On 5 September 1911, a group of thirty or so boys marched out of Bigyn council school in Llanelli (south west Wales) to protest over the caning of one of their peers. Within days, pupils in more than sixty towns throughout Britain had taken to the streets to express their grievances. What accounted for their actions? Are the recent pupil protests against the war in Iraq another manifestation of a long-running tradition of discontent among pupils, fed up with authorities not listening to their concerns? The school strikes of 1911 were not unique. The first nation-wide strikes occurred in 1889 and, like 1911, took place during a time of widespread industrial unrest. Llanelli and other towns experienced mounting tensions in railway, dock and other industries- in August, 600 soldiers were sent into Llanelli to keep the peace, but in the ensuing riot there were several fatalities. Children were not immune from all of this - some of their parents were directly involved as employees within the respective industries. They were also aware of the emerging adult labour movement - as one boy told a Daily Mirror reporter, 'our fathers strike - why shouldn't we?' But should the strikes of 1911 be seen merely as copy-cat protests?

1910 had seen the founding of the Transport Workers Federation (TWF), a union which aimed to bring every transport worker in the country into the same organisation. Led by the famous

syndicalists Tom Mann and Ben Tillett, the union was imbued with an anti-parliamentary feeling largely alien to the trade union movement in Britain at the time. The TWF grew over the next

year as existing transport unions began to affiliate to it, bringing thousands of workers with them.

A huge demonstration organised by the TWF took place in Liverpool on May 31 1911. Called in support of two seamen's unions on strike, thousands of workers marched across the city carrying

banners in support of the strike. Ending at St. Georges Hall, Ben Tillett and other syndicalist leaders addressed the crowds, calling on them to assist the strikers in whatever way they could.

The strike was organised by two affiliates of the TWF, the National Sailors and Firemen's Union (NFSU) and the National Union of Ships' Stewards, Cooks, Butchers and Bakers. Beginning as a

protest against degrading medical inspections, the strikers soon raised further demands; including improved accomodation, an increase in wages, union recognition, the right for union stewards to

be present during hiring, and an end to the medical inspections. Under pressure from a militant rank and file, leaders of the NFSU soon began to press the employers' organisation, the Shipping

Federation, for talks aimed at ending the dispute. Met with silence from the Shipping Federation, workers responded by calling a national strike on June 15.

Joined by all workers employed by the shipping companies; from cooks and stokers, to stewards and onshore workers, the national strike was total. The pressure of the strike, coupled with the

fact that many scabs used to break the strike were completely untrained, forced the companies to back down and concede to the unions in late June.

Hearing of the victory of the seamen, 4,000 dockers immediately walked off the job on June 28 demanding improved pay and conditions. The dockers, many of whom had refused to load ships

during the national strike, were quickly followed out by the scalers and coal heavers, and by the end of the day 10,000 men were on strike. Seeing this, the seamen again walked out on strike

again purely in support of the dockers. Mass meetings were held, and the largely un-unionised dock workers began to flock to the National Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL).

In September 1911 the ASRS called a strike which saw ten per cent of the strikers laid off in an overt and unapologetic act of victimisation undertaken by the chief director of the GSWR, Sir William Goulding. 

Whereas in Britain successful strike action had led to increased membership and the formation of the NUR and the Triple Alliance, in Ireland trade union development on the railways was frozen, and remained so for the next five years.

The hardline stance taken by Goulding in 1911 made the similar stance taken by William Martin Murphy in 1913 all the more viable.

Unlike in Britain, militant action on the part of the Irish railway companies in 1911, and not the trade unions, had won the day.

The strike increased tension between the Irish membership and the British-based leadership, and it was not until the exceptional circumstances brought about by the Great War had set in that the Irish railwaymen were in a position to challenge the companies once again over wage and work conditions

Grassroots militant trade unionism had surged across Britain in 1911, and achieved improvements in pay and work conditions much more quickly and effectively than any conciliation board or parliamentary committee – the standard demands of the more conservative elements within the unions.

