THE GENERAL STRIKE

IN THE BLACK COUNTRY

by GEORGE BARNSBY

Published by:-

THE WOLVERHAMPTON, BILSTON & DISTRICT TRADES COUNCIL TO COMMEMORATE THE 50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE 1926 GENERAL STRIKE.

The cover picture "We are making a good impression" is copied from an original in the "St. Pancras Bulletin" No. 9 May 10th 1926.

The working class in the Black Country had undergone massive structural changes and experienced important class battles in the years before 1926. This accounts for the fact that, while not the strongest area in the country in terms of trade union membership, the response to the General Strike was remarkably solid.

From 1875 to the 1890s the Great Depression ravaged the Black Country aggravated by the fact that its basic industries of coal and iron were in decline. The wonderful 10-yard seam of coal, exploited in an incredibly wasteful way, was virtually exhausted and the whole coalfield becoming like a waterlogged rabbit warren. Wrought iron, the pride of the Black Country, was being replaced by Bessemer steel and, with the exhaustion of both local coal and iron ore, most of the great ironworks either closed or moved to the coast. By 1900 the typical Black Country worker was no longer the miner or puddler, but the engineer. About this time, large factories began to appear, a development shared with Birmingham.

These changes in the structure of the working class together with the poverty and actual starvation of the Great Depression had fostered the re-emergence of socialist ideas for the first time since the demise of Chartism in the 1860s. Branches of the Social Democratic Federation and Socialist League were formed in the main Black Country towns such as Wolverhampton, Walsall and Dudley in the 1880s. The Socialist League degenerated into anarchism, however, and members of Walsall Socialist Club were convicted of making bombs in 1892. In the middle 1890s the Independent Labour Party appeared and in the early years of the twentieth century the local trades councils were transforming themselves into Trades and Labour Councils as they brought Labour Party branches into existence. Leading up to the first world war was the great period of unrest, 1910-14. This saw not only the organisation of the unskilled but the organisation of women who played a leading role in immense industrial struggles in the Black Country. During the war the increasing size of factories led to the further growth of trade unionism. From 1916 conditions on the home front deteriorated and dissatisfaction with the war grew. This led to a further development of trades councils - Dudley Trades Council was formed at the beginning of 1916 - and the growth of the Shop Stewards' Movement.

After the war, Socialist and working-class organisations radiated from Birmingham and had their counterparts in the Black Country. There were the branches of the Labour Party, invariably formed by the trades councils, and the trade unions and the shop stewards and workers' committees. There were the socialist parties, the largest being the ILP, followed by the British Socialist Party and the Socialist Labour Party, together with a rump of the SDF. There were broad organisations such as the National Union of Ex-Servicemen. The "Hands Off Russia" movement was formed at the end of 1919 and the National Unemployed Workers' Committee Movement was formed about the same time. There were the Herald Leagues organised around the Daily Herald, which merged into social and cultural organisations such as Clarion Clubs and the Clarion Choir which was particularly important in Birmingham under the influence of Rutland Boughton who became a member of the Communist Party in 1926. Finally, in 1920, the BSP, SLP and large sections of the ILP merged in the newly-formed Communist Party. Such variety of organisation gave a broadness to the working-class movement which is lacking today. However, the effectiveness of the working-class movement depended on its unity of action, and key issues for the working class after the war were its attitude to the Russian Revolution (and hence to the formation of the Communist Party and affiliation to the Third International) and the question of reformist or revolutionary trade unionism. Birmingham, and to a lesser extent the Black Country, played an important part in the struggle for a revolutionary movement. The shop stewards' committees were the basis for the strong development of the Minority Movement in the area, and the Birmingham ILP was, for a long time, the most militant ILP branch in the country. This is shown by the role it played in the development of the Sunday Worker. This was an attempt to maintain a broad, militant, weekly newspaper to supplement the mass daily circulation of the Daily Herald. The editor of the Sunday Worker was the Communist William Paul and the paper was strongly supported by the Birmingham ILP. Their members included Joseph Southall, the well-known artist, Fred Longden, who organised the Left-wing Movement which grew up all over the country in support of the paper, and Fred Sylvester (who had originally come into the Communist Party with the Birmingham BSP) who organised the Midlands groups. The Left-wing Movement was active in Black Country towns like Wolverhampton and Walsall, its main basis being the co-operation of ILP and Communist Party members.

