the light of union solvency or otherwise, began to predominate. Derby branches of the WU were still repaying Burton-on -Trent branches (which had not been called out) for loans made during the General Strike as late as May 1931, after the WU had already merged with the TGWU due to the former’s financial difficulties. [123] For the TGWU itself, it had paid out £291,869 in one week of the General Strike alone. [124] While the NUR paid out over £1 million. The strike cost the unions dear, aggregate funds dropped from £13 million to £8.5 million in one fell swoop. Funds were hit not only by official dispute benefit payments, but also by special hardship grants. All of the Derbyshire WU members who had come out were paid 10/- a week (with less than three months membership only 5/-), but there were a “large number of members who (were) not entitled to benefit according to rule”. H A Hind raised their case at the WU executive and was able to say that “he had been successful in getting financial assistance for Burton, Bakewell and Youlgreave” branches. [125]
After the initial euphoria, trade union membership began to suffer. As early as July, Stokes was telling the WU that the mining lockout was “having a bad effect on our union locally”. [126] The Derby WU Loco Works branch (No. 1122) membership entrance books reveal that recruitment was dramatically down overall in 1926, compared with previous years. Entrances were unusually high before and during the strike, but slumped afterwards. In 1925, 428 recruits were made but there were only 237 during the whole of 1926. The TGWU lost membership, its Midlands region falling to well below the 1922 level, [127]
1922 13,321
1925 17,049
1926 12,652
The widespread dismay and confusion, following what was not a defeat but a surrender, helped weaken the movement. The path was cleared to passivity and further retreat.
In the coalfields, the miners experienced the worst conditions in living memory. Wages were cut by about one fifth. Victimisation was widespread, by January 1927 there were still just short of a thousand men who had not been taken back in Derbyshire. One victim was Bert Wynn, later to become Derbyshire Area Secretary of the DMA and the National Union of Miners (NUM). He had thought that socialism might have been brought onto the agenda by the strike, but afterwards experienced the most depressing defeatism, for which he largely blamed other trades unionists. He liked to use a saying - “the NUR is on the R-U-N”. Wynn could not get back at his pit in Heanor and had to “sell his books to live and then he had to sell his furniture”. [128] Bolsover saw some of the worst victimisation, for the NDMIU was recognised by coal owners at Alfreton, Bolsover, Beighton Burley and Waleswood. Spencerism became part of a general ideological offensive by the employers against strong and independent unionism, The TUC turned to an open strategy of collaboration with the employers and began to see the forces of the left within the movement as its main enemy and not capitalism itself.
The most militant expression of the workers’ strength had successfully taken place, but it had been thwarted by lack of desire of the leadership to lead such an exhibition. In an amazing twist of reality, the right wing leadership began to blame the newly weakened position of the working class movement on their critics, be they Communists, left Labour activists or the newly politicised militants in the unions. But, despite this infighting, the mood of the working class was not expressed in support for Toryism. In working class districts, Labour gained seats and votes in the local elections of November 1926. A very heavy poll in Derby brought “a great triumph for the Labour Party and the working class as against the employers and the capitalist class”. [129] The support continued, for twelve months later Labour gained three more seats in the town, taking it to the strongest position it had ever been to that time in the council, The authorities retained a strong sense of caution about working class political activity, even as the struggle was coming to an end. Saklatvala, the Communist MP, had been allowed to speak in September at Derby’s Central Hall at a meeting chaired by a “Mr Ashcroft’. The caution was extreme, after all Derby was not a mining town. [130] But the police reacted strongly very late in November, when Harry Pollitt of the COMMUNIST PARTY tried to speak at a public meeting for the CP’s Derby branch. The meeting was only allowed to proceed “under police supervision”, without PoIlitt and only using local speakers. [131]
Ready as ever to extract all that was possible out of the debacle, the Tories pushed through the Trades Disputes and Trade Union Act of 1927. This attacked the political power of the unions. Contracting in to their political funds was substituted for contracting out. Strikes in certain situations were to be classed as illegal. Unions which were affiliated to the Labour Party or the TUC were barred to civil servants. Local authorities could no longer insist on union-only labour contractors. Workers in essential public services were not allowed to break their contracts of employment in any way, inhibiting even ‘go-slow’ disputes. Strikebreakers were given legal protection and picketing made almost impossible, certainly ineffective. Unions could not finance MP5 or councillors, General and sympathetic strikes of all kinds were classed as illegal. It was the most vicious attack on the working class movement for decades, almost a return to the position before 1875 of the Master and Servant Acts. The new Act had immediate and lasting effects. Just for one, it was cited as being “solely responsible for the withdrawal of the Derby branch of the Postal Workers Union” from affiliation to the local Labour Party. [132] How far the new law could be rendered inoperable would depend on the attitude of the unions from herein, The heady period of Red Friday and the nine action packed days of the General Strike was over.
Optimism and militancy were eclipsed by the leadership’s fear of revolution. A fear motivated by a venomous hatred of taking action and of those that advocated such a course. A fear which contrasted sharply within the obsequiousness accorded to the barons of industry and finance. Reformism lay at the heart of the distaste for the strike which Thomas and others displayed. Their betrayal did not simply arise out of personal weakness, being some warped product of Jimmy Thomas’ taste for elegance. It was a built-in tactic of the strategy of reform as against revolution.
Let the last words rest with the miners. A J Cook, visiting Derby to speak at an ILP meeting in January 1927, poured out his bitterness at the sad betrayal. Thomas proved, Cook believed, that he had “more regard for the capitalists than he has for us”. The miners, he sardonically complained, “could have won a wage reduction and an hour’s increase by themselves - without Thomas’s help”!! [133]
APPENDIX
CALENDAR OF KEY EVENTS
APRIL TO MAY 1926
Thursday April 29th
TUC Conference of Executives of all unions decides to support miners by vote of 800 to 2.
Friday 30th
State of Emergency declared. Lock-out notices expire at midnight. Saturday May 1st
Individual union executives meet in the morning. Conference of all executives at 12 noon vote for a strike, Telegrams go out at 6pm.
Sunday 2nd
Thomas tries a deal as General Council and Cabinet meet, Printers refuse to print
Daily Mail article.
Monday 3rd
Strike begins at 12 midnight, first phase only. Government refuses further
negotiations.
Tuesday 4th
British Gazette set up, British Worker raided. BBC under Government direction.
Arrests begin in some areas.
Wednesday 5th
First issues of rival newspapers appear, the Government appeals for ‘volunteers’.
Thursday 6th
Simon declares strike to be illegal. Samuel contacts Thomas on Baldwin’s suggestion.
Friday 7th
Government prevents Archbishop of Canterbury from making conciliatory speech on the BBC, TUC leaders meet Samuel, but this is denied by the British Worker. Offer of mediation secretly put.
Saturday 8th
TUC refuses £200,000 gift from Soviet trade unions, Food supplies are guarded by armoured cars in London.
Sunday 9th
Cardinal Bourne for the Catholics declares the strike to be a sin. TUC puts Samuel proposals to miners’ leaders, they insist on no wages cuts or lengthening of the working day.
Monday 10th
Samuel meets TUC and miners.
Tuesday 11th
The second line of workers is supposed to come out - engineering and others, but many are already out. TUC accepts the Samuel Memorandum. MFGB EC rejects it.
Wednesday 12th
TUC surrenders at 12 noon. British Worker claims a victory. Thursday 13th
Now clear that settlement does not include withdrawal of lockout notices, no real guarantees on conditions of work for the miners or victimisation of unionists who have supported them. MFGB firmly opposed.
Friday 14th
Government sends proposals to mine owners less favourable than the Memorandum.
CHAPTER TEN REFERENCES
I Emile Burns ‘The General Strike - May 1926: Trades Councils in Action” LRD (1926) - facsimile reprint Lawrence and Wishart (1975) p122
2 J E Williams “The Derbyshire Miners - a study in industrial and social history” Allen and Unwin (1962) p677
3 J E Williams “The Derbyshire Miners - a study in industrial and social history” Allen and Unwin (1962) p686
4 Daily Herald July 31st 1925
5 Derby Trades Council minutes August 12th 1925
6 J Klugmann “History of the Communist Party of Great Britain General Strike 1925-6” Vol 2 Lawrence and Wishart (1960) p690; “Proceedings of the 57th Annual TUC” (1925) p386
7 Derbyshire Times 8th August 1925
8 R Page Arnot “The Miners-Years of Struggle, a history of the MFGB” Allen & Unwin (1953) pp 393-394
9 J E Williams ‘The Derbyshire Miners - a study in industrial and social history” Allen and Unwin (1962) p690
10 J Klugmann “History of the Communist Party of Great Britain - General Strike 1925-6” Vol 2 Lawrence and Wishart (1969) p38 - quoting Workers Weekly, October 2nd 1925.
11 Labour Monthly - September 1925; Derby ASLEF minutes August 2nd 1925
12 Harry Pollitt “Serving My Time” Lawrence and Wishart (1940) p211
13 Derby Mercury December 4th 1925
14 Derby Mercury January 8th 1926
15 DTC minutes December 8th 1926
16 J Klugmann “History of the Communist Party of Great Britain - General Strike
1925-6” Vol 2 Lawrence and Wishart (1969)” Vol 2 p266
17 J Klugmann “History of the Communist Party of Great Britain - General Strike 1925-6” Vol 2 Lawrence and Wishart (1969)” Vol 2 p27
18 Labour Monthly March 1926 - article by A J Cook
19 Derby Mercury January 8th 1926
20 Derby Mercury December 4th 1925
21 Derby Mercury October 30th 1925
22 Derby Mercury December 11th 1925
23 Derby Mercury March 26th 1926
24 Derby Daily Telegraph May 1st 1926
25 John Murray ‘The General Strike of 1926 - a History” Lawrence and Wishart (1951) p95
26 John Murray “The General Strike of 1926 - a History” Lawrence and Wishart (1951) p94
27 Derby Daily Telegraph May 3rd 1926 - and subsequent quotations
28 Derbyshire Times May 8th 1926
29 Chesterfield Borough Council - Minutes May 4th 1926. No 2032 and No 2038; Derbyshire Times May 8th 1926.
30 Derby Daily Telegraph May 1st 1926.
31 British Worker No.1
32 Allen Hutt “Post War History of the British Working Class” Victor Gollancz (1937) p136
33 D J Stanier “Blue Bus Services” Moorley’s, Ilkeston (1979) p9
34 Derby Daily Express May 4th, May 11th 1926
35 British Gazette May 11th 1926
36 Derby Evening Telegraph January 6th 1983
37 British Gazette May 8th 1926
38 Derby Daily Express May 4th 1926
39 Derby Mercury May 21st 1926
40 A Clinton “The Trade Union Rank and File - Trades Councils in Britain 1900-40” Manchester University Press (1977) p126
41 Emile Burns “The General Strike - May 1926: Trades Councils in Action” LRD (1926) - facsimile reprint Lawrence and Wishart (1975) p121
42 Emile Burns “The General Strike - May 1926: Trades Councils in Action” LRD (1926) - facsimile reprint Lawrence and Wishart (1975) p165; Derby Co-op Society Record June 1926
43 Derby Daily Express May 7th 1926
44 Derbyshire Times May l5th 1926
45 Emile Burns “The General Strike - May 1926: Trades Councils in Action” LRD (1926) - facsimile reprint Lawrence and Wishart (1975) pp122 & p165
46 British Gazette May 11th 1926
47 Derby Mercury May 21st 1926
48 Derbyshire Times May 8th 1926 Ilkeston Pioneer May 14th 1926
49 C I Bratley-Kendall (BA Thesis) “The General Strike of 1926 its impact on
Chesterfield” deposited in Chesterfield Library - unpublished BA Thesis (1974) pp22, 32, 28, 34, 49, 56; Derbyshire Times 1st, 8th, 15th, and 28th May 1926
50 Emile Burns ‘The General Strike - May 1926: Trades Councils in Action” LRD (1926) - facsimile reprint Lawrence and Wishart (1975) p165
51 Peter Wyncoll “The East Midlands” in “1926 - The General Strike” (ed. J Skelley) Lawrence and Wishart (1976) p 185
52 Ilkeston Pioneer May 14th 1926
53 Derby Daily Express May 5th 1926; Derbyshire Times May 8th 1926; British Worker May 5th 1926
54 llkeston Borough Council Minutes (Education Committee) May 18th 1926 p246
55 Ilkeston Advertiser May 6th 1926
57 NASOHSPD New Mills minutes May 3rd 1926
58 Derby Daily Express May 8th 1926
59 Derby Strike Bulletin May 6th 1926 - evening edition; C I Bratley-Kendall (BA Thesis) “The General Strike of 1926 its impact on Chesterfield” deposited in Chesterfield Library - unpublished BA Thesis (1974) p59
60 Derby Daily Express May 6th 1926
61 Collection of items deposited by Mr F N Fisher at Derby Local Studies Library
62 Derby Strike Bulletin May 6th 1926 - evening edition
63 Derby Strike Bulletin May 6th 1926 - mid-day edition
64 Derby Strike Bulletin May 7th 1926 - mid day edition
65 Derby Daily Express May 6th 1926
66 Derby Strike Bulletin May 7th 1926 llkeston Pioneer May 14th 1926
67 Derby Daily Express May 8th 1926
68 Derby Strike Bulletin May 8th 1926 - mid day edition
69 Typewritten verbatim record of BBC news bulletins, presumably collated by the Derby strike committee, contained in the Fisher deposits.
