Cold Open

It’s the afternoon of May 10th, 1926, at a train station in Cramlington, a small mining town in the northeast of England.

From the cab of the “Flying Scotsman” express train, engineer Bob Sheldon cranes his neck out of the window and checks that all passengers are on board.

Having left Edinburgh at 10 AM, bound for London, the train now has 280 people on board and is making good time. Still, Bob's nervous. It’s the seventh day of a general strike that has brought the United Kingdom to a near standstill. To keep essential services running, volunteers like Bob have stepped forward to fill in for striking railroad personnel. But he’s been warned that his train may come under attack from disgruntled workers.

Bob pulls hard on the train whistle, releases the brakes, and the locomotive creeps forward out of the station. Beside him, two young volunteer firemen shovel coal into the boiler. The engine starts to pick up speed. But as Bob peers down the track, he sees that something isn’t right. The line ahead has been tampered with, and an entire section of rail has been removed.

Bob immediately shuts off the steam and pulls as hard as he can on the brakes. But the train is still moving forward. It’s not going to stop in time.

Bob warns the others and braces himself, and when the locomotive reaches the missing rail, their whole world suddenly turns on its side. Burning hot coals tumble out of the boiler as the engine tips. Bob is flung hard against the door of the cab as metal crunches and shrieks around him. Behind the locomotive, the carriages twist away from the track one by one. The Flying Scotsman has been derailed.

The striking workers who removed the rail hadn’t realized that a passenger train was coming. They thought that a freight train was using the line. Miraculously, no one is killed in the crash. But this act of vandalism is far from an isolated incident. All across Great Britain, the General Strike is threatening the foundations of society. The government has had to enact emergency powers to keep the country running. And life isn’t easy for the workers on the picket line either. And after nine days of civil unrest, one side will have to admit defeat and bring the strike to an end on May 12th, 1926.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is May 12th, 1926: The End of the British General Strike.

Act One: Not A Penny Off The Pay

It’s just past midday on May 1st, 1926, in London, England, ten days before the Flying Scotsman is derailed.

56-year-old Arthur Pugh enters the grand Memorial Hall and hurriedly makes his way onto the stage. The room is packed with union members and labor organizers, all eager to hear what Arthur has to say. As president of the Trades Union Congress, the largest union in the country, Arthur has been locked in negotiations with the British government for days. And depending on what happens in the next few hours, the men in the hall may soon be leading workers from across the country out on strike.

It all began in a dispute over pay and working conditions for coal miners.

The British coal industry has been in decline for decades, but the last two years have been especially hard. First, a glut of coal on the international market caused the price of the fuel to plunge. Soon afterwards, the British government adopted a new economic policy that drove down the cost of imports, but made British coal more expensive for foreign buyers. So with profits dwindling, mine owners in Britain demanded their employees work more hours for less pay. The miners refused these new terms and warned that they go on strike if better terms weren’t offered. This was a powerful threat—without coal to heat homes, feed industrial furnaces, and fuel power stations, the British economy would grind to a halt. So, to avoid a strike, the government stepped in. It subsidized the coal industry and guaranteed workers’ pay to keep the mines open.

But this wasn’t an open-ended commitment. At the same time as agreeing to the subsidy, the government commissioned a report into the rights and working conditions of the miners. It concluded that if the coal industry was to thrive in the future, then miners would need to take a pay cut. That was something the miners’ biggest union refused to accept. Labor leaders made it clear that they would walk off the job instead. And they hoped other major unions would join them in a sympathy strike.

So today, Arthur scans the room before speaking. A hush descends as he updates everyone present on his talks with the government. He confirms that he has yet to come to an agreement with the Prime Minister that will bring the coal dispute to an end. So, the time has come for the hall to vote on a general strike in support of the miners.

It’s soon clear which way the room is leaning, and in the biggest act of union solidarity in British history, the Trades Union Congress or TUC sides with the miners and overwhelmingly backs the call for a general strike.

For Arthur, though, that doesn’t mean they should head straight to the picket lines. He believes the vote is a powerful bargaining chip, and he intends to use it. So, later that same day, Arthur is back at the negotiating table with the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin. Arthur confirms to Baldwin that if the miners’ rights and wages are not protected, two million TUC workers will walk away from their jobs in solidarity. They’ll bring the entire country to a standstill.

It is a scenario that would hurt everyone. For the government, a prolonged shutdown of major industries would send the economy into a deep recession. But it won’t be pleasant for workers either—if they walk off their jobs, they won’t get paid, and their families will suffer.

So, hours of intensive talks follow. But when he finally leaves the prime minister, Arthur Pugh is hopeful. He believes an extension of the government subsidy for the coal industry is on the table. And that would get miners back to work and avoid a damaging general strike. But soon, these hopes are crushed.

Early in the morning of May 3rd, union workers at the printers of the right-wing Daily Mail newspaper take matters into their own hands. They refuse to print an editorial that criticizes the idea of a general strike. This action is not sanctioned by Arthur Pugh or the TUC. But it will be all the excuse the government needs to walk away from negotiations.

This means Arthur will have no choice but to follow through on his threat. The General Strike will go ahead. But Arthur and the unions will soon learn that the government hasn’t just been talking. It’s also been preparing.