But despite such left-wing developments, the working-class movement in Birmingham and the Black Country was dominated by reformist leaders. Militancy among workers continued, however, right up to 1926. There was considerable strike activity, notably at such key motor plants as Sunbeam in Wolverhampton. The large-scale unemployment (the national average for 1923-6 was about 11 per cent and Black Country jobless only slightly less) led to a rapid development of the Unemployed Workers' Movement. The Minority Movement was influential in the trade unions and there was the considerable influence of the Communist Party, despite its small numbers.

Such was the political and economic background to the Nine Days in the Black Country.

There are no surviving trade union sources for the strike in the Black Country, and so Emile Burns' collected reports in his The General Strike, May 1926: Trades Councils in Action provide much of our information for this area.

From Burns' report for Wolverhampton we learn that no preparations had been made, and a Special Executive Committee of the Trades and Labour Council met only on the first day of the strike (3 May), when an Emergency Committee of three men was appointed to sit continuously with full powers to co-ordinate the activities of the unions involved. The first wave of workers called out consisted of 3,500 transport workers, and an unspecified number of members of the Typographical Association, NATSOPA, ETU, some AEU and Allied Trades and Building Workers.

The Emergency Committee consisted of representatives of each affected union. It first met the next day, Tuesday 4 May, and was faced with the question of interpreting the general circular sent by the TUC while waiting for instructions from the individual unions to cease work. The Committee was divided in its opinions as to its function, some thinking that it had the power to call all men out. The majority view, however, was that the job of the local Emergency Committee was to carry out the wishes of the TUC and obtain concerted action locally on that basis. But this presented problems, since different unions were sending different instructions to their branches, this being most evident in the building trades. The central Emergency Committee met every afternoon in the Labour Rooms. A separate strike committee was formed of the railway groups (there were important railways shops in Wolverhampton) which met daily at North Road Club, with a subEmergency Committee meeting in the Labour Rooms consisting of four Trades Council representatives, a representative each of the building trades and the North Road joint committee.

To overcome the lack of reliable information, lines of communication were established south to Birmingham, north to Manchester and beyond, and west through Shrewsbury to North Wales. Volunteer dispatch riders were appointed to act for the TUC in every town between Dudley and Oswestry, receiving reports each day from each strike committee, sending out official information from the TUC, supplying them with speakers where necessary and forwarding information to London to the General Council.

A local bulletin of 500 each issue was published for six days from 5 May. Open-air meetings were arranged every day at the Market Place, with a good supply of local speakers assisted by the miners from Cannock. There were national speakers at the weekend. A meeting on Sunday, 9 May, packed the Theatre Royal with 2,500 people with an overflow meeting of 1100 at the Co-op Hall. Even with these two halls packed, thousands were unable to obtain admission.

As in the rest of the West Midlands, there were differences of opinion as to whether car workers were included under transport and therefore among those called on to strike. In Wolverhampton this matter was settled when the Vehicle Builders received definite instructions to withdraw their labour. The other unions involved then acted on the principle laid down by the TUC, that where one section of labour was called out in a given factory then all should strike. Thus the important car industry was closed down.

All building workers, except those engaged on housing, hospitals or sanitation, were ordered to strike. This caused dissatisfaction in Wolverhampton where "the whole of the industry was determined to stand by the miners". The Strike Committee therefore had the greatest difficulty in keeping within the TUC instructions and on Saturday, 8 May, a meeting of building workers instructed local officials to send a telegram demanding the withdrawal of all building trade workers.

The town's power supply from the Commercial Road power station received a great deal of attention. The TUC  requested that local arrangements be made to supply houses, hospitals, bakeries, etc., but the management refused to negotiate with a deputation and instructions were eventually received to withdraw all men from the power station. From figures provided by the manager of the labour exchange on Monday, 10 May, it is estimated that 35,000 workers took part in the General Strike in Wolverhampton.

The only other Black Country report published by Emile Burns was a short one on Wednesbury. Here the strike was organised by the Trades Council acting with its affiliated trade union branches. It issued a bulletin each Sunday, the first selling 750 and the second 1000 copies. The position on 12 May was given as "No weakening. The position was magnificent. The trouble has been since the termination."