70 British Gazette May 8th 1926
71 Derbyshire Times May 15th 1926
72 R Page Arnot “The Miners - years of struggle: a history of the MFGB” Allen and Unwin (1953) pp 433-4
73 Derby Daily Express May 11th 1926
74 Derby WU DC minutes May 22nd 1926
7S Derby Daily Express May 11th 1926
76 Derby Daily Express May 12th 1926
77 Ben Taylor, an ASLEF activist in Derby, remembers his mother talking of doing this.
78 Emile Burns ‘The General Strike - May 1926: Trades Councils in Action” LRD (1926) - facsimile reprint Lawrence and Wishart (197S) p121
79 Derby Daily Express May 12th 1926
80 Derby Daily Express May 11th 1926; Derby Co-op Record June 1926
81 Derby Co-op Record May 12th 1926
82 C Farman “The General Strike May 1926” Panther (1974) p291; C I Bratley-Kendall (BA Thesis) “The General Strike of 1926 its impact on Chesterfield” deposited in Chesterfield Library - unpublished BA Thesis (1974) p63
83 Emile Bums ‘The General Strike - May 1926: Trades Councils in Action” LRD (1926) facsimile reprint Lawrence and Wishart (1975) pp122, 132, 165
84 Peter Wyncoll “The East Midlands” in ‘1926 - The General Strike” ed. J Skelley Lawrence and Wishart (1976) p188; C I Bratley-Kendall (BA Thesis) “The General Strike of 1926 its impact on Chesterfield” deposited in Chesterfield Library - unpublished BA Thesis (1974) p38
85 H R S Phillpott “Biography of J H Thomas - impressions of a remarkable career” Sampson Low (1932) p5
86 Les Clay conversations with the author; C I Bratley-Kendall (BA Thesis) “The General Strike of 1926 its impact on Chesterfield” deposited in Chesterfield Library - unpublished BA Thesis (1974) p37
87 C I Bratley-Kendall (BA Thesis) “The General Strike of 1926 its impact on Chesterfield” deposited in Chesterfield Library - unpublished BA Thesis (1974) p60; Derby Daily Express May 12th 1926; Ilkeston Pioneer May 14th 1926
88 Derby Daily Express May 14th 1926
89 Derby Mercury May 21st 1926
90 Derby Mercury July 23rd 1926
91 llkeston Pioneer May 14th 1926; Derby WU DC minutes May 22nd 1926; Derby Co-op Record June 1926
92 Rowsley NUR Minutes May 30th 1926
93 C I Bratley-Kendall (BA Thesis) “The General Strike of 1926 its impact on Chesterfield” deposited in Chesterfield Library - unpublished BA Thesis (1974) p48; Derbyshire Times May 15th 1926; J E Williams ‘The Derbyshire Miners - a study in industrial and social history” Allen and Unwin (1962) p701
94 Derbyshire Times May 22nd 1926; Ilkeston Pioneer May 28th 1926
95 Emile Burns ‘The General Strike - May 1926: Trades Councils in Action” LRD (1926) - facsimile reprint Lawrence and Wishart (1975) p122
96 J Klugmann “History of the Communist Party of Great Britain - the General Strike 1925-6” Vol 2 Lawrence and Wishart (1969) p266
97 Derby Mercury June 25th 1926
98 C I Bratley-Kendall (BA Thesis) “The General Strike of 1926 its impact on
Chesterfield” deposited in Chesterfield Library - unpublished BA Thesis (1974) p40; Peter Wyncoll “The East Midlands” in “1926- The General Strike” (ed. J Skelley) Lawrence and Wishart (1976) p184
99 John Murphy - Derby Evening Telegraph July 14th 1984; Jack Pepper - Derby Evening Telegraph February 10th 1983
100 Peter Wyncoll ‘The East Midlands” in “1926 - The General Strike” ed. J Skelley Lawrence and Wishart (1976) p182; Ilkeston Pioneer July 16th 1926; John Murphy - Derby Evening Telegraph July 14th 1984
101 Derby Co-op Record August 1926;LA Fletcher “The General Strike and the Coal Dispute of 1926 with particular reference to Ilkeston” BA Honours Nottingham (1981) p50-1; Joseph Kitts in J E Williams “The Derbyshire Miners - a study in industrial and social history” Allen and Unwin (1962) p775
102 Derbyshire Times June 5th 1926
103 Derbyshire Times July 3rd 1926
104 Elsie Gadsby “Black Diamonds - Yellow Apples: a working class Derbyshire childhood between the wars” Scollins and Tifford, llkeston (1978) p50; Peter Wyncoll “The East Midlands” in “1926 - The General Strike” (ed. J Skelley) Lawrence and Wishart (1976) p181
105 Derby Mercury August 27th 1926
106 Derby Evening Telegraph January 6th 1983
107 Derbyshire Times August 28th 1926
108 Derbyshire Times August 28th 1926
109 J E Williams “The Derbyshire Miners - a study in industrial and social history” Allen and Unwin (1962) p718
110 Derbyshire Times September 25th 1926; B Lewis & B GIedhill (1985) ‘Tommy James - a Lion of a Man” Yorkshire Arts Circus (1985) p18
111 Derbyshire Times September 4th 1926
112 Derbyshire Times September 11th 1926; LA Fletcher “The General Strike and the Coal Dispute of 1926 with particular reference to Ilkeston” BA Honours Nottingham 1981 p67
113 Derbyshire Times October 16th 1926
114 Derbyshire Times October 16th & 23rd 1926
115 Derby Town Council poster November 2nd 1926
116 J E Williams “The Derbyshire Miners - a study in industrial and social history” Allen and Unwin (1962) p726
117 Derbyshire Times December 4th 1926
118 J E Williams “The Derbyshire Miners - a study in industrial and social history” Allen and Unwin (1962) p592
119 J E Williams “The Derbyshire Miners - a study in industrial and social history” Allen and Unwin (1962) p729
120 Derby Labour Party Annual Report 1927
121 Rowsley NUR minutes May 20th 1926
122 New Mills NA5OH5PD branch minutes June 28th November 15th 1926
123 TGWU (ex-WU) Derby District Committee minutes May 16th 1931
124 “The TGWU Story” TGWU (1979) p23
125 WU Derby DC minutes May 22nd 1926
126 WU Derby DC minutes July 17th 1926
127 WU Loco Branch 1122 Entrance Books 1925 & 1926; TGWU Record September 1939
128 C I Bratley-Kendall (BA Thesis) “The General Strike of 1926 its impact on
Chesterfield” deposited in Chesterfield Library - unpublished BA Thesis (1974)
p 28, p 50
129 Derby Mercury November 5th 1926
130 Derby Mercury September 24th 1926
131 Derby Mercury November 26th 1926
132 Derby Labour Party Annual Report 1928
133 Derby Mercury January 21st 1927
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHAPTER 11 1927-1939
1 Mond-Turnerism: political and non-political trades unionism
After the General Strike a new spirit, a compromising one, dominated the unions. In a newspaper article, George Hicks of the Bricklayers, the 1927 TUC Chairman, and Citrine, the TUC General Secretary, aired the idea of employers and employees cooperating. The Chairman of ICI, Sir Alfred Mond (later Lord Melchett) took up the suggestion, beginning talks with the General Council which were presided over in 1928 by the new TUC Chairman, Ben Turner of the Wool Textile Workers; hence, the epithet, Mond-Turnerism, or even Mondism for short. This trend of seeking partnership between the two sides of industry contrasted with the mood of trades unionism in the previous period. For the atmosphere of despondency and defeat which trades unionism brought to the relationship ensured that Mondism was no equal partnership. It weakened militancy and enabled production line speed-ups and piece rate cuts and did little to stem the trend to mass unemployment. The TUC leadership consciously flinched from the thought of confrontation as represented by 1926, which arguably was a debacle of their own making. Whilst the leadership of the movement largely supped the meal of Mondism with glee, the diet was not easily swallowed by many trades unionists. Even the normally compliant Workers Union only narrowly defeated a motion, which sought to boycott the Mond-Turner talks, at its last independent conference.
The new spirit was promoted locally by major employers and some key trades unionists, such as the Typographical Society’s Councillor Alan Mycroft and Richard Stokes of the Workers Union, the latter having valiantly argued for such a line all during the militant years. Both supported the National Industrial Alliance, which had a Derby Area Committee. This preached “Industrial Co-operation” and the local chairman was J A Aiton JP, the owner of the main local newspaper and a key engineering plant. Aiton was also a prominent Tory. [1] The strategy of the employers and their political allies was to wean the labour movement away from the radical politics of previous years, by incorporating the unions into the needs of business. A policy of distancing themselves had merely pushed unions away from sectional considerations into a more dangerous class consciousness, which had veered closely to a political, even revolutionary, consciousness at times. Hand in hand with new, anti-trade union laws came a direct attempt to divorce the various wings of the labour movement from each other. The Ripley Co-op Committee actually recommended disaffiliation from the Co-operative Party in 1927, when “an organised attempt was put into operation to carry the half-yearly meeting by storm”. The particular intervention of Oliver Wright, Labour’s long standing local Parliamentary candidate, successfully prevented the move. [2]
As a counter to Mondism, the left and the Communist Party of Great Britain (Communist Party) set up the rank and file alternative of the Minority Movement. Tom Mann, by now a prominent Communist Party member, visited Derby in 1927, to help set up an effective group in the town. Eddie Frow, an AEU apprentice at British Celanese became not only the secretary of Derby’s Minority Movement but also the local branch of the Unemployed Workers Committee. (In later life he would become the noted joint founder of a labour movement library and archive in Manchester.) At the meeting, held in the Temperance Hall, the chairman revealed that this local group had sent circulars to trade union branches, offering speakers to attend their meetings. The local paper believed that the Derby Minority Movement had not been a success, curiously noting that “the majority of the delegates present were from the Women’s’ Sections in the Labour Movement”, as if this somehow diluted the quality of the representation. [3] The truth is that large numbers of women were not unionised and that the growing light engineering and components industries, which were expanding in places like Derby and relied on intensive production methods, were dominated by women. Communist inspired activity designed to unionise women proved a potent force and trade unions only grudgingly moved to organise in such sectors, often at the behest of employers. The spirit of opposition to Mondism was however truly a minority view. A kind of paralysis took over the movement and employers felt that they had the go-ahead for introducing new ideas. Engineering firms in Derby began to introduce the two shift system towards the end of 1928, despite the fact that this was “in direct approach (i.e. contradiction) to the National Agreement”. [4]
The legacy of 1926 was of course sharpest felt in the mining districts. Bitterness between supporters of the official union, which was affiliated to the MFGB, and the Spencerite bosses’ union, the Nottingham and District Miners Industrial Union (NDMIU) was strong. These disputes affected large parts of the eastern edge of Derbyshire and were well known to trades unionists in Derby and Chesterfield, which were then surrounded by working pits. A case arising between two members of the opposing unions came before a local Magistrate’s Court in 1927. Arthur Shrewsbury, an NDMIU collector, got on a crowded bus in Heanor, allegedly to be greeted with the comment from another miner. Here’s one of Spencer’s men who are trying to break up a union that has been going on for a 100 years and Spencer is a man who has made a fortune out of the owners.” The culprit’, a miner by the name of Fred Prince, was fined the considerable sum of £5 for assault, arising out of the fight which followed the altercation. [5]
Conditions in the mining industry were as bad as ever. Workers still started down the pits at the age of fourteen. Some insight into this is given by Jack Pepper, recalling his first day at Mapperley Colliery. “It was a frightening experience ... It was a tough time for miners and very dangerous, as pit roofs were not as secure as they are today ... wooden pit props bent with ‘elbows’ in them under the weight of the roof. There were no safety helmets and no electric lamps.” Pepper complained that the contractor butty system was unfair, the money was rarely shared equally and the butty usually got themselves the best jobs. The 5’ 6” seams had to be hand holed, that is to say “undercut at the bottom by hand”. Conditions were terribly bad; on this, his first day, Pepper saw a fellow worker, in a foot of space, “hacking away at the underside of a seam with a pick and working so hard that he bled from one of his ears”. [6]
Given the evidence of 1926 and the reality of their daily working life, it is not surprising that very strong views were held by the majority of miners on the present state of trades unionism. This was revealed in 1928, when the TUC balloted the miners of the Nottinghamshire coalfield, which spilled over into parts of Derbyshire. The consultation was to determine whether the Spencerite union had any real support. Miners voted nine to one in favour of the old union, for real trades unionism. Spencerism was already on the decline, but there was still much bitterness and it would not be easy to eradicate the NMDIU. The industry began to enter a dramatic slump, which inhibited industrial militancy, especially where the NMDIU voice was to be heard. Nationally, 39 pits employing 1,366 men were abandoned over 1927-9. [7] Over the two years from 1928, it began to be quite usual for pits to work only two or three days a week for payment of 2s 6d a shift. [8]
North Derbyshire miners, outside the area covered by Nottinghamshire Miners Association, the MFGB affiliate, tended to view Mondism critically, the Area Council believing that industrial peace was hardly an immediate objective when “we have men in our own industry still out of work through being victimised” from 1926. [9] But the NDMIU was very strong at Bolsover in Derbyshire, due to its special position as a company union. The Bolsover Company directly financed one of their employees, Horace Cooper, as a recruiting agent for the NDMIU. As the butty system was very strong in the Bolsover area, Spencer received much support from the contractors. Whilst the skilled ‘aristocrats’ of the coalfields, the enginemen and winders, also favoured Spencerism. In 1928, the 2,323 members of the MFGB affiliated Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Midland Counties Colliery Enginemen, Firemen and Motormen’s Union decided to be formally represented on the Wages Board set up by Spencer. [10]
Despite the flirtation with the Liberals and Spencer’s continued membership of Parliament, his union enshrined ‘non-political’ unionism within its rules. The use of any of the NDMIU’s funds for any political purposes at all was prohibited by its constitution. The organisation was not merely content with banning Communists from holding office, as some trade unions did; it went further by declaring them even ineligible for membership of the NDMIU. To be absolutely certain, the rules reserved the right to expel any member advocating revolutionary policies. The hegemony of the NDMIU was eventually challenged after a series of disputes at Harworth colliery in Nottinghamshire, which resulted in a fusion of the NDMIU and the Nottinghamshire Miners Association. The Harworth men were led by Mick Kane, a Scottish Communist who had been victimised in his homeland. Kane had, incidentally, previously worked at Langwith Colliery in Derbyshire for a period in the very early 1 930s. The struggle in Harworth, which led to the marginalisation of Spencerism, was not unnaturally given a great deal of publicity by the Communist Party.