Many of those who took on leadership roles during 1911 were advocates of industrial unionism and, in particular, syndicalism. Sympathetic strike action had been used as a tactic in England, and proved to be a success.

One element of the industrial unrest of 1911 was a call for the end of sectional interests and the creation of a united front against all employers, regardless of trade or, indeed, industry

1911: the great unrest

A century ago a strike wave spread throughout Britain that saw troops on the streets and a strike committee virtually running a major city, writes Simon Basketter

Events of 100 years ago show that workers, often with no militant tradition and with the most cowardly union leaders, can suddenly explode into militant mass action.

Throughout the year there were hundreds of strikes, mostly unofficial. This massive outburst of class struggle became known as the Great Unrest.

For instance, in Bermondsey, south London, 15,000 women workers from over 20 factories spontaneously came out on strike in April. Most of those involved were in food processing—many in jam-making.

Strike leader Mary Macarthur said, “While women are badly paid because of their unorganised condition, they remain unorganised mainly because they are badly paid.” The strike won pay rises and unionised the area.

In 1911 some 961,000 workers were involved in strikes—more than ever before. The government, employers and trade union leaders were all at a loss on how to control the strikes, or even to predict where they would happen next.

The historian George Dangerfield, wrote in the classic book on the period, The Strange Death of Liberal England, that the working class “took a revolutionary course and might have reached a revolutionary conclusion”.

The first shots in this class war had been fired in September the previous year, when over 300,000 miners struck in South Wales over pay—despite opposition from an increasingly conservative trade union bureaucracy. They remained on strike until the end of the summer of 1911.

Seafarers

In May, seafarers across Britain started unofficial strikes over union recognition and working conditions. The strike was solid and won.

Then, through July and August, a wave of unofficial rail strikes broke out. Wage negotiation through

conciliation boards (workers called them “confiscation boards”) had broken down as bosses reneged on deals.

Rail workers spread the action informally from company to company. Some 50,000 workers were out on unofficial action before the union leaders even got involved.

The general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, desperate to regain control, announced a national strike with the words: “War is declared, the men are being called out.”

On 17 August the national railway strike began. The government deployed 58,000 troops against it—but it was panicked.

Home secretary Winston Churchill declared, “The men have beaten us. We cannot keep the trains running. There is nothing we can do. We are done!”

The unions’ national demand was for recognition. In a sense they got it two days later, when the government convened talks. So on the promise of a Royal Commission, a proposal they had rejected three days earlier, the union leaders called off the strike.

In some places, union leaders were less able to keep control. In Liverpool, the seafarers’ earlier victory gave confidence to others and 4,000 Liverpool dockers reacted to it by walking off the job on 28 June.

Other groups of workers followed. By the end of the day 10,000 were out. The seafarers came back out in support of the dockers.

After a shipload of scab labour appeared in the River Mersey. A newspaper reported that revolutionary strike leader Tom Mann told strikers, “If that boat were sunk he would for his part rejoice. If he were able to sink the ship himself, he would do it. As for the scabs on board, the sooner they went to heaven or hell the better for the world.”

Within a week, the dockers won.

Soon, tug boat workers, Mersey Ferries workers, coopers (barrel-makers) and labourers at the giant Stanley Dock tobacco warehouse, Cotton Exchange porters, brewery workers and workers at the rubber plant all struck. Importantly, the strikes united Protestant and Catholic workers in a city riddled with sectarianism.

When 1,000 dock porters struck on 7 August, a city-wide strike committee—including, vitally, the rail workers—agreed that all transport workers would add their support through sympathy strikes.

The next day 4,000 railway workers struck—against the wishes of senior rail trade union officials. The docks were closed and there were no freight trains out of Liverpool at all.

The strike committee had, in effect, taken the leadership of the rail strikers in Liverpool away from the union officials.