This can be supplemented with information from the only discovered number of the Birmingham Worker, the broadsheet of the Communist Party, of 7 May. This stated that the Council of Action which had been formed was in continuous contact with Tipton, Darlaston, Walsall and surrounding area. "Even non-unionists are affected by the spirit of working-class unity and are on the streets with the organised workers. Mass demonstrations are being held and enthusiasm runs high. The formation of a Workers' Defence Force is contemplated. The unemployed, who are rendering valuable assistance, are seeking representation on the Council of Action."

The British Worker carried two reports on the strike in the Black Country. In its first issue of Wednesday evening, 5 May, it reported the stoppage in Birmingham and district as complete. Not a man on the railways or in other transport was working. The biggest trouble was to keep at work those who were not involved. The 7 May issue reported that the West Bromwich situation, according to the local Trades Council, was regarded as eminently satisfactory. Councillor Guest, the agent, stated that the response to the call to cease work had been complete. The main difficulty had been to keep men and women in who wanted to strike in sympathy. The opening of the new Labour headquarters had been of great advantage to the local strike committee.

In the TUC library there are reports from Wolverhampton and Walsall, and also a report of Ellen Wilkinson and J. F. Horrabin of their tour through the Midlands. The latter report gives valuable testimony of the position in Wolverhampton towards the end of the strike. It states that there was a ready and unanimous response to the call in every occupation. Public opinion was strongly in favour of the strikers. Not a tram or bus was running. Some attempts had been made by the local Council and Chief Constable to intimidate tramway and busmen, without success. Three Midland Red buses had tried to run, but were withdrawn by inducements. The typographical men had been persuaded to go back by the editor of the local paper, Express and Star. Police and strikers were on good terms. Food was supplied by road and there were no shortages. In Wolverhampton, Wilkinson and Horrabin had addressed two open-air meetings on the Market Patch of 6,000 each. The figures they give for the indoor Sunday meetings are 4,900 at the Royal Theatre and 2,000 at the Co-op Hall. In the area between the Black Country and the Cannock coalfield they had addressed an open-air meeting of 2,000 at New Invention. In Bilston 1,500 had listened in Oatmeal Square. Their general observation was that they had been immensely struck by the complete stoppage and the peacefulness of the workers in every town through which they had passed. The response was "magnificent" everywhere.

A report to the TUC from Walsall of 6 May was on special notepaper headed "Walsall Trades Council National Industrial Crisis Committee". The secretary was John Whiston and the chairman A. H. Fox. They reported the position in Walsall as "splendid". A wonderful demonstration had been held with a huge meeting. All were out who had been called out. In addition, several thousand engineers had decided that they were really on transport work and these were out. The local strike committee was very efficient and was publishing a local newspaper. Public opinion was on the side of the strikers.

The recently released Cabinet papers on the strike are disappointing. Police intelligence was no better in 1926 than it had been during the nineteenth century. The Midlands reports are sparse and refer mainly to Birmingham. A survey of reports from the police to the Home Office at noon Tuesday, 4 May, gave the position at the begining of the strike. All towns were reported quiet. Stoppage of trains was almost complete. All tram and bus services were suspended. There was no mention of food supplies except at Birmingham, where the Trades Council reported that they were taking control of the situation and had set up a committee to consider applications for the handling of food. The next day only two trains had been reported as having run and canal boatmen had stopped except for perishable goods in transit. The Ministry of Labour reported that "iron and steel works were stopped generally in the Midlands". This affected particularly Brierley Hill and Bilston in the Black Country. Newspapers were practically all suspended except for a few scrappy publications.

The Home Office report for 6 May stated that in Wolverhampton journalists were on strike in sympathy with the printers. The Express and Star was publishing a foolscap sheet with volunteers. About 2,500 men had come out at the Sunbeam Works. McManus was expected to hold a Communist meeting in the town on Saturday, but the police would not allow him to speak. There had been some interference with working railwaymen who were being given police protection.