Irrespective of the hostility between the NDMIU and the official movement, strangely the TUC line and the Spencerite position were very similar. George Spencer himself drew comparison between his organisation’s attitude and the TUC’s war on the Communists, as a reason for it to be recognised by the TUC. Mondism and non-political unionism did have strong similarities. But Spencerism was possibly an anachronism, since it was designed to combat the militant unionism of 1920-6. But this had already been surpassed by the passivity which characterised the trade union leaderships from 1927 onwards. However, in the few years between the General Strike and the big slump, the mood of ordinary workers remained spontaneously militant, whatever the leadership may have wanted. Over a hundred dyers, trimmers and others at Lowe and Sons of Derby stopped work over the firm’s action in proposing reducing wages. The agreed Leicester rate had always been paid to Lowe’s employees in Derby, but the company sought to pay the lower, Nottingham rate. Coming out just before Christmas 1927, the strikers were still solid 21 weeks later in May 1928. [11] Elsewhere in Derby, at Macintosh’s Cable, some 800 workers came out on strike in September 1927. In a gesture of some desperation, the Managing Director, Harvey, appealed to the crowded mass of strikers outside the gate to return to work, “pending investigation into the alleged grievance”. [12] The suddenness and ferociousness of the workers’ action saw an immediate and satisfactory settlement.
But, in general, the 1929 general election seemed only to confirm the view of Mondism. Important sections of the labour movement did try to break out of the conformist straight jacket, but these were in a minority. The only major organised grouping capable of responding effectively was the Communist Party, but this was caught up in wild hostility to the Labour Party. Overall, the Communist Party reacted to the debacle of the General Strike, to Mondism and finally to bans and proscriptions in the Labour Party in the sharpest possible way. The party began to view Labour as almost equivalent to the capitalist enemy. While there was some justification for regarding large elements of the leadership with considerable reserve, based upon material conditions within the British experience, what emerged as a theory of Labour being the third capitalist party had its origins in the international Communist movement. The experience of social democracy, or democratic socialism in many European countries had was markedly more negative than in Britain. Moreover, it suited the needs of the increasingly insular Soviet diplomacy to regard Western tendencies with suspicion. The Comintern developed the theory of “Class Against Class” in 1928. A simplistic explanation of this might be that as fascism was a last ditch survival effort by contemporary capitalism in its death throes, there was little difference in essence - if not in form - between bourgeois democracy and fascism. As social democracy saw itself as a partner in bourgeois democracy, it could also be a partner in social fascism. The utilisation of pseudo-socialist ideas, terminology and iconography by fascism seemed to reinforce this notion. The new policy saw the leadership of the socialist parties as no better than the rising fascist movements, many of which had not yet demonstrated the absolute ruthlessness and immorality which became their hallmark in a very few years. The argument went that illusions were created by socialists that parliamentary success within capitalism could transform society. This enabled the system to score victories, as disappointment set in, due to the failure of parliamentary tactics. The experience of the first Labour Governments seemed to confirm this view. But the analysis grossly exaggerated the restraining nature of reformist socialism and underestimated the possibilities for working class unity. Above all, in British conditions, it took little account of the organic links between Labour and the trade unions, set against the mass nature of the British labour movement.
The early years of the Communist Party’s existence had been characterised by mass struggle and socialist unity. While still very tiny, the party had made considerable gains in the late 1920s. Thousands had joined during and after the General Strike in particular and Derbyshire was no exception. However, the major way in which the Party exerted influence within the Labour Party was through the National Left Wing Movement, an alliance of Communists and the Labour left, was to sharply diminish following the adoption of the Comintern line. But the new, seductive - if tortuous - simplicity of Class Against Class enabled the Communist Party to make advances at the expense of other left groups, amongst young people in particular. At the ILP Guild of Youth National Conference in Derby in 1928, a member of the National Committee of the Guild was expelled for divulging private business to the journal of the Young Communist League. The emotional appeal of the Communist Party’s sharp, class conscious policy enabled the party to win over many ILPers. One delegate asked whether the decline in Guild activity and the number of branches was in any way due to “Communist activities”, only to be blankly told by the Guild National Secretary that “We have no information” on this! [13]
If there was no love lost for the Labour Party by the Communist Party, the reverse was doubly true at least in the corridors of power. Beyond this, the Communists’ sectarianism alienated many left wing allies. As Labour’s right wing leadership sought to distance itself from radical socialism, it was able to follow this up by further bans on the activity of individual Communists within the Labour Party and by purges on the left generally. In the summer of 1927, Labour’s NEC disaffiliated as many as 23 local party organisations for their adherence to the National Left Wing Movement. There was also an attack on the Minority Movement. Interestingly, the Derbyshire miners voted against a resolution at the MFGB Conference in 1928 which strongly condemned the Minority Movement. [14]
All this was the cause of intense debate within the trade union movement. The Derby Communist Party had begun the distribution of leaflets to British Celanese workers at Spondon in the summer of 1929, causing some comment on the Workers Union District Committee. Eddie Frow, the apprentice fitter at Celanese who was Derby Minority Movement Secretary, was a student at the Derby Labour College being run by Joe Crispin and Willie Paul. Assuredly, as one of the most active members of the local Communist Party, Frow was behind the leafleting. (Frow left Derby that year to work in the North West, becoming a leading figure in the AEU over many years.) The biennial conference of the Workers Union had devoted itself obsessively to the activities of the Communists and their rank and file movements. At the WU DC, “Bro Solway thanked Bro Ruff for his splendid report but said it seemed that the Congress was attacking the Communists all the time. Bro Wood said that it was the Communists that did the attacking no matter what a Trade Union official did he was always a traitor to his members that was the idea of the Communists but he could safely say that they always did their best for their members”. [15]
As the direct heir to many of the earlier socialist societies, the Communist Party had been part of the Labour Party and many individual members of the Communist Party were also members of the Labour Party. Only at the Blackpool conference of the Labour Party in 1929 were Communists banned from attending such conferences and then only by a narrow vote. From herein, the spirit of Mondism lived inside the Labour Party, by and large unchallenged. The absence of Communists from the conference was startlingly noticeable from 1930. Even the most capable and influential member of a trade union could not represent his organisation, irrespective of what the union desired.
The general election of May 30th saw the Labour leadership working hard to push their image as a party fit to govern the nation as a whole. The wooing of the ‘middle class’ vote began in earnest and appeared to bring results. But, arguably, this was far from always being a successful vote-catching policy in the long term, as the electorate increasingly pondered what real alternative was on offer. In its proposals for dealing with unemployment, Labour’s 1929 manifesto was less clear and precise than that of the Liberals, containing only generalities about ‘socialism’ as a long term solution. The Tories polled almost 300,000 more votes than Labour, yet the latter found itself the largest single party in Parliament but without a clear majority over the two anti-socialist parties. Due to the oddities of Britain’s electoral system, the seats spilt 288 Labour, 261 Tory and 57 Liberals. The Tories put it down to Baldwin’s stupidity in extending the vote to women over the age of 21, the so called ‘flapper vote’, a contemporary term for a flippant young woman.
With most Derbyshire constituencies returning Labour MPs, the party had quadrupled its 1918 vote in the county. Three entirely new seats were won by Labour. Jack Lees took Belper with an improved vote, although compared with 1924 the divided Tory and Liberal anti-socialist vote helped him in. Another first was the success of the Mickleover based George Benson at Chesterfield. Barnet Kenyon did not stand and Labour romped home with more than twice the number of votes of its nearest rival. The third new seat was in South Derbyshire, where Major David Graham-Pole, a solicitor from a very well to do family, took the seat with an improved vote in a three way fight. Graham-Pole contributed no less than £418 of the total expenditure of £923, with which Labour fought their campaign. For once Labour was able to spend, if not as much as the other parties, at least a comparable sum; the Tories spent £1,543 and the Liberals £811. The success may therefore have been in part due to the relatively affluent campaign fund.
Existing Labour seats were held at Ilkeston, where the former Derby Rolls Royce shop floor worker, G H Oliver, doubled his actual vote. Oliver was considered to “belong to the moderate school of labour” and had achieved respectability by being called to the bar in 1927. [16] Clay Cross was retained by Charles Duncan with 80% of the vote, while Frank Lee similarly took North East Derbyshire. George Bagnall stood in High Peak; a key activist in the Amalgamated Society of Dyers, Bleachers, Finishers and Kindred Trades, he later became its General Secretary. But Labour’s showing there was quite dismal, although Bagnall’s vote was the best yet for the party in that division. In West Derbyshire, it was a similar tale. The Marquis of Hartington took what was almost his heritage, when he claimed the seat for the Tories. Labour’s W Wilkinson, the party’s first ever foray into that Conservative heartland, took a little over one tenth of the vote, the result being much closer between the other two parties.
In Derby, Thomas and Raynes took both seats with half as many votes again as their nearest rival, the Tories. Raynes was at last in Parliament and naturally looked back on the success with pride and pleasure. Certainly, the party had come a long way since 1910. Raynes allowed himself the indulgence of claiming the building of the Labour Party in the county, almost single-handedly. In his unpublished memoirs, he related how for almost two decades he had spent hours each day on his bicycle visiting remote villages, spreading the word of socialism. Later, as the party began to emerge as a major political force, he “formed and beat into a semblance of unity the Derbyshire Federation of Labour Parties. One of the first such federations in the country in the late twenties.” [17]
The overall result of 1929 was thus a new and decisive change in political support in Derbyshire. The Municipal Association, a Tory-Liberal alliance, was disbanded in Derby and, in the municipal elections of 1929, Tories stood independently against Labour. Even so, Labour gained absolute control of the Town Council for the very first time, with 49 seats out of a total of 64. This dramatic political background affected the very nature of the problems confronting trades unions and the thoughts of many turned immediately to extending their organisation.
