Category: General Blogs

Photograph courtesy of Craig MacLean and not to be reproduced without permission

A statue to Mary Barbour was unveiled on Women’s Day 2018.

https://www.scottishhousingnews.com/article/commemorative-mary-barbour-statue-unveiled-on-international-womens-day

Interviewed shortly afterwards, Maria Fyfe said:

I had been making a point for some years that the name of Mary Barbour, who was one of the first female councillors in Glasgow, was not known under the history of Red Clydeside. Yet she had made this great achievement of leading the rent strike campaign to success and after complaining about it for sometime it then the Labour councillors in Govan asked me to meet with them. They said they would like to be part of our group to create some kind of memorial to Mary Barbour and would I chair it?

I agreed and so we set up a fundraising group, the Remember Mary Barbour Association. At first we thought we might struggle to raise monies but we got a fantastic response, more than anticipated. The housing associations and trade union branches were keen, the Labour Party chipped in a large amount and Alex Ferguson made a substantial donation.

As we campaigned we got the attention of the local media and further afield and I ended up on Woman’s Hour.

The Glasgow public responded well. I think it is because they had a huge feeling of rapport with Mary, she was an ordinary working class women who had achieved something really significant and I felt people were inspired by it. With all the similar problems they face today, then here was someone who previously stepped forward and did such a great job, including being amongst a group of councillors who introduced many measures that were of benefit to the working class in the City, such as children’s play parks and the first ever Scottish family planning clinic.

After about 5 years we had enough monies to make a start and what we did was approach the Glasgow Arts school about how to find a sculptor. We were advised to advertise to seek examples and look for artists to come forward for ideas. We had a good number of applications and we shortlisted six.

Those elected were asked to make small models of what they were suggesting and they were paid and we then showed these in different locations. Various statues had their own supporters but the most backed by far was the one by Andrew Brown. It has gone down very well with the general public and flowers and dolls have been laid at its feet.

The unveiling was packed. We invited local schools and 300 children came along in red ponchos and they were carrying placards stating  ‘rent strike and Mary Barbour’. The video that was done was also great.

This followed a lengthy campaign, which is, in part, described below.

Mary Barbour, 1875 – 1958

The conference suite at the Pearce Institute in Govan, Glasgow is dedicated to the memory of one of Govan’s great working class heroes Mary Barbour. A suitable plaque adorns the suite. Now there are plans to organise a permanent memorial to her, in time for the centenary of the 1915 Glasgow rent strike in which she helped lead tenants to victory.

During WWI, greedy landlords sought to take advantage of the increased housing demand that arose as a result of men pouring into Glasgow to work in the shipyards and munitions factories. Where sitting tenants could not pay a higher rent they were replaced by anyone that could. With many men away at war, the property owners reasoned that, even though the accommodation provided was poorly maintained, the women at home would be a soft touch. 

Mary Barbour had political experience as a member of the Co-operative Women’s Guild and the Independent Labour Party. She joined other women in forming the Govan Women’s Housing Association. Meetings were held at which it was agreed to pay the pre-war rent whilst also campaigning for decent municipal housing. When fellow tenants were threatened with eviction, women rushed to prevent the sheriff’s officers throwing anyone on to the streets. Soon the strike spread across Glasgow and to other British cities.

On 17 November 1915, landlords sought to take some tenants to court for unpaid rent and at which point Mary Barbour helped to organise one of the biggest marches ever seen in Glasgow. Men from the shipyards and munitions factories joined women heading for court. Frightened court officials rang the munitions minister, David Lloyd George, who instructed them to let the tenants go. Within weeks, Lloyd George pushed through a Parliamentary Bill restricting rents to pre-war levels. This was the first legislation of its kind anywhere in Europe.

Mary Barbour also campaigned against the war and often spoke at public gatherings in Glasgow Green. In 1920, she became one of the first two female Labour councillors after women over 30 were granted the vote. She battled for baths and wash-houses; child welfare centres and play parks. Better housing was a key demand and she was successful in organising a family planning centre, no easy task in a city where the church was strong and many in her own party opposed her. She also fought for many other basic welfare services.