On 5 May there was a report from the Engineering Employers' Federation stating that AEU members in Birmingham and Coventry were out. The Home Office report for 7 May stated that in Wolverhampton more engineers were out and that 400 police specials had been enrolled, with more coming forward. The electrical workers might come out, but in that case the power station would be run by volunteers. The Home Office summary for 10 May reported a tendency among Shropshire railwaymen to complain because they had not been asked to ballot, and also that there were signs of secessions from the ranks of the miners. A patrol had found a detonator on the GWR line near Cradley Heath.

Turning to the local press, the Express and Star ran a badly produced, duplicated 1d. sheet on 4, 5 and 6 May. The first reported hopefully that arrangements were being made for charabancs and buses to be run in certain districts under police protection and that it was hoped to run a skeleton GWR train service from Wolverhampton to Birmingham. A Communist meeting of about 800 had assembled at the Market Place and had been immediately dispersed by the police. The bulletin reported pickets at the garage of C. F. James in Sweetman Street and the stopping of one of his charabancs in Stafford Street, police arriving in time to prevent a disturbance. Such contrasting snippets of national news were reported as the arrest of the Communist M.P. Saklatvala in Hyde Park for a "seditious" speech and the arrival of the Prince of Wales in Paris from Biarritz. Local news on Thursday, 6 May was that engineers and bodybuilders at Black Country motor works were out and that all was quiet in Dudley, Darlaston, Walsall and Willenhall.

By Friday, 7 May, the Express and Star was producing a two-page printed sheet with more local news. Wolverhampton tramways were still firm. The Star Engineering works at Bushbury and Frederick Street were closed although only 50 per cent of the men were trade unionists. The Sunbeam, Moorfield Road works were at a standstill. Guy Motors had 500 to 600 men out and 200 men in. At A. J. Stevens (AJS) 50 to 60 AEU members were out, but the firm was carrying on. In Brierley Hill 2,000 men were out in iron and bricks. In Walsall between 1,000 and 1,300 hands were idle, but all large works were able to continue. In Bilston, the Springvale steelworks was closed and hollow ware workers would have to go on short time next week. In the Rowley Regis area 6,000 workers were idle, but at Halesowen all workers were continuing. In Dudley all was quiet with 300 men out. At Brierley Hill 1500 men were out at the Earl of Dudley's Works, 300 at the Harts Hill Ironworks and 90 at the Brettell Lane Ironworks. About 150 men were out at the J. T. Price and Ketley Brick Works, but other brickworks were in production.

On Saturday, 8 May, the Express and Star printed four pages. An advertisement from Beattie's, the large department store in the town, showed that they at least had prepared for the General Strike. It stated that the strike had been threatening for months and that the store had ample stocks to meet all demands for three months. In Wolverhampton, the paper reported the continued total absence of trams and buses, but otherwise the town was normal. Bushbury parish church had given over its Institute to the strikers (mainly railwaymen) and these men had decided to march in a body to church on Sunday. AEU men had stopped work at Clyno, but this car firm was carrying on. A short service of prayer for industrial peace was being said at St. Peter's Church in the town centre every day at 12.30 p.m. The Grand Theatre would be closed the following week because the company, which was to have produced "The Jazz Marriage", had "transport difficulties". In Willenhall most factories were on a three-day week because of shortage of fuel. At Dudley on Friday night there had been an attempt to stop a charabanc taking workers home, but despite a large crowd the vehicle had got through.

On Monday, 10 May, another four-page issue appeared. There had been no peace moves over the weekend and the position remained the same. Many Black Country works were still managing to keep open. At Harper Sons and Beans three works with 2,500 men had to be closed at Dudley, Tipton and Smethwick because finished cars could not be dispatched; 3700 men had signed on at Dudley Labour Exchange since the strike began. Joseph Ball, a miner of Cross Street, Dudley, was given one month's hard labour for allegedly assaulting two police officers and committing an offence against the Emergency Powers Act. He incited a crowd by shouting, "Come on lads, let's have a go! We're not frightened of you!" The crowd rushed the police who drew their staves. Several women said, "Cheer up, lad!" when sentence was passed. Sunbeam and Star were still at a standstill. At A. J. Stevens it was said, "There is a sort of ebb and flow at our works, but we are still able to carry on. About 800 are on duty and 600 still on strike." At Wednesbury two MPs, A. Short and C. Sitch, had addressed a Labour meeting on Saturday. Halesowen steelworks was closed down and Sitch had addressed 3,000 workers at Cradley Heath on Saturday evening. Two hundred men were on strike at Henry Meadows, leaving 38 at work. In Tipton the roadmen were on strike, and at W. G. Allen in the same town an unsuccessful attempt had been made to prevent a steam wagon loaded with iron plates from entering the works. This issue of the Express and Star found space for a remarkable Red scare story: a Paris paper had published a letter from its German correspondent stating that the General Strike in Britain had been planned in secret many months before in Moscow.