2 The Workers Union and the TGWU (1927-32)
In November 1926 the AEU opened its ranks to all grades of workers, including labourers, but not yet to women workers. But it was too late for this skilled craft union to prevent the encroachment into the engineering industry of the many general unions. The Workers Union had attempted to recruit skilled workers in Derby and its environs, largely in vain. But the WU continued its drive in the textile industry. In early 1927, new efforts were made to “organise the girls in the Tailoring Trade at Smiths of Drewry Lane”. [18] There was only a limited result, however. Wood, the Long Eaton officer of the WU, considered that the union was “feeling the effects of the General Strike and if the position of the union was to be maintained it required constant work”. [19]
The WU had gained some reputation for a powerful and bureaucratic full time officer network, with little check on their activities. There is evidence that Derby’s lay activists were not entirely satisfied that all that could be done to keep up the constant work called for by Wood’s report was being done. There were other complaints. In July of 1927 Stokes, the Derby organiser, was on holiday and thus unable to make a report to the regular District Committee (DC) meeting. In his absence, some delegates became very bold! Smith, of the Loco Works complained that Stokes “did not use the proper tact” and that “no member could get into the District Office”. The DC resolved that complaints that must have also been made about the officer’s reports to the committee, by deciding that instead of Stokes dominating the proceedings by giving such a report the “question of organising should be on the agenda”. [20]
Life was difficult for the WU by this time, not only in some of its less significant areas, but also in its main power base of British Celanese. Early in 1927, the WU found that even their full time officers were encountering greater difficulties in gaining access to the plant than they had ever done. “In the past they could go in and out when they liked, but now they made inquiries at the gate who they wished to see”, complained the DC minutes. [21] Such relatively small, but significant and annoying interferences grew. So much so, that when Woods held a meeting of the dyers in the canteen at Celanese later that year, a company-hired private detective was observed to be present. [221 Six months later, Woods was to assess that “there is no doubt that since the change in control at the British Celanese there has been a tightening up”. The company had been subject to a boardroom takeover and manoeuvres associated with this resulted in a shift in industrial relations strategy as well as a general tightening up of efficiency. The signs were thought sufficiently important for the lay EC member, Hind, to warn the DC that half of the district membership was at Spondon and that, while the WU had gained ground there, it had lost it elsewhere. [23] The implication was obvious, that the union had all of its eggs pretty well much in one basket and that it would be disastrous if Spondon were lost somehow. Fortunately for the union and its successor, the TGWU, these activities did not materially affect its position.
Even after the merger with the TGWU, the Celanese membership was still to account for a third of the membership in the Derby area until the end of the Second World War. As elsewhere, the economic ups and downs of the firm dictated the relative power over the union. By the very nature of the products made by Celanese, the negotiating position of either side varied enormously. Recognising this, the WU tried to maximise its position by rousing the membership. Meetings were held at Long Eaton and Derby, as part of a WU campaign to organise process workers in the autumn of 1928. At the very end of that year a mass meeting of textile workers from both towns was held at Ilkeston’s Co-op Hall “to consider the present (wages) claim”. [24] This signalled a relatively new concept to that which had previously applied in pay bargaining, whereby union negotiators had operated very much without initial consultation or reference back to the members. It was not entirely false confidence which motivated Stokes to say that he “thought we had got to the bottom of the slump” in early 1928. Although he may have been referring to the state of the economy at large. Within months of this, Wood noted that “the slump at the Celanese was getting worse”. [25]
Despite these concerns, as the DC minute had it, he was able to say that the “people at Spondon is beginning to realise that the WU is the Union as far as Unions is concerned at the Celanese”. Wood was even confident that there was a “good feeling that existed between management (and the union) at Spondon”. So much so, that the WU made an application to the company for the “use of the Hut in the Lane at Spondon” as a union office. [26] The intention behind this was to provide facilities for small meetings of local branch officials close to hand and for a contact place for members wishing to consult shop stewards. (The WU still used Unity Hall and the Labour Party premises in Green Lane, where the union had an office. The DC met at the Transport Room, possibly the TGWU’s rooms in Corporation premises, at the Wardwick. The merged TGWU took an office at 69 Wilson Street from 1931 to 1960.)
The WU was only making substantial membership gains at Celanese. Wood was not generally “satisfied with the progress of the District for apart from the Celanese the other parts of the District was at a standstill”. Not that things were so rosy at that plant, vast areas of the workforce, including most of the women, were unorganised. Even where there were groups of members, it was difficult to get “suitable shop stewards”. [27] An example of this problem, which dogged the union for decades, was the election of six shop stewards for the spinning and preparation departments early in 1930, one of which turned out not even to be a member of the union! The man concerned was quite prepared to join, once it was explained to him that in order to be a shop steward he had to be a member of the union.
The WU had an even bigger job to tackle in organising the large numbers of employees in the wider textile industry not yet trades unionists. The biggest employer in Belper was Brettles, with 800 on the payroll in 1928. Two years later there were over a 1,000 employees. But even a major employer such as this remained unorganised. Brettles’ male framework knitters on cotton hose production were paid a fairly standard weekly wage for a 49 hour week, although shift workers fared slightly better by doing a 12 hour stint. Even so, the extra money was only achieved by doing such a back breaking shift. Moreover, as one contemporary recalled, “sometimes they called us in on a Sunday night for which we received no pay and we also got no holiday pay for our one weeks holiday a year”. [28] Hours were as long at English Sewing’s Belper Mill, where a standard 58 hour week did not produce anywhere as near lucrative earnings for the predominantly female labour force. A dispute in the company had sparked off interest in trades unionism at both the Belper and Milford mills, enabling the Workers Union to establish a strong branch at Milford in September 1929. But the Amalgamated Weavers were first in at ESC’s Matlock mill. [29]
Despite the sudden rise in unemployment which developed in the late 1920s, many trade unions in Derbyshire were still able to at least fend off wage cuts and in some instances to maintain regular wage rises. Parker Foundries were “reminded” by the WU that they had failed to apply a wage increase to some employees late in 1929. This was presumably a reference to the national engineering industry agreement. While the Amalgamated Laceworkers and the WU staved off a wage reduction in the lace trade. [30] But this situation began to change rapidly. By November, Stokes had reported a catalogue of denials of applications for advances. The dyers at Celanese had been given no increase in response to their request for an advance. The “Celastoid” workers applied for a penny an hour extra discomfort money and were refused. An application nationally for 8/- a week in the engineering trade was refused.
English Sewing Cotton was among the first in the area at this time to implement a wages cut. Although the firm was able to impose a 3/- a week cut at Belper, at Milford, where the WU had a strong branch of 90 members, the company made do with a cut of only 1/6d. [31] However, what started off slowly, very soon avalanched into an employers’ offensive against wages. The developing economic crisis not only affected the bargaining position of the unions, but it naturally had an impact on their internal organisation and finances. A serious cash flow problem evidenced itself in the WU, something which encouraged many in the leadership to favour a partnership with a larger, richer union. The first distinct signs of this locally were when Stokes complained at the DC in May 1929 that he was faced with a 25% reduction in his own wages. Hind, as the lay representative on the EC, pointed out that no actual decision had been taken and by the next meeting was able to say positively that no such action was to be taken.
There was some sharpness over the affair. Stokes complained bitterly that he had given 25 years loyal service to the union, but Hind stubbornly insisted that the “EC was elected to administer and the time had come when the position was such that the Organisers had to receive a reduction or there would no sick pay for the members”. [32] This may seem trite but, in the absence of even the most elementary welfare state provisions, union benefits were crucial to the survival of workers’ families in times of distress. There will also have been little sympathy for Stokes, at a time when most of his members were experiencing similar savage wages cuts. Whilst the WU was a financial disaster, it was an organisational success, a fact viewed with some jealousy by some unions. The Amalgamated Weavers Union (AWU) tried ferociously to implant itself in British Celanese and relations were so bad that the Long Eaton Trades Council passed a resolution condemning the “attack of the Amalgamated Weavers on the WU”. [33] By the beginning of 1930, the AWU had only three members in Celanese in total, a dismal failure. [34] Indeed, that union was to loose half its membership between the General Strike and the outbreak of war in 1939, no doubt sufficient reason for its interest in the strengths of the newer man made fibre industry at Celanese. There were similar tensions in the silk trade. The need for some clear agreement on the matter resolved itself in 1929, when a national conference of all unions involved in the artificial sector agreed that “where a union had organised a place other unions would keep away”. Wood reported this to the WU DC, no doubt with much satisfaction. [35]
Such inter-union disputes were common, as the fight for membership grew. The TGWU had a long running battle with the NUR over which union was appropriate to organise bus workers associated with the LMS Railway. After 1928, when powers to run road transport operations were granted to the railway companies by Parliament, the NUR had begun successfully organising bus workers in some areas of north Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. This was contained within the company called East Midlands Motor Services. Such organising caused much consternation to the TGWU, which of course included the old bus and tram societies within its midst. This whole issue remained a problem, until May 1932, when a spheres of influence agreement was reached between the two unions which restricted the NUR to organising bus workers directly employed by railway owned businesses.
More infighting took place locally, when the Amalgamated Society of Vehicle Builders (ASVB) disputed the involvement of the TGWU in the wagon building industry in Long Eaton. Claye’s, a wagon building firm, would not negotiate with any union other than the ASVB. Despite that, the WU made substantial progress in Cory’s wagon works, both in its own right and then as the TGWU’s General Workers Trade Group. [36] For the inevitable finally came about and the WU amalgamated with the TGWU in 1929. Given that the latter had been restricted to bus, tram and a very few lorry drivers, the WU brought the TGWU a very wide base in Derbyshire and the new entity enjoyed considerable vibrancy. The WU had always nurtured a desire for the wider organisational unity of general workers. That had, after all been the original idea behind the founding of the WU, that it would become a focus for all trades. The move to join up with the TGWU was therefore not entirely a shot gun marriage, motivated by the desire to escape dire financial pressures. Even so, Ernest Bevin extracted maximum advantage out of what was technically a merger, but had more of a feel of a take over. But, in Derbyshire the national takeover of the WU by the TGWU was in fact reversed, the WU being bigger, wider based and more rooted in society. Derby was probably one of the more important centres for the WU outside of London and Birmingham.
As early as 1915, the Derby WU DC had urged their executive to push forward with all possible speed on the question of amalgamation of various union catering for unskilled and semi-skilled workers. By the mid 1920s however, the WU was experiencing sharp internal conflict. This was less a political debate than a power struggle between various tendencies, full time officers for one and the lay executive for another, The consequences for the WU DC’s kind of ambition were terminal. The 1926 WU Triennial Conference saw a censure vote passed against the entire EC and the run up to the conference had been marked by internal manoeuvring of a very distasteful nature. Derby was by no means isolated from this. Stokes was rebuked at the November 1926 DC for withholding correspondence on these matters from the London United District Committee of the WU until after the Triennial Conference. The Derby DC then resolved that all correspondence for their attention should be read no matter what it contained. Much of these controversies had their origins in the financial difficulties which faced the union.
The last independent Triennial Conference of the WU was held in Derby at the beginning of 1929 and after this the process of amalgamation with the TGWU went fairly smoothly. Tory anti-union legislation required that half of the members of each union had to vote and that 55% of those voting had to endorse the amalgamation proposals. Both unions made great efforts to win this ballot. During December 1928 and January 1929, meetings were held on the amalgamation throughout Derbyshire. Ilkeston, Draycott and Long Eaton had well attended meetings, but the Derby meeting was relatively poorly attended due to an unexplained lack of organisation for the meeting. [37] It maybe that some leading officials in Derby’s WU were unhappy about the merger, especially Stokes who would have been ‘mainly responsible’ for the production and distribution of information about the event. Out of a combined membership of some 10,000 locally, the TGWU and the WU were able to attract only an audience of one hundred at the Derby joint meeting. In modern terms this may sound like a good turnout, but at this time there was a culture of branch meetings being generally well frequented and a considerably larger audience was expected.
The aim of the rallies was to eliminate all doubts, so as to be absolutely certain of approval for the amalgamation during the six month voting period. As the ballot papers were returned by branches, district officials were informed of the total numbers voting in each branch, so that they could then intervene to encourage a maximum turnout, voting the right way of course. The immediate effect of the merger on the ordinary member was quite limited. He or she stayed in the same branch and was served by the same official, even keeping a WU card until 1931, when TGWU cards were issued. Bevin somehow allowed the WU to believe that a merger of equals had taken place. The union’s new headed notepaper read “Transport and General Workers Union (incorporating the TGWU and the Workers Union)”. WU activists could point to the second part of the TGWU’s name, “Workers Union”, and claim it for their own, even though no change had taken place at all.
