Series

Cuttings mostly concerning the strike proposed in 1907 to secure union recognition, lower hours and increased pay, and the 1911 railway strikes. The proposed strike was the culmination of the all-grades movement of 1906-7, which sought an eight-hour day, a 2 shilling increase for all grades and union recognition. The men's case was put in 'The railwaymen's charter', sometimes known as 'The green book', which gave statistics of the men's conditions [MSS.127/AS/1/1/35]. Their prime objective was union recognition and when the railway companies refused this, there was strong support for a strike: 76,925 of 97,631 ASRS members voted in favour of a strike in Oct 1907. The Board of Trade and its President, David Lloyd George, intervened at the last moment and persuaded the companies to accept a conciliation scheme which the union then accepted in place of recognition. The failure of the conciliation boards was a major contributing factor to the 1911 strikes. These volumes of carefully mounted and identified press cuttings mirror a wide spectrum of contemporary opinion: national and local, daily and weekly newspapers, from the 'Aberdeen Free Press', the 'Lincolnshire Echo' and the 'Yorkshire Herald', to the 'British Weekly' and the 'Methodist Recorder'.

Open

[See Bagwell, pages 262-308].