Yet as Maria Fyfe, the former Labour MP for Govan Maryhill, says, “Mary Barbour is not widely known, even in her own city.” That could be about to change as a committee has been established to raise funds for a permanent memorial to a woman who inspired others to demand decent living standards. Support is growing with backing from the Scottish Parliament, Glasgow City Council, East Renfrewshire District Council – her birthplace — and the Scottish Trades Union Congress.

Click here for more information

Donations to the fund are needed, however small. Send them to:  STUC (Remember Mary Barbour), 333 Woodlands Road, Glasgow G3 6NG.

The Pierce Institute is over a century old and is at 840-860 Govan Road, Glasgow G51 3UU.

Oldham’s Robert Ascroft statue commemorates a Tory MP who was a trade unionist.

Robert Ascroft Memorial Statue, Alexandra Park, Oldham.

A bronze statue of Ascroft was erected in 1903 by public subscription in memory of ‘The Workers Friend’ who acted as the legal advisor to the Association of Operative Cotton Spinners * (AOSC) that represented male mule spinners between 1870 and 1970 and which had 18,000 members at the time of Ashcroft’s sudden death in 1899 at aged 51. The high density of union membership amongst cotton spinners meant AOSC members could negotiate significantly better wages and working conditions than other British industrial employees such that mule spinners became known as the Barefoot Aristocrats.

Ascroft was a skilled negotiator who ensured that the 1892 Brooklands Agreement – one of the earliest and most famous of the agreements between capital and labour for the purpose of providing machinery for the settlement of disputes without having recourse to strikes or lockouts – that emerged out of a bitter dispute helped place industrial relations in the cotton industry on a more balanced footing.

Ascroft was also a leading campaigner for better working conditions and between 1895 and his death he was one of Oldham’s two Conservative MPs.

Many thanks to Alan Bedford, a Unite safety rep at BAE Systems in Middleton, Manchester for information on Ascroft. “I can’t imagine in years to come that anyone in a trade union will want to put up a statue to the current lot of Conservative MPs,” said Alan.

http://writemark.blogspot.com/2015/08/mary-macarthur-statue-and-plaque.html

Wednesday, 5 August 2015

Samuel Bamford Obelisk in Middleton commemorates Peterloo leader

Samuel Bamford, Middleton Cemetery behind St Leonard’s Church.

One years’ imprisonment for treason in Lincoln gaol was the fate suffered by Samuel Bamford for leading the Middleton contingent on 16 August 1819 to St Peter’s Fields, Manchester where armed cavalry charged on a peaceful pro democracy crowd of 70,000 demonstrators, killing at least 18 and seriously injuring over 700 people. The ‘Peterloo Massacre‘ is now annually commemorated in a ‘Campaign for a fitting memorial to the martyrs of democracy.’ See www.peterloomassacre.org

Bamford was born in Middleton on 28 February 1788 and became a weaver and then a warehouseman but it was as a radical poet and writer that he became best known and his Passages in the Life of a Radical (1840-44) is regarded as a historically important guide to the conditions of the working classes after 1815.

Bamford was convinced after Peterloo that the superior physical power of the state would always overcome radical militancy and although he continued to campaign for radical reform he opposed any activism involving physical force.

Bamford died on 13 April 1872 and was given a public funeral that was attended by thousands. The huge obelisk memorial to him that was paid from public subscription was unveiled at Middleton Cemetery in 1877 and includes an inscription: ‘Bamford was a reformer when to be so was unsafe, and he suffered for his faith.’ Sadly Middleton Cemetery behind St Leonard’s Church, much of which was erected in 1412, is now quite badly overgrown.

To read more on Samuel Bamford see:- http://gerald-massey.org.uk/bamford/index.htm

http://writemark.blogspot.com/2015/01/bolton-socialist-club-is-helping-keep.html

Set amidst some spectacular countryside, the Clarion House at Nelson-on-Colne is a real gem that any trade union or labour movement visitor would enjoy. 

Clarion House is the only clubhouse remaining from what was once a large network of similar countryside buildings. 

In Victorian England, working conditions across East Lancashire were atrocious, especially for children. The atmosphere was putrid from the cotton in the air and the soot and smog created by mill chimneys. Nelson socialists set up societies, such as rambling, camping holidays and cycling clubs, aimed at improving the health and well-being of the working class. 