On the last day of the strike, the Express and Star reported the Wolverhampton situation little changed. Strikers were still coming out - for instance, 129 at ECC, and other works were closing "because of lack of transport". At Bilston lorries leaving goods stations still had to have police guards. At Walsall the Board of Guardians had published their scales of relief for the families of strikers. These were - for wives 10s., for wives with one child 14s. 6d. with 3s. 6d. for every additional child. Rent relief of 50 per cent could also be allowed. Half of the relief was to be paid in cash and half in kind.

The Express and Star voiced the opinions of the employers and much of its reportage was mendacious or misleading. An example is the paper's report of 10 May that at Guy Motors a secret ballot in the presence of two trade union officials had given a 75 per cent vote in favour of a return to work. This issue also reported that at Bayliss, Jones and Bayliss the men were returning to work. The next day the paper reported that 87 men had reported for work at Guy's while between 500 and 600 men were "affected" by the strike and 250 had been "outside" (picketing) when the firm opened. Guy, the managing director, admitted that the meeting at which the ballot had been taken was "not largely attended" due to the fact that pickets had told workers that no meeting was being held. Guy was a particularly active employer in attempting to break the strike. Even this amended version of the Guy story is likely to be only an approximation to the truth and the facts of the so-called "return to work" at Bayliss, Jones and Bayliss are now never likely to be known. Another clear example of misleading reporting was an item in the 12 May issue headed "How men were going back to work before the good news came". Here the whole country was scoured for news of men returning to work before the end of the strike, but all that could be found was such items as "Birmingham - a 12-minute train service to Dudley" or "Stoke-onTrent - A number of tramway and omnibus employees have returned, but the response is extremely limited." Nevertheless, the press is cowardly as well as venal; while the capitalist system is under attack the endless direct strictures on workers are suspended. But when profits and property are once more secure editors again thunder against the wickedness and criminality of striking workers. This was so in 1842 when Chartists controlled the Black Country in the general strike of August that year, and so it was with the Express and Star in 1926. The 12 May editorial spoke only of "Unbounded relief" at the ending of the strike. But the following day it was, "The Law Victorious" and, "Did the TUC ever consider the legality of their action? ... It can hardly be imagined in any way a victory for the unions.... The forces of law have triumphed as they always will in Britain." Much more of this sort was to follow in the days and weeks ahead.

The General Strike of 1926 is the most important event in the history of the trade union movement in Britain. Employers had wanted and provoked the strike in order to curb the power of the trade unions and to bring all wages down. The right-wing Labour leaders feared the strike, had tried to avoid it and wanted it brought to an end at the earliest possible moment before it got "out of hand". To hundreds of thousands of workers, however, the strike came as a revelation. It showed with the starkest clarity that society only existed through the labour of working men. During the strike trades councils exercised powers of decision and control normally carried out by employers and police. Thus the strike taught lessons of democracy and workers' control. It was also a magnificent example of workers' solidarity and comradeship, contrasting with the selfishness of capitalism. Above all, in a society of mass poverty, deprivation and high unemployment a successful conclusion to the strike held the promise of fundamental changes in society. Most strikers realised therefore, however dimly, that the project on which they were engaged was of great significance. Hence the Nine Days had an atmosphere of gaiety, solidarity, determination, militancy, and mass participation which is rarely captured by strike reporting. Some observers, however, did begin to catch this atmosphere. Here is John Strachey writing in the New Leader after the strike and referring to the Labour Parliamentary candidates who left London for their Birmingham constituencies on the Saturday before the strike began: "When they reached the headquarters of their divisional Labour Parties they found unexpected crowds gathering round the banners of local parties and trade unions. As they marched with their comrades through the streets of the city, unprecedented masses of people lined the route and followed them to the park where the May Day demonstration was being held. They did not realise that, almost literally, these great crowds were not to disperse until fourteen days later when they were dismissed at another demonstration. The whole city swayed with the quiet vibrations of these impressive masses."