Predictably, the government drafted an extra 2,400 police and 5,000 troops into the city. When some 80,000 people turned up to a mass meeting called in support of the strike on Sunday 13 August, police and troops repeatedly attacked the crowd.

Two days later, five prison vans carrying some of those arrested at the rally, escorted by army cavalry, were attacked, with furious attempts made to rescue the prisoners. Two dockers, Michael Prendergast and John Sutcliffe, were killed by soldiers.

The government dispatched two navy cruisers to Liverpool. The strike committee began to look like an alternative organ of class power. Most goods could only be moved with the agreement of the strike committee. The authorities were powerless.

Most of the bosses wanted to settle, but the tram company refused to re-employ strikers they had sacked, so the strike continued until the tram workers were finally reinstated on 25 August.

The workers’ victories inspired a wave of school student strikes. On 5 September, 30 boys marched out of Bigyn school in Llanelli, South Wales to protest over the caning of a pupil.

One boy told a reporter, “Our fathers strike—why shouldn’t we?” Llanelli was one the most militant areas of the rail strikes.

Cane

Within days, pupils in more than 60 towns across Britain had taken to the streets. In London’s East End, school students marched with union banners, iron bars and sticks.

The Times reported that at one school in Deptford, pupils “organised a demonstration outside the school, and amused the neighbourhood by shouting ‘We are on strike’.”

The students chalked demands on the pavement: the abolition of home lessons and the cane, and an extra half-holiday in the week. Many carried “ammunition”: stones and other missiles.

The great wave of struggle continued for the next three years. And while the onset of the First World War stemmed the strike wave, it had transformed the union movement.

Total union membership grew from 2,477,000 at the end of 1909 to 4,135,000 by the end of 1913.

The Great Unrest left another lasting legacy—breaking the Liberal Party as a political force.

As George Dangerfield put it, “A movement which had started impulsively among the obscure and the

unskilled suddenly revealed itself in all its infinite promise: here was power. Here was something all the respectable diplomacy of earlier years could never have achieved—power.”

Background to 1911, the great unrest: why did strikes break out?Britain was at the height of its imperial power. Profits were increasing, and newspapers were full of stories about the extravagant spending of the wealthy. Since the last big upturn in workers’ struggle, from 1888 to 1892, workers had been defeated in a series of major confrontations.

But at the same time the ruling elite was in serious crisis. The dominant Liberal Party was ruthless but weak and trapped by three linked issues. It was struggling against a mass campaign for votes for women.

At the same time the Tory opposition was openly calling for violent revolt to crush the Irish independence movement. The government relied on the votes of Irish nationalists to stay in office.

And huge pools of bitterness existed among working people. Prices and rents increased, but average real wages fell by around 10 percent between 1900 and 1912.

This combined with the generalised political crisis meant radical voices were beginning to gain a hearing from growing numbers of workers.

Tame

The most important of these groups was the syndicalists—revolutionary trade unionists. The syndicalists rejected the idea that gradually securing a workers’ majority in parliament would be enough to tame capitalism.

The syndicalists were brilliant militants and organisers. The growth of reformist ideas and conservative bureaucracy in unions and politics pushed the syndicalists to an emphasis on collective direct economic action.

As Tom Mann put it, “The object of the unions is to wage the class war and take every opportunity of scoring against the enemy.”

As a revolutionary reaction to the growth of reformism, the syndicalists pushed trade unionism to breaking point.

But they did not fully grasp the way bureaucratic pressures affect trade union leaders, and underestimated their strength.

Neither did they have an answer to how the working class could take power.

But still, many syndicalists went on to become important figures in building the Communist movement internationally.

Between 1910 and 1914 Britain experienced a wave of industrial unrest. Wage cuts, poor working conditions, and rapid inflation (between 1889 and 1910 the cost of food had risen by 10 per cent and the cost of coal 18 per cent) left workers deprived and disgruntled. The various trade unions were swelling in size and in 1911 there were widespread strikes. The most significant of these were in Liverpool, where a successful strike among sailors inspired a summer of strikes throughout the city’s other industries. That August a peaceful demonstration turned into days of anarchy, which led to the slaying by soldiers of two workers. The strikes were otherwise largely successful, and their organiser Tom Mann was heralded a hero, although he was imprisoned the following year for an innocuous offence connected with the strikes.