Andrew Smith was a Nelson Independent Labour Party (ILP) member who believed people should be able to engage their physical training in the open unpolluted countryside. Nelson ILP rented properties from 1899 onwards. As membership levels rose steadily form around fifty towards a thousand the ILP set up a land society and purchased in June 1912 land ‘near New Church in Pendle.’ Clarion House cost £350 to build and since when the day to day running and maintenance has been carried out by volunteers. 

Clarion House can be reached by easy or moderate walks from the surrounding towns of Nelson, Colne, Burnley & Clitheroe. It is open every Sunday from 10.30am to 4.00pm as well as some bank holidays. On other days, visitors are welcome to sit and relax outside. There is plenty of space for children to safely run around in. There is an outside toilet.  

All visitors get a warm welcome. 

“I moved near here with my partner five years ago. A neighbour mentioned Clarion House and its historical significance. We walked the four miles and still visit regularly. I like the Clarion House values in terms of community and a little bit of rebellion, doing things independently, which in a way sums up this whole area. 

“There are always people here. Most come of their own steam and you get many ramblers and cyclists. We enjoy sitting in the garden and the view is outstanding. I doubt there are many better anywhere in England,” said Sarah Jane Grey from Barrowford. 

The Clarion House building itself is basically one large room of benches and chairs, an attached porch, toilets and a large kitchen serving refreshments and a great cup of tea. Along with colourful banners, the walls are decorated with local and national historical figures associated with the clubhouse.

“We largely exist on the money we make from our sales. I enjoy helping as I see this as socialism in action. We work together co-operatively. Visitors get a cup of tea and can sit down and, if they want, chat and exchange ideas about how to improve things for working people. You can also just sit outside and relax. We’d be delighted to welcome Unite members,“ explained retried postal worker Sue Nike, who first volunteered at Clarion House around 35 years ago. 

ILP Clarion House, Jinney Lane, Newchurch-in-Pendle, Lancashire NN12 9LL  Donations from trade union branches would be welcomed. See also a recent released video on Clarion House:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsQznVb3biM

THE BATTLE OF BAMBER BRIDGE 

Ye Olde Hob Inn, Bamber Bridge, Lancs 

Ye Olde Hob Inn in Bamber Bridge is a 400-year-old Grade II listed former coach house with a thatched roof. It contains a grill, restaurant and a well stocked bar. The food our group was served was affordable good home cooked food. There was also plenty of it.  The Inn is ideal for some rest and relaxation.

It’s all a distant cry from Thursday June 24, 1943 when several American black soldiers, based at the nearby headquarters of the 1511th Quartermaster Truck regiment, objected to being informed that they she could not be served beyond the then legal closing time of 10pm.

Tension was high amongst the black servicemen, who as was the case throughout World War II were segregated from their white counterparts and frequently suffered great disparities in their treatment. This followed a riot in Detroit four days earlier that had left 25 black people dead, 17 shot dead by the police and following which riots spread to other cities. 

What happened next never appeared in any official war chronicles. But according to Anthony Burgess, author of Clockwork Orange, who was a lecturer at a nearby college after the war, “there was a battle..in Bamber Bridge, which was totally black in sentiment such that when the US military authorities had demanded that pubs impose a colour bar, the landlords had responded with Black Troops Only signs.”

A longer account of events appeared in a quarterly magazine After the Battle. It was written by military defence analyst and History Professor Dr Ken Werrell. His meticulous research included interviews with survivors. 

On hearing that there was an incident at the pub, two white military policemen (MPs) went to investigate. There was a deep mistrust between the segregated black troops and the MPs, whose appearance  was certain to be poorly received, especially when they attempted to arrest one of the black servicemen for having no pass. A crowd that included some local Britons surrounded and abused the MPs, one of whom drew his gun before they left to seek reinforcements. 

When further arrest attempts were later made the result was a black solider was shot before the black soldiers, on arriving back at their base, began taking arms to defend themselves. In the firefight that followed one black soldier, Private William Crossland, was shot dead. Two other black soldiers and one white were shot during what was termed a mutiny.