Act Two: No Middle Course

It’s early in the morning of May 5th, 1926, at a newspaper office in London, England, two days after the Trades Union Congress called a general strike.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill, hunkers down over an editor’s desk. His pen flashes across a sheet of paper, underlining and circling words. Midway down the page, he crosses out “union” and replaces it with “the enemy.”

Churchill is overseeing the first edition of a new paper—the British Gazette. With the main printers on strike, Britain’s usual daily newspapers have been forced to scale back production, and the government is now stepping in to fill the void. As a former journalist himself, Churchill knows the power newspapers can wield. He believes the British Gazette will be an invaluable propaganda tool in the fight against the unions. And he wants every word to be perfect.

It’s been two days since the government walked away from negotiations, and the TUC called a general strike. As well as the one million coal miners, almost two million other workers have downed their tools, and shipyards, factories, and transportation hubs have all ground to a halt.

But the British government has been preparing for industrial action like this for months. And those well-laid plans are now swiftly being put into effect.

The government has taken direct control of food distribution and the transportation network. It’s announced the rationing of coal to preserve supplies while the miners are on strike. And they’ve deployed the armed forces to keep basic services running.

But even with soldiers driving trucks and sailors at work in the ports, it won’t be enough to keep the country going. So the government has called on the people to help.

Thousands of middle and upper-class volunteers are stepping forward to fill the gaps of personnel out on strike. Some are driving buses, streetcars, and trains to keep the country moving. Others have been given temporary jobs in the police to help maintain law and order.

For Winston Churchill, this is a battle that the government simply has to win. He believes that if they capitulate to the unions’ demands now, it will set a dangerous precedent for the future. Workers would believe they can hold the country to ransom whenever they want. The class system that British society is built on would collapse. And anarchy would be the result.

Churchill knows that controlling information is almost as important as delivering food or keeping the lights on. And that’s why he’s directed the official government publisher to print the British Gazette, and why he’s overseeing the first edition personally.

But he wants as many people as possible to hear the government’s version of events, so he doesn’t just rely on his new newspaper. Churchill also takes to the radio, issuing updates on the strike multiple times a day. So, the message in print and on the air is the same. The striking workers are dangerous revolutionaries. But the British are resilient, and their government will not back down.

For their part, the Trades Union Congress tries to respond to this barrage of propaganda, launching its own paper, The British Worker. And in an editorial, the TUC insists that “We are not making war on the people,” and instead points the finger at the government, accusing them of “unpatriotic conduct.”

But the conflict between the two sides goes far beyond a war of words in the press. There are violent clashes between striking workers and volunteers throughout the country. And as the General Strike enters a second week, the disruption seems to be spreading. In the northeast, the Flying Scotsman express train is derailed. No one is killed in the crash, but the use of inexperienced volunteers will result in two other railroad accidents elsewhere on the same day. These will claim the lives of four people.

But if the government fears it's losing control over the situation, pressure is mounting on the unions as well. After a legal challenge, a court in London rules that the General Strike is not protected by the Trade Dispute Act. And this means the TUC could be liable for encouraging workers to breach their contracts, and its assets could be at risk.

With that threat hanging over them and no sign of the government backing down, union leaders are forced to reconsider their strategy. Just over a week after the beginning of their mass walkout, the TUC leadership will announce that they are willing to return to the negotiating table.

Winston Churchill and the rest of the government will celebrate. It seems their campaign of propaganda and preparation will pay off: The end of the General Strike will soon be in sight.

Act Three: Back to Work

It’s midday on May 12th, 1926, in London, England, nine days after the beginning of the General Strike.

Inside Number 10 Downing Street, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin smiles broadly as he shakes hands with Arthur Pugh, President of the Trades Union Congress. Following talks late last night and into the morning, the strike, which has paralyzed the country for over a week, has been called off.

Baldwin believes that this is a triumph for his government. He hasn’t had to make a single meaningful concession to the strikers, and they’re already heading back to work. But for Arthur and the other men from the TUC, it’s a far harder pill to swallow. They have been forced to admit that the General Strike was a “wrongful act.” One of them is so upset by the capitulation that he walks out of Downing Street past the waiting press on the verge of tears.

But with legal pressures mounting and the government standing firm, the union felt that they had no choice but to abandon their protest. And over the coming days, workers across the country return to their jobs, and the British economy lumbers back to life. Only the coal miners hold out. Their original dispute with their bosses still hasn’t been resolved. And many remain on the picket line for months. But without a wage, most miners can’t afford to stay away from work forever. And by the end of the year, the majority have headed back down the mines—forced there by poverty, without any guarantees about their future wages or working hours.

But despite the ultimate failure of the miners’ strike and the TUC’s mass walkout, the British government doesn’t want to risk it happening again. So, a year later, Parliament will pass the Trade Disputes Act of 1927. This bans mass picketing and sympathy strikes, and the United Kingdom will never again experience a General Strike on this scale after the first and last mass mobilization of British workers ended on May 12th, 1926.

Outro

Next on History Daily. May 13th, 1862. During the American Civil War, an enslaved man steals a Confederate ship and flees with his family to freedom.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Owen Paul Nicholls.

Edited by William Simpson.

Managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.