The membership of the WU was to remain a separate trade group until December 1931, when it was spilt up into the appropriate, existing TGWU trade groups. The only evident, immediate change to the mass of the membership was in the 6d increase in their contribution rate. But branch officers suffered a reduction of their commission from 7.5 % to 5% and chairmen, who had received annual honorarium in the WU, found that they did not do so in the TGWU. [38] A majority was won for the amalgamation, although as might be expected, there was slightly more resistance to the idea in the WU than in the TGWU. [39]
TGWU WU
for amalgamation 88.9% 86.1%
against amalgamation 11.1% 13.9%
The amalgamation formally began on August 5th 1929, but while H A Hind was to report to the Derby WU DC that “the amalgamation was now complete”, the reality was somewhat less certain. [40] The WU had a “strongly entrenched central leadership and little tradition of rank-and-file activism”. [41] So, there was some feeling in Derbyshire at least that nothing very much had changed. It was not until 1936 that the TGWU in Derby decided to alter the old Workers Union banner by having the name of the TGWU painted over the top of the old union’s name. [42] But the amalgamation did rather boost Derby’s position within the TGWU, compared to the status it had held in the WU. A sub-regional Finance Office, with W F Wells as Finance Officer, was set up in Derby by the TGWU in 1930 at new offices; whereas in the past all membership contributions had been sent direct to London. This development greatly enhanced the Derby District’s prestige within the TGWU, so much so that when the Area 5 (Midlands) Committee of the union thought of transferring the Finance Office to Birmingham, the centre of the union’s Midlands area, a storm of protest from the East Midlands caused a rethink of the proposal, which was put on the back burner for some decades. [43]
It was fortunate for the WU that it made the transition at this time, for in 1930 the recession really hit Derbyshire hard. Heyhoe, the TGWU district president, optimistically observed that there “was a slump but he was hopeful that things would brighten up”. [44] Such complacency was balanced by the concern expressed once again by Wood over the “attitude of the employers towards trade union leaders when they go to interview them”. He thought it was a case of “political intimidation”. [45] But there was no doubt in anyone’s mind about the severity of the recession in November, when the TGWU DC heard that the “bad state of trade at the present time ... was worse than 1921 and 1922 ... (there was an) attack on wages in almost every industry”. [46] The situation everywhere was increasingly difficult. The TGWU had “two branches in the Peak District where for the first time since the war unemployment and short time are in operation”. [47] Wages cuts abounded. G R Turner’s of Langley Mill reduced rates of pay early in 1930, while Celanese warp knitters’ bonuses were cut from 10/- a week to only 3/-. In the wagon building trade, the employers took away the 10/- bonus won during the war, taking the basic down to 27/- a week. [48] The LMS Railway cut wages by between 2.5% and 5% in January 1931. While British Celanese gave notice of termination of all agreements early in 1931 and immediate negotiations took place to minimise the effect.
The TGWU was pleased to be able to announce that they had limited British Celanese to a 7.5% cut in earnings, along with reductions on piece work prices. Due to an increase in work allocations, weavers’ earnings were to be reduced only by 2/6d a week on an average of £3 10s 0d. Although some earned up to 15/- a week more. Given that new looms were to be introduced and that the union believed “competent’ weavers could do the extra work, the members expressed themselves satisfied with the new arrangements “largely because they still earned about £1 a week more than Lancashire weavers”. [49] Later in the year, some one hundred spinners and mixers at Celanese stopped work one midday over the number of men employed on spinning machines, proving if nothing else that, given sufficient provocation, the defensive reflex action was as sensitive as ever. The following shift, on hearing of this development, refused even to start work. For it seems that more machines, and hence more work, were running with less men than was usually the case. Adding fuel to the already inflamed situation, the company refused recognition to Holloway, the spinners shop steward, when he attempted to negotiate a solution to the stoppage. British Celanese justified its position on the basis that it refused to negotiate under duress.
Very quickly, over 500 workers were out and full time officials got involved. Stokes, Clarke and Wood attended a mass meeting which voted to go back to work to allow negotiations to proceed. However, the strikers were refused admission to the plant when they attempted to return, thus creating a lock out situation. The company allowed a small number of hand picked men to start work, thus generating a feeling that a crisis was imminent as large sections of the rest of the workforce began to be affected by the lack of work from the spinning sections. Day long negotiations broke up, with the firm requiring an answer to proposals they had tabled by 11am the next morning, but only if a return to work had taken place. The spinners and mixers met at the Spondon Picture House at 9.30 am. Stokes argued that the men had acted unconstitutionally by not communicating with the union before striking, reminding them that the company had refused to talk with the shop steward and only the intervention of the officials had caused negotiations to ensue. The meeting voted by a large majority to end their strike to allow negotiations. But this was only with the proviso that, if the results were unsatisfactory, a constitutional dispute be then declared. Moreover, it was demanded that an apology be extended to their shop steward, Holloway, for the manner in which he had been treated. The resultant absence of comment in the union’s local records would suggest that these objectives were indeed met.
In 1931, the TGWU was able to report a moderately healthy position in the Derbyshire District, if not in membership terms or on the bargaining front, then at least in financial terms. The district actually maintained a ‘profit’ making situation which helped to subsidise less favourably treated areas of the country. [50]
Income £1,704 17s 111/2d
Expenditure £1,301 7s 11d
Returned to centre £403 10s 1/2d
For all the difficulties, the union was making headway and not just financially. The WU had hoped to “get some members in the motor industry at Stapleford” in the spring of 1929. [51] The following year, Wood and Stokes went out on the roads, trying to organise County Council employees engaged in roads maintenance. But it was hard going, especially in the rural areas, and they thought “it will take a long time to get them organised”. [52] Nonetheless, meetings of Derbyshire County Council roadmen were held at Ashbourne. [53] A brewery branch was setup in Derby in 1931, reflecting the work carried out at Offiler’s. While workers at the DP Battery in Bakewell had achieved formal recognition and more. [54] But op scaled down its operations as the recession bit harder and only .12 out of the 40 employees stayed in the union.
Attempts were made at the recruitment of wire workers at Mackintosh’s, Derby Cable Company and Concordia in Long Eaton, where “mostly boys and girls were employed”. In one fell swoop, 40 workers Joined up at Concordia and recognition of the union was immediately gained. [55]
The WU/TGWU moved into the area of agriculture in Derbyshire with some seriousness in 1930. The WU had a base in the sector elsewhere in the country, so the move was not out of place even if it was not easy. Clarke, the Divisional Organiser, told the Derby DC that there were “difficulties in trying to organise the agricultural Labourers but he had not given up hope”. [56] Wages were determined on a country basis by the Agricultural Wages Board and this decided that no increase be awarded for 1931. The minimum rate of 8d an hour for a 54 hour week, with an overtime premium only payable on Sundays at 10d an hour, was thus maintained. Female workers received only 5d an hour and 8d on Sundays. [57] As the year progressed, farmers sought to maintain their profit margin by increasing summer hours of working. The aim was to compensate for their losses after food prices began to drastically drop due to lack of demand associated with the recession. The County Wages Committee reduced wages by 2s 3d. Naturally, the workers’ representatives were firmly against this, but the cuts were pushed through by a combination of the farmers themselves and the so-called independent members of the Board. The overwhelming majority of independents were drawn from the ranks of the middle strata of business and professionals, such as solicitors, bank managers and the like. [58]
Celanese spinners were on £3 a week or more in comparison to perhaps £1 16s a week for farm labourers. Even so, despite these very low levels of payment, prosecutions were still needed to enforce the pittances which the Wages Board ordered. Between June 24th and July 28th 1931 alone, the Ministry of Agriculture had to take legal sanctions against no less than ten farmers in Derbyshire for failure to pay the proper rates to 15 workers. There were four cases in Ashbourne and three in Hatton, with others at Belper, Glossop and Heanor. Arrears in wages of as much as £59 were involved, although most were in the region of £10 and £20. Farmers usually paid up when caught out, but the paltry fine of £1 or £2 for each offence meant very little to the average farmer and many tried repeatedly to evade their obligations. [59] So the TGWU launched a major propaganda campaign amongst agricultural workers. Ten meetings were held throughout Derbyshire and it was hoped that two branches “which had ceased existence will be resuscitated”, it would prove to be a very difficult battle and the union never really made headway. [60]
3 Unemployed Struggles (1927-31)
The unemployed were still largely viewed as parasites by the authorities and the notion of a deserving and undeserving poor was widespread. Siddon, of the Derby Board of Guardians, argued in 1927 that skilled workers who had “made no provision for themselves in case of unemployment should be ashamed” of having to ask for public relief. [61] Yet Derbyshire was relatively unaffected by the mass unemployment of this period until around 1930. Workers in the severely affected areas of Britain looked to places like Derby with hope. Many were drawn to seek work in the area, but were often sorely exploited due to their desperation. The engineering firm of International Combustion, which had set up in Derby in 1922, employed youth from the “distressed” areas, such as the mining villages of North East England, Wales and Scotland. One youngster was given details of work at International Combustion and authorisation to work there (a ‘Green Card’) by his own local Labour Exchange. He was told that there would be someone to meet him when he got to Derby. On arriving in the town one night at 10pm, he found no-one to greet him in what must have seemed a strange place, a larger town than he had ever experienced. Perhaps he had expected the factory to be the only one in town? Eventually, he found the location of the factory and was able to work for a grand total of 69 hours, receiving 35/-, after which he was simply sent back home. Haslam Engineering also took on youths from “the distressed mining areas and was paying them 33/- per week”. [62]
As unemployment grew in 1929, many on the left turned their attention to the struggle to organise those workers left without jobs. Largely on the initiative of the Communist Party, but with the involvement of many left Labour activists, a National Unemployed Workers Movement was once again organised. This was based upon the widespread and popular support which had been received in the previous decade and the movement was to dominate the unemployed struggles in the 1930s. The organisation was well established in Derby right from the start of this period, having partaken in the earlier struggles of the 1920s. A large NUWM conference was held in Derby in February 1929 and the town was on the first of the NUWM’s national unemployed marches - the ‘Hunger Marches’ - that year. Moreover, it was always represented on these marches which took place throughout the 1 930s. The 1929 march began in Scotland and spread throughout the country, along nine routes all of which culminated in a major London event. A strong contingent from Derby was involved in the Midlands stream. The TUC and the Labour Party officially banned Trades Councils and affiliated organisations from aiding the march. But many activists simply ignored the instructions; such were their sympathies with the plight of the unemployed. Yet, in some areas, the instructions were followed so earnestly that working class organisations spurned the marchers, refusing them even humanitarian help such as shelter or food. Churches were often more sympathetic in some towns than local Labour Parties. Even workhouses provided more hospitality than some labour movement organisations. In March, when the Derbyshire marchers returned from London by train, they were able to assist by placing unemployment as key issue in the May General Election. [63]
The 1927 Unemployed Insurance Act, introduced by the Tories, provided ammunition in the election battle. The concept of ‘Not Genuinely Seeking Work’ (NGSW) particularly gave rise to much resentment amongst ordinary people. To obtain state benefits, the burden was on the unemployed clamant to prove that he or she was in fact looking for employment. Even the Derby Board of Guardians made an all too common criticism of Labour Exchanges in February 1929, that they were too strict in stopping benefits where the claimant could not provide absolute proof of a search for work. [64] Although the Board’s concern would not have been entirely altruistic, since anyone denied benefits would of course come to the Board for relief, thus depleting its funds.
Labour proposed in its 1929 election manifesto that the NGSW clause be deleted, if they were to achieve government office, and this was a pledge which won it much support from both the unemployed and from concerned employed workers. In a massive mobilisation of activity, the NUWM fought the implications of scrounging which the NGSW clause implied. In many ways this single issue was critical in enabling Labour to win the election, despite the vagueness of the rest of its manifesto on the issue of unemployment. Once in government, with Ramsay MacDonald as Prime Minister, Labour at first merely tinkered with the administration of the NGSW clause. However, after much campaigning, the onus of proof on NGSW was switched from the unemployed to the authorities. Concern over these matters helped the NUWM to grow enormously in public stature. In April 1930, a march of around 80 unemployed arrived in Chesterfield on its way to a May Day rally in London. Predictably, they were cold shouldered by the labour movement in the town. That year the DMA barred unemployed miners who were members of the NUWM from holding office. But the move was far from generally accepted and the arguments within the union around this resulted in the DMA supplying food and lodgings to unemployed marches in 1930 and in 1932.