Ellen Wilkinson also wrote graphically in Lansbury's Labour Weekly of 22 May of her experiences in the Midlands:

"We got to Coventry that night to find the town in the hands of the local Soviet. We spoke to one of the biggest open-air crowds I have ever seen. The engineers were very disgruntled at not being called out.... Wolverhampton, not on our list, demanded a meeting and in one hour we got a large crowd to listen despite pouring rain. They and Walsall were in the same position as Coventry. . . ."

Much of this mass participation went unrecorded, but it is quite certain that almost every urban area saw meetings and demonstrations perhaps larger than these places had ever seen before and certainly larger than anything since the Reform Bill or Chartist times in the nineteenth century. Immediately before the strike, there had been the mass demonstrations of May Day. The following weekend again saw massive meetings. Then there were the demonstrations of the weekend following. Throughout the strike, the hunger for news and desire for mass communication was such that enormous meetings could be held during the day. Often these were Communist meetings which the police promptly broke up. The solidarity of the strike made mass picketing possible and overwhelming public sympathy was manifest at crucial moments.

In view of the particular efforts that were made to break the strike at what was considered to be its weakest point, namely transport, this atmosphere of solidarity might be illustrated by detailing the determined efforts made in Wolverhampton to get buses back on the road. On Monday, 10 May, it was decided to attempt to run ten buses manned by volunteers. At 6.30 p.m. when the attempt was to be made, a crowd, estimated by the Express and Star at 1,000, assembled at the Cleveland Street depot. Police, including mounted specials, cleared a way for the volunteers and it seems that some of the buses got away. At 9 p.m. the crowds "still numbered several hundreds". At 7.50 a.m. the next day, the first bus, manned by three men in plain clothes and one uniformed policeman, set out. It was later claimed that ten buses were running. All that day "strikers in Queen Square thronged the pavements as densely as if waiting for a royal procession". On Wednesday, the Express and Star returned to the events of the previous day. "The first day of the volunteer bus service will be long remembered," it reported. The story went on to tell of huge crowds in Princes Square during Tuesday night and photographs confirmed the enormous numbers who protested against this attempt to break the strike. The transport workers of Wolverhampton remained firm until the end.

In Bilston, too, masses of workers demonstrated, although we only have the reports of the Express and Star to go by: "Bilston tramway and railway workers gathered in fairly large numbers on Monday 10th when attempts were made to remove supplies from the railway depot to various factories. A number of volunteer lorry drivers, including several undergraduates in plus fours evidently enjoyed the experience. There was no attempt at molestation."

In the great pre-strike May Day demonstration the festive mood was shared by Wolverhampton's communists but this did not prevent arrests taking place. Albert Darke and John James Foster were charged with having worn service uniform "in such a way as to bring it into contempt". Darke wore RAF uniform with a red band. On the shoulders he wore red badges. Foster was in the uniform of a line regiment and he was similarly decorated. The case was heard after the strike had ended. Inspector Churchward gave evidence that on 1 May the Labour Party was holding a demonstration from St. James' Square. As the procession moved off Darke joined it with a placard reading "Don't shoot". At 7.45 the same evening, at a Communist Party meeting, Darke was similarly attired and Foster carried a red flag. The two communists were defended by Randle Evans, a noted Labour Party progressive solicitor, who submitted that his clients were wearing uniform in the course of a bona fide military representation forming part of a tableau. They were not there to bring contempt upon the uniform. The Chairman of the bench of magistrates (consisting of W. H. Pritchard, Sir Charles Marston and Alderman T. Frost) said that the court could not tolerate that HM uniforms should be used in a contemptuous manner. Albert Darke was fined £6 and given time to pay, and Foster was fined £1.