The summer of strikes

At Liverpool on the morning of 14 June 1911, the crews of two North American Liners refused to sign on for work. Later that day their stance was mirrored by the crews of several liners at Southampton. Tom Mann, co-founder of the Transport Workers Federation (TWF), was due to announce a general strike among seamen later that day, but the crewmen at Liverpool and Southampton, being eager for action, had decided not to wait.

Mann had started the TWF alongside his friend Ben Tillett the previous year – their aim was to unite every transport worker in the country under a single auspice. Since then the TWF had grown rapidly; numerous transport unions were now affiliates and had brought thousands of workers with them. A huge TWF demonstration, held at Liverpool on 31 May in support of two seamen’s unions that were on strike, had foreshadowed the June general strike. Two TWF affiliates, the National Sailors and Fireman’s Union (NSFU) and the National Union of Ships’ Stewards, Cooks, Buthchers and Bakers, were behind this first strike. Their initial purpose was to protest against degrading medical inspections, but they soon added further demands, including wage increases, improved accommodation, union recognition, and an end to the medical inspections.

On the evening of 14 June Tom Mann addressed a meeting of the first strikers with the mantra: ‘War declared. Strike for liberty’, and boldly predicted that the fight would be ‘short, sharp and decisive’ [The Guardian]. The next day seamen at most major UK ports, and some from as far afield as Belgium and Holland, began a general strike. Later that month the shipping companies acceded to the strikers’ demands, handing them victory. Inspired by the sailors’ success, on 28 June 4,000 dockers went on strike, demanding improvements in pay and conditions. They were quickly followed by scalers and coal heavers, which meant no fewer than 10,000 men had gone on strike by the end of the day. The seamen then went back on strike in support of the dockers, and within a week the Shipping Federation (an employers’ organisation) gave in, with most companies agreeing to improve workers’ hours and pay, and to end discrimination against union members.

A regular reader gave the Scottie Press a copy of a book printed for St Patrick's Day in 1910, which details the work of the Men's Confraternity of the Holy Family in Wexford, Ireland. Formed originally in Liege in Belgium in 1844, the Confraternity was to spread rapidly not only in Belgium but also in Holland, France, British Isles, and even America. It was in 1868 that the Men's Confraternity of the Holy Family was started in Wexford, in the Church of the Immaculate Conception (Rowe Street), which is pictured above. Also pictured above is the statue of Father James Roche who died in 1883 and to who is attributed the credit of building two graceful and beautiful Parochial Churches. Known the world over as the "Twin Churches of Wexford", the Church of the Assumption and the Church of the Immaculate Conception were opened in 1858. Prior to this date there was only one Catholic Church, (St Aidan's), in Wexford, which was a fine old structure belonging to the Franciscan Fathers.

It is recorded in the book that the Wexford churches established sections of the Confraternity and these sections had Prefects and Sub-Prefects. Among those named are Edward (see picture above) and Nicholas Byrne. These men were possibly relatives of Wexford born Patrick (Dandy-Pat) Byrne who came to Liverpool (aged 18) in 1863 He later owned and ran the Morning Star pub (Scotland Place) and Tatlock pub (Titchfield Street) and became a City Councillor for the Scotland Road area in 1885. Efforts are being made by local author Mike Kelly to trace the family tree of Patrick (Dandy Pat Byrne). If you can help Mike email mikekelly@talktalk.net. Patrick Byrne(pictured below circa 1885) died in Liverpool in 1890 and is buried in the family grave in the churchyard of St Aidans in Wexford(pictured below).