Unemployment had never gone beyond one million nationally during the 1920s. In 1931 it exploded to the highest level ever recorded up until then of 2.5 million, 21% of all insured workers. Trades unionists expected some action from their government, but things seemed to get worse. Following a major international financial crisis, in March 1931 the Labour Government commissioned a report from a committee headed by Sir George May, chairman of the Prudential Insurance company. The committee’s majority in July recommended a balanced state budget. The accounting assumptions of the May Committee were suspect, since it treated some expenditure as current - contrary to Treasury convention. Nonetheless, out of this emerged the proposal that £96 million be cut in government expenditure, two thirds of that at the expense of the unemployed by reducing benefits of 17/- a week by 20%. By the end of July 1931, the Bank of England was loosing gold reserves at the rate of £15 million a week and total reserves were down to £133 million. Financial policy dictated that the value of the pound as related to the Gold Standard, the internationally accepted mechanism for evaluating the relative worth of currencies, be adjusted. Mine owners in particular felt pressured by the effect on their export prices by the overvaluation of the pound, which had arisen as a result of the war. The severe recession which had begun in the early 1920s saw a sharp fall in wages and prices, but British exports were still uncompetitive at the pre-war parity rate of $4.86 at which Britain had re-entered the Gold Standard. The Government saw the capitalist system as like any mechanical system, available to be turned in any way it desired. Money was part of the system and the theory demanded that a restriction in the supply of money be made. Montague Norman, a leading Tory banker, put it succinctly when he spoke of there being no problem about money, except who has it! No doubt the unemployed would have heartily agreed with him. The Government found itself applying policies which a Tory Government would not necessarily feel unhappy with. Some staunch Labour supporters would explain away the contradiction by arguing the need to support their government, whatever the situation. But for many, there grew a massive disillusionment; power and wealth remained untouched. Little had been done to radicalise British society in any significant way and Tory anti-union legislation was still on the statute books.
Those who had always ruled still did so. In a move reminiscent of the flippant gaiety so typical of the rich a decade earlier, Arthur Markham, the coal owner’s son, could still humiliate working people by arranging a ‘miners’ party’ at a fashionable restaurant in London. He arranged this jape by stopping miners at the pithead and giving them £10 and a first class ticket to London. A dozen agreed to go with him as they were when he met them, black with coal and in their working clothes. The restaurateur thought it “the most original party he had ever catered for”. [65] The underlying attitude of sneering insensitivity can easily be imagined and one can only hope that the miners took Markham for all they could get out of him.
Controversy over the lacklustre performance of the Labour Government was widespread inside the labour movement, which began to divide into right wing and left wing factions. In March 1931, the TGWU’s Derby district president, Heyhoe, was “sorry that there was at the present time a disruption in the Labour movement, it was a United Front that was wanted”. [66] Although whether the choice of phrase meant a desire to keep the movement to the militant left may be a matter of doubt, it is more likely that the focus of attention was the increasingly doubts angry about the drift of the Labour government headed by Ramsay MacDonald. The situation would sharpen even further after the majority of the Labour cabinet began to implement a means test and severe cuts in state expenditure on the unemployed. MacDonald turned to the Tories for support as it became clear that his own party would not back him and a ‘National’ government was formed out of a coalition of MPs from all parties in August. Whilst many Labour MPs refused to follow MacDonald, the main divergence in the movement which emerged was between the Parliamentary Party and the party in the country at large. The amazing betrayal of MacDonald shocked almost everybody, but the signs had always been evident.
J H Thomas sent a letter to the Derby Labour Party EC, dated August 26th, explaining his actions. He justified his support for MacDonald on the basis that failure to act in the way they had done would have resulted in a “crisis in which all would suffer, the working class worst of all”. [67] Even so, Thomas had by this time abandoned all pretence at socialist ideas; a sympathetic contemporary biographer approvingly described him as believing that “the constructive influence of the British Empire will most quickly and efficiently succour the ills of the world”. [68] Thomas addressed the Derby No 2 NUR branch on Sunday 27th September, when he revealed that the National Government would be seeking a vote of confidence from the nation at a general election which was imminent. [69] The Labour Party was still stunned by these events and was unable to mount an effective campaign. Much of its senior leadership had decamped without regard for the damage that this would cause to its credibility as a caring and honest party. The tide seemed to be very much with the National Government, which cleverly acted quickly before the impact of the dramatic new alliance was lost. Moreover, a public scare was created and turned into a major election issue, cloaking the real reasons for the election. The Government argued that if the Labour Party were returned, Post Office savings would be seized to pay for the crisis.
All of Labour’s supposedly solid constituencies were under attack by the combined forces of Liberals, Conservatives and Labour’s right wing renegades. The Tory, Wragg, took Belper back from Jack Lees, not far short of doubling his vote in the process. Flint took Ilkeston from Oliver for ‘National Labour’ by a mere two votes, with both candidates taking 50% of the poll. The alliance of right wing forces is very clear in Flint’s case, since the Liberal and Tory vote from 1929 plus a few wavering Labour voters, who were attracted by the appeal to national unity, was sufficient to very narrowly win the seat.
Labour Liberal Tory National
1929 59% 22.7% 18.3%
1931 50% - - 50%
The National Conservative took Chesterfield from Labour’s George Benson with a convincing majority of almost 6,000. Frank Lee lost Labour’s seat in North East Derbyshire to a small, but certain majority of around 1,000. Interestingly, the militant activist, Vin Williams, the former editor of the local strike bulletin in 1926, also stood in Chesterfield for the New Party, the short lived creation of Oswald Mosley and four other Labour MPs. Mosley had been a high flyer in the labour movement, deserting the Tories in 1926 and becoming a minister, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1929. His first wife, Cynthia, or Cimmie as she was affectionately known, the daughter of Lord Curzon, had also been elected as a Labour MP. When it was first founded in 1930, incredibly given its later development, the New Party was seen as being a left wing alternative to established politics. But Williams polled only a tiny vote of 1.7% and was immediately disillusioned along with many others and renewed his connections with traditional left politics. The New Party had an ineffective launch at the home of the well-heeled Sitwell family at Renishaw Park, but the connections with local landowners and coal interests, coupled with an increasing Italian link, served to emphasise where Mosley was going. In an extraordinary turn, Mosley rapidly veered to the right and transformed it into the British Union of Fascists, which was bankrolled by Mussolini, perhaps even because it was funded by the dictator.
In Derby, an even more serious reduction in the Labour vote was registered than elsewhere in the county. A combination of the omnipresent coalition appeal and Thomas’ own personal popularity could have been responsible. But it has been suggested that his “influence failed to extend to other railway towns than Derby”. [70] Thomas’ partner in the contest in Derby was a National Conservative, whilst he himself stood as a National Labour candidate. In contrast, two official Labour candidates stood against them, one being Thomas’ old stable mate, Raynes. The National candidates beat them by something like a proportion of five votes to every two. Whereas Labour had taken around 70% of the vote in 1929, the position was reversed in 1931, with the National candidates winning 70%. Raynes viewed the Labour Party as “shattered and scattered and hopelessly in debt”. It had been a devastating experience. Raynes had lost his seat, yet he remained tremendously forgiving of Thomas, who had not consulted his fellow MP and did not repent his actions. But, if Raynes adopted a phlegmatic attitude, others did not. The mild mannered Les Clay recalled that Thomas ‘lived at Allestree - away from the workers”. (Allestree was – is - a pleasant and affluent suburb of Derby.) “The men in the railway workshops were very bitter about him. Not just the activists, even the average bloke. I saw him outside the Midland Hotel (near Derby station) once and I told him what I thought of him. “You traitor!” I said.” [71]
The same pattern of humiliating defeat for Labour was obviously repeated in those areas which traditionally had small reservoirs of Labour voters. The National Conservative in High Peak beat Labour by a margin of three to one. Numerically, the National MP’s vote almost exactly combined the 1929 Tory and Liberal votes. Major Graham-Pole lost his seat in South Derbyshire to a National candidate, who also gained the support of the Liberal and Tories. There were serious complaints about clergymen using their pulpit to condemn Labour, as at Spondon parish church. Speaking after the election, Graham-Pole noted that “Labour lost more to the power of the capitalist press, the pulpit and the wireless than to the National Government’s programme”. On this occasion, his personal wealth had counted for little, the National candidate spent twice as much as Labour did on campaigning in the constituency. [72] In West Derbyshire, Labour did not even stand against the Marquis, who was thus returned unopposed. The sole remaining Labour MP left in the entire county was Charles Duncan, who was returned for Clay Cross. His vote was much reduced, but in this rock solid Labour seat, he was able to claim no less than 65% of the poll.
The result, nationally and locally, was a complete disaster for Labour which was crushed as a national party, with only 56 seats to the 558 seats acquired by the National candidates. The campaign had been marked by great vitriol, with the National candidates labelling their opponents as Bolsheviks, even when many knew quite well this was nowhere near the truth, as they had been colleagues in the Parliamentary Labour Party. The effect of former key Labour leaders denouncing their own party had predictable results on the confidence of working class voters. Within a week or so, Labour was forced to face a similar test at local elections. In Derby, only two out of the twelve Labour candidates were returned.
4 Social Conditions in the thirties
With such a mandate, the new government warmed to its task, imposing a cut on all those receiving public money. All government works projects were axed. In a matter of weeks, in excess of a quarter of a million pounds were taken from unemployment benefit allocations by the newly imposed means test. The very name of which brought fear and loathing into the hearts of ordinary people who had hit on hard times. A Derbyshire man was to write of these fears and experiences, largely based upon his own life in the Ripley area. Walter Brierley’s book, “Means Test Man”, was sadly an unknown work in his own day. More attention has latterly been given to it, albeit posthumously, since he died in 1972. The unpublished manuscripts of Brierley’s novels, stories and plays are all kept by Derby Local Studies Library, whilst “Means Test Man” was published by Spokesman in 1983. The author was born in Waingroves in 1900 and eventually obtained work at McEnvoy’s engineering works in Derby, starting on January 1st 1935. He stayed there for two years, and then obtained a job as a Child Welfare Officer, an occupation he kept until his retirement in 1965.
The winter of 1931 saw massive and widespread protests against the means test everywhere, including Derby and Chesterfield. On Sunday 11th October, thousands of the unemployed marched to the Town Council in Derby in a mood of considerable anger. Such a mood was borne out of real despair, for life on the dole was oppressive in the extreme. One who experienced the worst excesses of this period was Gordon Street. He recalled that about 1,200 people would be in the dole queue in Belper, “extending from St John’s Road, along the Butts and halfway down High Pavement”. He had to stand for the entire day in that queue before he could sign on the register. At Brettles, where he was normally employed, things were not as bad as elsewhere. Gordon Street was “only laid off a week or so at a time”, but such experiences on a regular basis must have still been very depressing. [73] Certainly, the situation in Belper was critical enough for the Labour Party to run a soup kitchen at premises in Bowling Alley, a street in the town, for the children of the unemployed, so menial were the benefits provided by the authorities.
The recession hit hard at all working people, but naturally the unemployed suffered the most. The mining areas, which then crept closer to the larger towns than was the case in later decades, suffered dreadfully. A third of insured workers were unemployed in Clay Cross, Eckington and Chesterfield. The women of unemployed families suffered above all others. A contemporary social study of the conditions of working class women reveals the stark severity of the deprivation. This study was commissioned by the Women’s’ Health Enquiry Committee, which was set up in 1933 to review the welfare of women. It was by no means a radical body, Towns Women’s Guilds, the Midwives’ Institute, the Liberal Party and a collection of MAs, MBEs and JPs constituted the committee.