When calm was later restored over twenty men from the depot were later found guilty of charges that included resisting arrest and illegal possession of rifles. Sentences ranged from three months up to 15 years although in the event these were later reduced and only one served more than a year. 

https://writemark.blogspot.com/2015/02/why-jack-jones-house.html

MARK ASHTON 

The education room at the Unite regional office on the Antrim Road, Belfast was renamed on 19 March 2016 in honour of Mark Ashton. This is the first time in Northern Ireland that a member of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community has been acknowledged outside of the LGBT community. 

This article (from 11 September 2014) is reproduced with the kind permission of the Morning Star, Britain’s only socialist daily newspaper.  https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk

‘PITS AND PERVERTS’: THE LEGACY OF MARK ASHTON

https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-772e-Pits-and-perverts-the-legacy-of-communist-Mark-Ashton#.Vu_fJ8e0ii4

PETER FROST remembers one of The Sun’s most despicable headlines and how it was taken up as rallying call for working-class unity.

It has taken three decades for the BBC and the British film industry to tell the amazing story of Mark Ashton.

Thirty years is a long time, indeed a good few years longer than Ashton’s tragically short life — a life cut short by Aids at just 26 in 1987.

Mark, a mercurial young Irishman, was a gay rights activist and a founder member — some would say the founding member — of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) during the epic miners’ strike of the 1980s.

LGSM came together to support the British miners during the year-long strike of 1984-5.

There were 11 LGSM groups throughout the country. London was the largest.

Wednesday, 5 July 2017

LAKELAND HIDDEN GEM: Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry, Kendal

Kendal’s hidden gem is the Museum of Lakeland Life & Industry (MOLLI), which recreates how rural people lived, worked and played in the past and by doing so challenges its visitors’ perceptions of what life was like in one of the most beautiful parts of the UK.

MOLLI is in Abbot Hall’s eighteen century coach house and stables. Seven hundred years earlier, commercial sheep farming by local monks helped create  a thriving wool industry. This is reflected in Kendal’s motto ‘Pannus mihi panis’ meaning ‘cloth is my bread.’

It was the Cumbrian climate that ensured that sheep — as well as cows — were locally more suited than the growing of arable crops. Meanwhile, with Cumbria being so remote from London, nobles were frequently absent from home and this encouraged them to sell their land.

The result was it became easier for some local farmers to swap from being tenant to land owning ‘Statesman’ farmers. The nineteenth century bedroom of a statesman farmer is amongst one of the permanent period rooms at MOLLI. Others include a chemists and printers as well as a farmhouse kitchen from a typical Cumbrian eighteenth century farm.

These are certainly worth viewing but what really brings the museum to life is its desire — which was so passionately expressed by Rachel Roberts, assistant curator on collections and access, during our visit — to preserve and tell the stories of the 99 per cent of ordinary working people who live and die without leaving anything behind.

Display boards tell the history of how Cumbria’s minerals — zinc, lead, copper included — were first plundered by the Romans. Then how later on local mines attracted workers from across Britain and Europe with the German mining engineer Daniel Hechstetter granted permission in 1565 by Elizabeth I to melt ‘all manner of mines and ores of gold, silver and copper’ around Keswick and Coniston.

Another important local industry was shoemaking and the Kendal Cordwainer’s Guild was established in the seventeenth century to ‘protect mutual interests.’ Leather sold in the town was officially marked and no one outside the guild was to sell similar products. This was an early form of trade unionism.

The Lake District’s woodlands have for many centuries been coppiced as a method of harvesting trees. Quick growing trees such as oak and ash can be cut down to their shoots and within 15-40 years they can be as tall as 6 metres high. Once harvested they were used in local industries and of which the most important was bobbin mills, totalling 64 in the mid nineteenth century.

Bobbins were in massive demand during the industrial revolution and it is estimated that in Burnley alone there was as many as 20 million bobbins turning on the cotton-weaving machines at any one time.

“Bobbin making was a huge employer of local labour,” explains Rachel “but as people moved into the towns during the industrial revolution there was also chemical and paint making.