Further information regarding the role of Wolverhampton Communist Party during the strike comes from a personal interview of the author with Ralph Prescott who joined in 1924, but is not now a member of the Party. He states that the Communist Party had considerable influence on Wolverhampton Trades Council; Albert Darke, the Party secretary, was a delegate. The most important way of exerting the Party's influence during the strike was through mass meetings on the Market Patch. These were invariably broken up by the police. He particularly remembers one meeting at which he was chairman. He spoke from the steps of the old Market Hall which formed an excellent elevated platform. He had not been speaking long when the police hauled him down. Albert Darke jumped up and took his place. As Prescott was taken away to the Town Hall, mounted police dispersed the crowd with batons in the fiercest struggle he had ever seen. Prescott and Bill Smith, another Communist arrested with him, persisted in asking what they were charged with, but the police would make no charge and they were both released after the crowd had been dispersed. When the strike ended the Party directed its efforts to raising money for the miners. Cannock was at the heart of this struggle and miners' choirs came to the Market Patch to sing and raise funds. The Communist Party came out of the strike with increased prestige, Prescott says, and it exercised influence far greater than its numbers, a fact of which the police were well aware. At this time, however, there were only about nine members of the Party in the town and it was not strong enough to be a decisive influence on the strike.

As in other parts of the country, the first reaction of some to the calloff of the strike was a feeling of elation, for they supposed they must have won. But disillusion was swift and was followed by the struggle for a return to work. In Wolverhampton the Emergency Committee met on the afternoon of the 12th and had posters displayed in front of the Labour Rooms advising men not to return to work until instructions to that effect came from their unions. This caution was well justified. The railways, Guy Motors, the ECC and Midland Red buses were requiring men to "sign documents which would take away the whole of the rights which their fathers and forefathers had fought so dearly for, and it is quite evident that the employers of this country were prepared to use this crisis as a method of breaking down trade union bargaining". Some employers would take men back "only as work became available". Apart from the railways, it is not known to what extent victimisation occurred in the Black Country.

In evaluating the strike, Postgate, Wilkinson and Horrabin classified areas into four classes. Class I was towns where response was near to 100 per cent. Class II was where the strike was wholly effective but with weaknesses in some sections. Class III was towns with serious weaknesses. And Class IV towns where the strike broke down. Of Midland towns, Birmingham, Kidderminster, Lichfield, Stafford, Stoke, Worcester and Wolverhampton were in Class I. In Class II were Coventry, Shrewsbury, Smethwick, Stourbridge, Walsall and Wednesbury. No Midland towns were in the other two classes. The Wolverhampton Emergency Committee summed up the strike as follows: ". . . the trade union movement are indeed to be congratulated upon the splendid stand made on behalf of their more unfortunate brethren, the miners, and with very little exception, the whole of the workers stood solid and were prepared to fight to the bitter end, so that when the news came through on Wednesday May 12th, that the strike was over, it came as a shock, as the situation then looked as though it would last indefinitely."

On Sunday, 19 May, Wolverhampton Trades Council held a meeting at the Market Place. The Wolverhampton Chronicle informs us that there was a crowd of 300, "but this increased after the first half hour". Allport, the chairman of the Trades Council, said they met, "to offer thanks for the solidarity of the working class". Dan Davies, the local election agent of the Labour Party, said that "if the strike had lasted another week we would have entered another era of the struggle". This latter statement is highly significant. The day before the strike ended the TUC had called out the second wave of workers, all the engineering and shipbuilding workers not already affected. This call was just beginning to take effect in the Black Country. The solidarity of the strike from start to finish suggests that this unique chapter in working-class history would have ended very differently had the strike continued.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

R. Page Arnot, The General Strike (Labour Research Department, 1926).

Emile Burns, The General Strike 1926: Trades Councils in Action (Labour Research Department, 1926, reprinted 1975, Lawrence & Wishart, London).

Ellen Wilkinson, J. H. F. Horrabin and R. W. Postgate, Workers' History of the Great Strike.

Papers

Cabinet Papers, PRO. CAB. 27/331 at the Public Records Office, London.

TUC Records: The General Strike in Wolverhampton and Walsall, HD 5366 at the TUC Library, London.

Newspapers

National: Lansbury's Labour Weekly

New Leader

Out of Work

Sunday Worker

Workers' Weekly

Local:

Birmingham Worker, no. 3

Birmingham Gazette

Express and Star

Wolverhampton Chronicle