Entirely random samples of 1,250 women in over 40 towns were intensively interviewed. 39 of these were from Derby and two from Chesterfield. Many were wives of unemployed men, most had large numbers of children and lived in difficult housing conditions. The consequences, in terms of ill health, were appalling. One survey visitor wrote of one unhappy, elderly woman with eight children who lived just outside of Derby: “This woman is very miserable; she has no leisure occupation and cannot read or write. She cannot go out much as her leg is too bad; she only goes to the shops once a week when well enough.” The woman suffered from nerves, headaches, general debility, shortness of breath and a very bad ulcerated leg. It had been that way for twenty years and she had to attend the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary for treatment on the leg three times a week, until two years before. For a while, the lotion the Infirmary had been giving her had eased the pain, but she could not now afford the 1/- bus fare, or the lotion, since her husband had become unemployed. [74]
While most interviewed in the survey were not well placed, some of those obliged to live in the “slums” of Derby faced particularly distressing circumstances. One case was believed to be a “relatively rare” example of extreme poverty. Not that those women in families with a bread winner were much better off than those women in domestic circumstances where unemployment had struck. The diets of the women were examined in minute detail. A Mrs V lived in a “slum street of small houses in Derby”. She was 40 years old and had three children. Her husband was a railway porter and her housekeeping money amounted to £1 19s 0d. The rent constituted almost a quarter of this budget and the family’s diet was dominated by bread and potatoes. Only 4/9d, about an eighth of the budget, was spent on eggs, bacon, meat and the like. Mrs V’s home was “very bad”, having no bath and a broken boiler, which the landlord refused to mend. Since the bad floods of 1932, when there had been several feet of water in the house, it had always been damp. The toilet was 25 yards from the house and hemmed in by a rag and bone yard and factories, which caused a permanent and unpleasant smell. Her husband had been very ill when she was six months pregnant and she had “great difficultly in nursing (i.e. feeding) the baby”. [75]
One young mother of 19 years of age lived in a condemned slum court in Derby. Four months after the birth of her baby, hysteria and nervous debility had come upon her. Tied to the house by the baby, she had no recreation and the dirty walls and damp wallpaper depressed her. She had no copper gas boiler for washing clothes, which made washing a crushing, onerous task. There was no sink and no special place to keep the coal. [76] Despite the fact that she too was considered a rare case, 31% of the women interviewed lived in “completely intolerable” conditions. Mrs A of Derby, aged 25, was pregnant and lived with her unemployed husband and four children in a slum court which was due to be demolished. There was no gas supply and no copper, only oil lamps provided light and water had to be fetched from 40 yards away. Mrs N lived with her husband and three children in squalid surroundings in Derby. She suffered from kidney trouble, back ache, constipation, head ache and tonsillitis. Her diet was an unrelieved dose of tea, bread and potatoes. She explained to her visitor that “more food is available on Friday when unemployment insurance money comes. There is then fried fish for supper”. [77]
For Mrs T of Derby such circumstances were made worse by her surroundings. A young woman of 24, she had three children to look after, all under five years of age. She was in very bad health, “having kidney trouble”. The family lived in a slum court, where the surroundings were very squalid. There were “no facilities for cleanliness at all”. There was no sink or running water in the house, only a tap at the end of the yard. There was a row of communal ‘tubs’, lavatories cleaned by the corporation twice a week. Mrs T had “never been to a talkie”, only silent movies some years ago. [78] Another woman, the wife of an unemployed labourer who had only had two month’s work in three years, lived in a cottage in Derby where “the bugs which are present and bred in the rotting woodwork cause endless extra work in an endeavour to be clean. It has been necessary to sit up all night to keep the bugs off the small baby. The corporation is said to have refused to fumigate the place at present ... until the end of the slum clearance scheme.” [italics in original - 79] Most of the women interviewed who attended welfare centres drank water, though some consumed phenomenal amounts of tea. There was a reason for this, other drinks were rarely mentioned, except “in the slums of Derby ... mineral water and ginger beer are mentioned, but this is probably because the women have been warned not to drink the water” because of its health hazards unless boiled. [80]
Mrs D of Derby was 35 years old with five children and lived in a council house, so her living conditions were more tolerable. But her husband was an unemployed labourer and their rent was almost a quarter of the family budget of £2 1s 0d. [81] Mrs C of Chesterfield was 55 years and lived with her unemployed miner husband and three sons in a “very poor old cottage with no copper, no bathroom, no coal-shed”. She had to keep the coal in the cellar with the food and take out the food every time she needed coal to avoid getting dust on it. She had been in hospital three times and had once “went away to the sea” afterwards for convalescence. Rather touchingly, she added that she would “remember that as long as I live”, so pleasant had the experience been. [82j Another miner’s wife faced the hardship of unemployment with dignity. Without the help of her son, who lived with them, she and her husband would have been more severely affected than they were. Despite that help, she so arranged meals that her son would not see his parents eating bread and butter and tea for every meal. As the sole bread winner, the son had the bulk of the weekly groceries, without his knowledge that this was so. The mother did have another son, but he had his own family and was suffering acutely from bronchitis, which prevented him from working. Yet the Public Assistance Committee (PAC) thought that he ought to be in a position to help his parents and thus only awarded them 2/6d a week to live on, even though their rent alone was 5/- a week. “We would rather be dead than go on like this”, the wife bitterly commented. The PAC man’s monthly visits were “dreaded” by the family. “He asks so many questions and is so strict.” [83]
Housing conditions were so bad that even the Derby Conservative councillor, W H Phillips, was on record as saying that there was very definitely overcrowding of a terrible kind in the town. Over 17% of families, representing 27% of Derby’s population faced serious overcrowding. 50% of the women in the health survey had less than 6/- a head each week in housekeeping money and of these 65.5% were in very bad or poor health. [84] In another study, Sir John Orr estimated that one quarter of all children less than 14 years of age lived in families which had an income of less than 10/- a head per week, less than the minimum allowed for simple existence by the social scientist, Rowntree. He had judged 53/- to be necessary; adjusted to the year of the women’s health survey this would be 55/6d for a town based worker and a family of three children. The Women’s’ Health Committee, arising out of the survey, recommended a wide ranging series of reforms, but nothing of this character would emerge until the Labour Government of 1945. [85]
With living conditions so bad and leisure activities so limited by lack of money, many working class people looked for cheap or free pleasures. Rambling, or simply walking through the countryside, was one activity which gained enormous popularity in these years. No less than five hundred people went on a Derby Labour Party charabanc outing to Monsal Head in 1926. Yet, even in this aspect of life, a class struggle existed. For the rights of working people to tread the hillsides were challenged by the wealthy elite and this challenge was in turn taken up by a series of mass and deliberate trespasses in Derbyshire.
5 The 1932 Kinder Scout trespass
Arguably, the trespassers of private property in 1932 were fighting the same battle as their forebears had generations before, when the Enclosure Acts had been resisted. However, the ambition of the rich in this period was not to gain economically, but to preserve the moorlands for themselves alone. Specifically, the aim was to maintain the grouse which provided elitist shooting ‘pleasures’. Something like three quarters of the southern Pennines and the Peak District was owned privately and the rest was owned by public bodies which admitted no public access. Less than 1% of the moorland was adequately open. Legislation to force land owners to permit the public to partake in their own heritage was the only answer. To achieve this, labour movement activists determined to embark upon a series of mass trespasses to draw attention to their case. The campaign was strongly influenced by the British Workers Sports Federation, which in turn was close to the Communist Party. Activists in the one were often involved in the other. Kinder Scout, an outstanding stretch of moorland, was chosen as the site of the first mass trespass. On Sunday April 24th 1932, ramblers gathered in large numbers at Hayfield, much advance publicity having taken place.
One third of the entire Derbyshire Constabulary, under the personal command of the Chief Constable, poured into the village! Ramblers who had come from Manchester outwitted the police, by leaving before the stated starting time by a route through which police cars could not follow. [86] A rally was convened in a nearby quarry, addressed by the person most associated with the Trespass then and in subsequent years, one Benny Rothman. Hundreds of young men and women streamed across moorland, heading for the plateau above Kinder reservoir. They were challenged only by some twenty or thirty gamekeepers. Largely ignoring these, the youngsters reached the top where they met another group which had come from Sheffield, via Edale. (Activists from Derby had tended to join the Manchester group, whilst those from Chesterfield went with the Sheffield contingent.) It was an inspiring moment and the whole event was a bold gesture for “the rights of ordinary people to walk on land stolen from them in earlier times”. [87]
Six young men were arrested after the Trespass and a travesty of justice followed. They were first brought before the New Mills magistrates court. Subsequently, on July 21st and 22nd, the group was brought before the Derby Assizes. A Grand Jury of two brigadier generals, three colonels, two majors, three captains, two aldermen and eleven country gentlemen considered their case. This was no trial by one’s peers; there was not a single working class person and no rambler amongst the jury! [88] They were charged with riotous assembly and assault of a gamekeeper. The most damning piece of evidence, it seems, was a book by Lenin which had been in the possession of one of the defendants. This fact drew the comment from the judge, amidst much laughter: “Isn’t that the Russian gentleman?” [89] Predictably, the ramblers were all found guilty, but sentences of six, four, three and two months jail were imposed. One young man was seemingly extra penalised because he had been selling the Daily Worker, which the Communist Party had launched only two years before. [90] The campaign did not end there. Apart from the demonstrations and activity designed to draw attention to the injustice of the imprisonments, there were other rambling protests. At the end of May, a massive turnout of over 5,000 ramblers demonstrated for the right of access to private lands at Whatstandwell. [91] Whilst on June 26th, some 10,000 ramblers assembled at Winnats Pass, Castleton. [92] Another mass trespass took place at Abbey brook in the Derwent valley and a rally was held at Jacob’s Ladder. With the more pressing activities on unemployment, anti-fascism and solidarity with Spain over the following years, the issue receded from the minds of the labour movement. But it was by no means in vain, the very establishment in 1949 by a Labour Government of the Derbyshire Peak District National Park, a novel concept at the time, was no accident. The ramblers’ struggles had made their point and the transformation of Derbyshire’s moorlands into public property was accomplished with relative ease. [93]
6 The Left and the Unemployed
J H Thomas was by no means the only defector in Derbyshire from the labour movement. The solicitor A R Flint and two Labour councillors in Derby, Mycroft - who had been involved in the Industrial Alliance - and Matley, left the Labour Party in October 1931 to join the National tendency. The effectiveness of the Labour Party was much impeded by the disillusionment and despair which was created by the split. In 1931, the Derby Labour Party (DLP) recorded that “the year has been a difficult one for us”, this had been even before the MacDonaldite desertion. “Success in the past’, the DLP thought, “has been brought about mainly by loyalty, enthusiasm, sacrifice and teamwork”. [94] A great amount of these qualities had been needed during the 1929-31 Labour Government, but with the arrival of the National Government the Party was shattered. In the spring of 1932, the DLP reported that “much happened that we regret, but on the other hand we knew that we touched rock-bottom and found our movement has secure foundations”. [95]
Individual membership plummeted, almost halving in one year from 2,032 to 1,188. In a move to halt the slide, two political heavyweights were drawn in to officiate in the local party. H A Hind became chairman and W R Raynes took over as secretary. They were as affected by the experience as anyone; despite his quiet continuing personal affection for Thomas, the steady Raynes argued bitterly for a motion at the national Labour Party conference which repudiated those former Labour leaders who were by then in the National Government. Challenging the three railway unions to come to some agreement on providing a replacement parliamentary candidate for Derby, Raynes was outspoken in his public condemnation of Thomas. He had seen “the work of 30 years smashed and branches of the great railway union (the NUR) torn with doubt and dissension”. Although they were now building up again, they would “not stand for a repetition of the experience of the past 12 months”. [96]
While individual membership of the DLP took a hammering, affiliated membership was reasonably unaffected, primarily because more union branches affiliated to the party as a conscious, defensive reaction, Interestingly, as late as 1928, the Derby Trades Council (DTC) maintained direct affiliation to the DLP on a figure of 252 members. These would have been individual members of the party, given the introduction of bans and the sidelining of trades councils which had taken place in the movement. Such reservoirs of loyalty would now stand the DLP in good stead. [97] Trade union affiliation improved slowly, but surely, throughout the next decade and beyond. Some unions affiliated most of their local branches to the DLP. The AEU had 19 branches affiliated in contrast to its attitude to the DTC, with which it had little to do. According to Les Clay, the AEU District Secretary, Arthur Sturgess, had told him not to bother with the DTC, since it was “all for office workers”. [98] A refrain which would echo down the years, as union officials watched with increasing dread the activism of the trades councils movement. But, of course, the Derby Labour Party was viewed differently. In 1928-9, the Workers Union had affiliated seven branches to the DLP and the NUR had six, plus two women’s guilds, a position unaffected by the MacDonaldite fiasco. After the merger with the TGWU, the three original T&G branches (5/95, 5/98 and 5/100) immediately affiliated, joining their new compatriots in the WU in a long standing close relationship with the DLP.
Affiliated membership of the party of 17,897 before the calamity dipped only slightly to 17,024 immediately afterwards. Clearly, the tight control over union branches and district committees, exerted by people like Hind and Sturgess, enabled them to maintain affiliation levels. Nonetheless, as the fight back ensued individual membership began to lift. This was quite dramatically so in the period from spring 1932 to spring 1933, when a 50% increase was reported. [99] The DLP’s journal, the Democrat, continued to be published successfully. Despite the enormous cost of printing, £41 in 1931-2, the journal did avoid actually loosing money. Affiliated membership was ten times that of individual membership: [100]
(Note: Individual membership covers period of March of previous year to March of the year stated. The gender split of the individual membership always heavily favoured men. For example, in the 1930 DLP Annual report, 1,246 males and 772 females were reported as being individual members.)
Derby Labour Party membership 1927-1932
Year DLP individual membership DLP affiliated membership
1927 1,589 ?
1928 1,905 ?
1929 2,018 ?
1930 2,030 17,897
1931 1,188 ?