Labor MovementTrade unions emerged in Ireland in the early nineteenth century, combining features of the obsolescent guilds and agrarian secret societies. Their legal status was not fully regularized until the 1860s. The sheer numbers and poverty of Irish unskilled workers made them difficult to organize, and not until the end of the nineteenth century were sustained efforts made to do so.

Before 1900 organized labor was dominated by skilled craft workers who emphasized their differential status (by restricting skills and controlling admissions). Craft unions acted as friendly societies, providing medical and other benefits for members. They operated within cross-class nationalist movements (the Dublin trades were a mainstay of nationalist processions); their emphasis on self-reliance drew many urban artisans into radical nationalist movements such as Fenianism and Parnellism. They believed that workers' interests lay in cooperation with employers to develop Irish industries, though such cooperation often proved one-sided.

Craft unions established trade councils in urban centers (Cork in 1880, Belfast in 1881, Dublin in 1886). Attempts to create U.K.-wide labor federations in the nineteenth century foundered because of organizational and communications difficulties and nationalist sentiments; an Irish Trade Union Congress (ITUC) was founded in 1894. The 1890s also saw many local Irish societies merge with larger British unions; the role of British unions in Ireland intermittently divided the Irish labor movement until the 1950s.

Small socialist groups appeared in Irish urban centers beginning in the 1870s; these were usually short-lived because of clerical and political opposition. The Dublin-centered Irish Republican Socialist Party (1894–1903) deserves particular attention as the first political venture of James Connolly (1868–1916), the Scottish-born Marxist theorist and future leader of the 1916 Rising. The first independent Labour parliamentary candidates stood for election in Belfast in 1885 and 1886. The Home Rule Party sometimes spoke of itself as a "labor party"; some members were labor activists in Britain, and the party sought British support by comparing land

agitation to trade unionism. From 1892 several Home Rule MPs identified themselves as "labor nationalists" (similar to contemporary "Lib-Lab" MPs within the British Liberal Party). The "Lib-Nat" MPs voiced labor concerns but were primarily loyal to the Home Rule Party, whose relations with the British labor movement were complicated by its alliance with the Liberals and its own increasingly bourgeois character. The extension of the local-government franchise in 1899 created independent labor groups on several urban councils, but these proved divisive and ineffective.

The ITUC was hampered by divisions between pro-union northern workers and (predominantly nationalist) southern unions. The industrialization of northeast Ulster gave it disproportionate strength within the movement, but northern unions mirrored the sectarian divide. Skilled workers' unions maintained sectarian as well as craft divisions, and unskilled workers followed populist Orange or Green (Protestant or Catholic) leaders who incorporated "laborist" elements in their messages. Cross-sectarian cooperation occurred from time to time, but it was always vulnerable to constitutional and religious tensions.

The Belfast trade unionist William Walker (1871–1918) established an Independent Labour Party presence in Belfast in 1893. Walker's "gas and water socialism" included support for the union on economic grounds. His endorsement of sectarian Protestant legislation alienated Catholic support, which contributed to the defeat of his parliamentary candidacies in 1905 to 1907; he is best remembered for debating the relationship between socialism and nationalism with Connolly in 1911.

Beginning in 1873 attempts were made to organize agricultural laborers through groups such as the Irish Agricultural Labourers' Union (1873–1879), the Knights of the Plough (1890s), and the Irish Land and Labour Association (1894–1918). These faced formidable organizational difficulties; their association with the Irish Parliamentary Party encouraged factionalization and complicated relations with urban unions. They were absorbed by the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union during the First World War.

British "new unionism," which tried to organize unskilled workers in mass-membership unions, led briefly to labor unrest in Ireland when it emerged in the late 1880s. Its principal impact on Ireland began in 1907 when James Larkin (1876–1947) arrived in Belfast as an organizer for the Liverpool-based National Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL, founded in Liverpool by Irish immigrants). Belfast was already experiencing an upsurge of trade-union militancy. Larkin, an inspiring orator, organized large numbers of unskilled workers, to some extent uniting Catholic and Protestant. Employers reacted with lockouts; between April and November 1907 Belfast saw disputes involving dockers, carters, and tobacco workers. Organized strike-breaking and street unrest led to police mutiny and military intervention in which two laborers were killed and many were wounded by troops.