“Because of Cumbria’s remoteness there was additionally, until the railways really took off, a greater self reliance. This meant that virtually every product you can think of was manufactured, with small workshops servicing the larger ones. There was also domestic work in people’s private homes and farms.”

Exhibitions 

John Ruskin‘s first publication was his originally entitled 1829 poem Lines written at the Lakes in Cumberland. In the mid-1850s he taught drawing classes at the Working Men’s College in London and following which he was drawn towards social issues. Ruskin College in Oxford was established to provide educational opportunities for working-class men in 1899, a year before his death.

Ruskin lived near Coniston from 1871 till 1890. During his time he inspired the founding of the Langdale Linen Industry and the Keswick School of Industrial Art, which was opened in 1884 to alleviate unemployment by teaching metalwork and wood carving. “The aim was improve people’s skills such that they would enjoy making quality products, some of which we on display here, that everyone could buy. Sadly the production costs meant the goods were only affordable by well off people. This left Ruskin disappointed,” says Rachel.

Arthur Ransome was first educated in Windermere. He is best known for writing the Swallows and Amazons children’s book series that are centred around the Lake District and Norfolk Broads. Years previously, Ransome covered the Bolshevik Revolution for a radical newspaper, the Daily News. He became close to a number to a number of Soviet leaders including Lenin and Trotsky, whose personal secretary became Ransome’s wife. There is a very interesting permanent display on Ransome within the museum.

Over the winter, MOLLI, which attracts around a thousand visitors a month,  held an exhibition of Joseph Hardman’s photographs. http://www.unitetheunion.org/growing-our-union/education/bookofthemonth/march-2017/

This has been followed by Fun on the Fells: Walking and Climbing in the Lake District. This will run till 28 October and features early climbing pioneers through to the politics of right to roam in which one of Unite’s great heroes Benny Rothman will feature.

“We would be delighted to welcome trade unionists to the museum and would welcome the support of branches within Unite, particularly those in the North west,” said Rachel.

Working Class Movement Library (WCML), Salford

Landworker article 2018 

Tony Benn, the late radical Labour MP, called the Working Class Movement Library (WCML) in Salford: “One of the greatest educational institutions.” It is internationally recognised for containing one of Britain’s most important collections of working class history as embodied in the trade unions, the co-operative movement, organisations of the oppressed and the political parties and campaigns of the left.

The library was established by and built on the personal collection of Ruth and Eddie Frow, who coming from rural Lincolnshire was always delighted to find an item or book on agriculture at the numerous fairs and bookshops that he visited with his wife. 

Consequently, the WCML contains a great collection of materials relating to rural social conditions through the ages and particularly since the second half of the nineteenth century onwards. 

The official reports include the 1843 one by the Special Assistant Poor Law Commissioners on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture nationally and which examined wages, working and living conditions and revealed widespread poverty and abuse. The pamphlets include ones by the Socialist Countryside Group, established after a fringe meeting at the 1981 Labour Party conference, examining rural housing, countryside access, national parks and low pay in agriculture. 

Periodicals include Landworker magazines going back to the 1930s. The WCML shelves contain numerous academic books on farming, agriculture, rural industries and communities by University lecturers and professors.  There are also lots of biographies and autobiographies, often written by politicians who have represented rural communities, including Joseph Arch’s, written in 1898. Additionally there are poems and songbooks and posters. 

The collection demonstrates how British rural life and working conditions has economically, socially and culturally changed, often beyond recognition and not always for the best. 

The agricultural collection is a very small part of the huge archive held by the WCML, which includes many newspapers, photographs, artefacts, banners and the personal papers of past labour movement heroes such as Benny Rothman. 

Anyone wanting to study in the library should search through its online catalogue as you need to ring in advance so that staff can ensure all relevant materials are available when you visit. 

The WCML has library exhibition space which hosts public information displays. There are regular talks, lectures and guided tours. A range of pamphlets are published annually and there is a library e-newsletter.

WCML only receives a small sum of public money. As an independent charity it largely relies on donations from individuals and trade unions with occasional trust grants. Please get your branch to affiliate as the WCML urgently needs financial support.

http://www.wcml.org.uk

Working Class Movement Library

51 The Crescent

Salford

U.K. M5 4WX

0161 7363601