1932 1,806 20,037
Despite the experience of a National Government and perhaps because the DLP fell into the hands of competent and charismatic men like Hind and Sturgess, the party remained solidly in the hands of the right of the labour movement. It was almost as if nothing had happened. No real pressure existed to challenge the dominance of the right in Derby. Unemployment hit the town hard, but it was as almost nothing compared with the bitter fight for survival experienced in the coalfields. Massive industrial complexes like Celanese, Rolls Royce and the rail workshops were affected by the recession but, by and large, there was a cushioning effect which reserved some prosperity for some of those lucky enough to have jobs. It was in these and subsequent years that the contemporary character of the local labour movement was formed. These developments made for the perceived historical judgement of Derby as a sleepy backwater, relatively unattracted to militancy. It is in this decade that a sense of Derby’s distancing itself from the rest of the county emerges and this mood would be particularly reinforced by the next two decades of good living, which manufacturing essential to Britain’s defences would bring.
More fertile ground for the left was amongst the miners of the north of the county. The NUWM national council member for Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire was Phillip Hicken, the brother of the DMA’s general secretary. In 1931, Phillip Hicken announced his intention of contesting the Clay Cross constituency as a Communist candidate. But the notion came to nought, for he was unable to raise the necessary deposit of £150. [101] An unspoken strategy to counter the effectiveness of the NUWM as the voice of the unemployed was embarked upon by the official labour movement. Influenced by the new DLP leadership, with its strong roots in the trade unions, the Trades Council called together 80 delegates at a county conference at the Kier Hardie Hall in Derby in March 1932. [102] The major concern highlighted was the operation of the Means Test. A tremendous campaign had been launched prior to the conference to attract support for its aims. A petition signed by some 4,500 workers on short time or actually unemployed was presented at the conference. The left on the DTC had not opposed the conference, on the basis that it would seek to be a unifying force. Indeed, the NUWM was represented along with its immediate, local rival, the Derby Unemployed Men’s’ Brotherhood. This had been founded by Alderman W G Wilkins. Its main approach in countering the NUWM was charitable and leisure activities, although it did issue a propaganda bulletin from its headquarters at the Theatre Gospel Hall in Bold Lane. There were many trade union organisations represented at the conference: six AEU and four NUR branches sent delegates, along with the TGWU, the Boilermakers, the NUGMWU, NUDAW, the Iron Founders and the Building Trades Federation. But such an initiative did little to ameliorate the stern outlook of the PAC5 and the Means Test men. Support for the bolder approach of the Hunger Marchers grew. Towards the end of 1932, another major national march was organised.
The women’s’ contingent of the Lancashire route passed through Derby without any difficulties or restrictions being imposed by the workhouse authorities. There was much controversy at Burton-on-Trent, however. The marchers were told that they had to be in the workhouse by 8pm. In response, the women held well supported demonstrations in the town until nearly midnight, before they decided to return at their own leisure to the workhouse to retire for the night. [103] Only a few weeks later, the message of the march was mitigated in Derby by some good news. Rolls Royce was able to end the year with a big re-engagement of men made redundant during the year, as a large number of new orders came in. [104] But generally the position was none too good. The response of the well off in Derby was to embrace charity. The Rotary Club and Toc H provided boots for the unemployed, while the Town Council set up a recreational centre in Full Street for the seven thousand registered unemployed in the town. Councillor W Smithard was the chair of the committee which ran the centre, which may well have been seen as another initiative to head off the militant influence of the NUWM among the unemployed. The council also proposed a major project in Markeaton park. A pond was drained and an ornamental lake created, thus creating ‘work’ for 140 unemployed for six months. [105]
Derby Workers Defence Committee and Derby NUWM objected to the scheme on the grounds that it was test work, designed to apply the NGSW clause, and would not pay trade union rates for the job. The NUWM issued its basic demand for proper relief or genuine work, but the local PAC was dominated by National Government supporters and refused even to meet a deputation to consider their objections. The Derby NUWM continued to dominate the campaign amongst the unemployed, producing a handbill in 1933 which gives a taste of the vigour of the organisation:
“Employed and unemployed workers of Derby! Unite to defeat test work!
Derby Public Assistance Committee has forced men to take on work which amounts to slave labour! At least 30 men are now on test work and amongst them are cases where men are compelled to work 3 days for as little as 8 shillings and 10 shillings relief, a rate of 4d an hour.”
In response, the PAC secretary argued that the amount of the men’s’ relief bore no relation to the actual work done and thus that the NUWM was misrepresenting the facts. [106]
A mass meeting was called in February 1933 by the DLP to protest against the Means Test and unemployment. But this was marked by dissent and rowdy behaviour. Raynes called from the platform for more of “the Russian spirit’, presumably meaning that more discipline should apply in the movement. But this did nothing to stem criticism by Councillor Gill of the ILP of his role in Thomas’ desertion. Gill argued for more “socialistic principle” in the Labour Party and the need to admit past mistakes and learn from them. Raynes’ interpretation of the Russian spirit increasingly looked like a belief that unity meant no dissent. For the NUWM, A Crawley protested during Raynes’ speech that his organisation had been refused a place on the platform. Raynes justified this action on the rather ludicrous grounds that there was a need to show no disunity to the public, something which the very exclusion of the NUWM was almost calculated not to achieve.
In the spring of 1933, some 250 delegates from all sections of Derby’s working class movement attended a conference called by the DTC. The main aim was to “consider and protest against’ test work. The anonymous ‘worker correspondent’ who recorded the details of the conference for the Daily Worker, complained that the “nucleus of bureaucrats on the EC of the (trades) council showed from the start that they did not intend to allow delegates present to do any “considering” and confined the “protest” within safe limits by putting before the conference a resolution to “send postcards from every organisation to members of the Town Council”. The chairman of the conference started what was going to be a very controversial meeting by his own opening remarks. He over-stressed that the fight against test work was only a fight against the effects of capitalism and not the cause itself. His idea was that only the election of a Labour Government could dent the power of capital and this had to be sought at the expense of the here and now struggle. “To put the question in this way,” thought the Daily Worker correspondent, “seems to me to make little of the fight against test work ... to sidetrack the issue.” The main proponent of the DTC EC’s tame approach of a post card campaign was what the correspondent called “our star reactionary, Matt Lowe, of the NUGMW”. Even though the DTC EC was “not of our opinion”, there were some on the platform “who were thoroughly disgusted” with Lowe and those who supported him.
Harry Cheshire successfully moved a collection for the Workers Defence Committee, which raised 21s 3d. Cheshire also apologised to NUWM activists for the unspecified “disgusting allegations made by Matt Lowe”. After much controversy, the platform line put forward by Lowe was “disposed of’, but the chair refused to allow resolutions from the floor. But “the pressure of the delegates forced the EC to agree to send a deputation to the PAC”. Even so, on no account would the leadership “agree to this deputation going with the NUWM deputation which will be going at the same time”, reported the Daily Worker’s correspondent. [107]
Early in May, a deputation consisting of the NUGMW, TGWU and the United Carters and Motormen’s Association was received by the PAC. [108] Their representations were politely listened to, but the NUWM was kept outside. But Labour members on the PAC kept up a constant barrage of criticisms of its public works projects as in fact being test work. Within two weeks, Derby NUWM organised a mass demonstration to press home the point that they were a representative body which should be listened to and that the PAC projects were test work. A large crowd marched from the Market Place, headed by the NUWM banner, to assemble outside the PAC offices. The representative nature of the event is underlined by the fact that H A Hind proposed a resolution at the gathering that no further test work ought take place, after an amendment was agreed that there should be wider labour movement action wherever ordinary full time workers were being displaced as a result of test work.
Following this, the PAC received another deputation, this time from the Co-op Men’s Guild, NUDAW, the AEU and the DTC. Testament to the power of the relative unity of the organised campaign was that the PAC no longer refused to meet the NUWM, so long as the press were excluded. [109] The NUWM asked for the complete abolition of all test work and for relief to be granted to those who refused such work, but the PAC remained unmoved, despite the weight of public pressure now upon them. Figures were produced, supposedly supporting the PAC’s position. Of the 228 on relief work, some 53 had seen their relief money varied and 30 had had it discontinued. On the PAC’s own figures, about a third could have been said to have been affected by the test, hardly a justification for the argument that test work was not a part of the work creation projects. Despite the Daily Worker’s attack on him, Matt Lowe attended a Socialist League conference in June. There, Lowe revealed that unemployed men were in effect being paid as little as 5/- to 25/- for work which would have been normally carried out by Corporation labourers at the union rate. Such a comment explains why the major unions were now backing the campaign, for it was in the direct interest of their members to remove test work.
The Derby Co-op, the DLP and the DTC that summer set up their own “Unemployed Association” (UA) as a counter weight to the NUWM. This would be affiliated to these three ‘umbrella’ organisations of the labour movement, whilst the NUWM would not be. Significantly, a rule was decided upon that members of the Communist Party could join the Unemployed Association, but not hold office within it. Membership of the UA would require transfer to an appropriate trade union on obtaining work and the chief benefit would be the right to representation at public appeals bodies, an activity which the NUWM excelled in. All the local big-wigs of the labour movement were behind the UA, Sturgess, Raynes and Hind amongst them. But the organisation was marginal to the unemployed struggle, for it would remain bound to the official movement’s needs. The UA emerged as a narrow voice for the electoral ambitions of the Labour Party and its ability to act as an independent voice for the unemployed was thus severely constrained. Directly controlled by the employed, the organisation and its secretary, S Grimdell, was never able to shake off the image of being an adjunct of the Labour Party, whose erstwhile leaders had split to impose unemployment benefit cuts. The UA’s affiliation to the DLP shows a pitifully slow growth and a sudden death in 1938. In 1934 it had only 34 members and this had increased to only 40 by the following year. [110]
Meanwhile, the NUWM continued, challenged but largely unweakened in Derby. In the north of the county, Phillip Hicken continued his activities, being summonsed before the magistrates in 1933 for “disturbing the public peace and inciting persons to commit the offence of wilful damage and larceny”. He had spoken at a NUWM meeting on the immorality of the starvation of the unemployed when the shops were full. This was quite unreasonably taken to mean that the unemployed should take to looting. Despite the DMA’s formal opposition to the NUWM, the union provided the necessary finance for legal representation for Hicken. In the end he was to win an appeal against the decidedly unjust three month prison sentence. [111] Not that any of this daunted Hicken. Some 400 unemployed marched from all parts of the county in 1933 to Nottingham to demand an end to the Means Test and an increase in benefits. On one spur were 22 who marched from Chesterfield to Alfreton and then to Nottingham. Phillip Hicken was the chief organiser of this NUWM event, along with J Taiton and Jake Lodge of Alfreton. Other marches went from Ripley and Heanor. [112]
Such continuing protest helped to maintain pressure on the authorities. Derby Town Council was forced to concede that their relief projects were indeed test work, but sheltered behind the argument that it was obligatory on them under the 1930 Act and that they had no choice but to continue with the work. [113] The NUWM faced more and more refusal by the official labour movement to recognise the organisation. Indeed, the DMA decided in 1933 to withhold any future support to the NUWM because of its stance on the character of the official movement. In September of that year, another unemployed march was again refused shelter in Chesterfield. The official level of unemployment had reached three million. This march, which spread across Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, was particularly well organised. A printed six page programme listed the demands of the NUWM, the stopping off places were located on a map and there was an expose of benefits and test work. The brochure included the official march slogans and marching songs. [114]
Over 200 marchers converged on Derby from three routes, one from Dinnington, another from Dronfield, Eckington, Staveley and Whittington. Staveley had its own unemployed newsletter, the Spark, which publicised the event. Another route to Derby came from Hucknall. The columns marched for six days, arriving in Derby during a heavy rainstorm. [115] The Derby NUWM unsuccessfully asked the workhouse for a waiving of the rule that casual welfare claimants, which they defined the marchers as, had to spend part of the next day in the institution after staying the night. [116] This restriction prompted the organisers to seek accommodation elsewhere and this was arranged at the Corporation Welfare Centre and the Co-op provided food without any charge. The marchers took to the streets in a spirited demonstration, when they heard a rumour that a reduction in benefit was being planned by the authorities, a rumour which the PAC would neither confirm nor deny. [117] After two days of protesting in the town, the major concession was won from the authorities of free school meals for the children of the unemployed.
i) The United Front
These struggle of the unemployed were very much led and initiated by the Communist Party, with some left leaning Labour Party activists participating, especially ILPers. In 1930, the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) had introduced Standing Orders requiring Labour MPs to support Cabinet decisions over party conference decisions. This proved especially problematic for the ILP. Particularly since this party within a party found itself increasingly out of tune with the right wing parliamentary leadership of the Labour Party, even after the MacDonaldite split. Its candidates had fought the October 1931 election separately from the official party and its elected MPs subsequently sat apart