The NUDL leadership disliked Larkin's confrontational style and expansive recruitment. Faced with heavy demands for strike pay, it sidelined Larkin and settled on disadvantageous terms. Larkin moved to Dublin and Cork, becoming embroiled in further strikes. After his suspension by the NUDL in December 1908, Larkin founded the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU). The new union faced determined opposition from employers and the NUDL. In the summer of 1909, ITGWU strikers in Cork were crushed by a concerted lockout; Larkin was briefly jailed in 1910 because of a dispute over NUDL funds.

Instead of the conciliatory tactics of the older unions, the ITGWU operated in a confrontational style, enlisting the impoverished masses of unskilled urban labor and trying with some success to bring a general rise in wages through sympathetic strikes, the "closed shop," and aggressive tactics against strike-breaking. Larkin held the syndicalist belief in the general strike as a weapon of social transformation. He expressed the anger and hopes of the poor, linking their struggle to Fenianism and Parnellism, which had also faced middleclass and clerical opposition. His reckless leadership was balanced by skilled (and occasionally exasperated) organizers such as William O'Brien and James Fearon.

The ITGWU joined the ITUC in 1909, moving it toward explicit socialism. Older craft unions acquiesced or were sidelined. Pro-Larkin labor councillors became the principal opposition to Dublin Corporation; Connolly returned from the United States as a political organizer and produced some of his best-known attempts to adapt Marxism to Irish conditions. In 1912 the ITUC established the present-day Irish Labour Party.

The year 1911 saw further labor conflict, with prolonged strikes in Wexford and Dundalk and a Dublin rail and timber strike in September. The weekly Irish Worker, written mostly by Larkin, first appeared on 27 May 1911; it denounced the employers and their allies in uncompromising terms. Meanwhile, the Dublin employers, led by William Martin Murphy, prepared concerted counteraction. The Irish Parliamentary Party, frightened by Larkin's radicalism and divided between laborist and probusiness elements, proved ineffective and was bitterly denounced by Larkin. (In some provincial centers, notably Sligo, which experienced a major dispute in 1912, local Home Rule leaders did come to terms with Larkinism.)

1910

The Unionist Party is formed with the aim of maintaining the Act of Union. The All-Ireland Champions are Wexford (hurling) and Louth (football)

1911-1920

1911

The Parliament Act is passed in the House of Commons - Lords can now delay a bill for only two years.

The Irish census shows the population to be 4,400,000. The Titanic is launched at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. The All-Ireland Champions are Kilkenny (hurling) and Cork (football)

1912

The Third Home Rule Bill is accepted by the House of Commons, but is postponed for two years.

500,000 Ulster people sign the Solemn League and Covenant. The Titanic sinks in the Atlantic - its last port of call was County Cork. The Irish Labour Party is founded. D. W. Corbett makes the first flight across the Irish sea. The All-Ireland Champions are Kilkenny (hurling) and Cork (football)

1913

The idea of a strikers defence force had been mooted many times before the Irish Citizen Army was actually formed. Police brutality during previous strikes in Dublin, Cork and Wexford, had convinced some people of the absolute necessity of a defence force. Larkin himself had said during the 1908 Dublin Carters strike, that he would organise a "workers army", to defend the strikers if the employers sent in the army, as they had done in Belfast in 1907. P.T. Daly proposed the formation of a 'Workers Police', after a worker died as a result of a police baton charge during the 1911 Wexford strike for I.T.G.W.U. recognition. However this never materialised as the dispute was settled shortly afterwards. The offer from a military man like Jack White to organise and discipline a workers defence force, coupled with the sheer brutality of the police during the first weekend of the strike in August 1913, in what became known as Bloody Sunday, were the factors which actually resulted in the formation of the Irish Citizen Army