In late
July 2025, Calderdale Industrial Museum hosted a crowd of 30 people keen to commemorate
the 100th anniversary of the 1925 West Riding textile strike or Lock
Out. Those present enjoyed listening to speeches by Professor Keith Laybourn
and shopworker Iain Dalton, who is following the latter in writing a book on
1925
At a time
of a general attack on wages, 1925 saw 175,000 textile workers, never
previously known for their organisation or militancy, successfully combine to
restore pay cuts.
Led by
President Ben Turner, later the TUC President, the National Union of Textile
Workers in July-August 1925 brought together over three and a half weeks the
office lass, the designer, the long brat men, overlookers and woolcombers.
Skilled and unskilled workers had combined. Nothing similar had occurred previously and
despite their desperation the actions of the workers was, with some exceptions
in Bradford, almost entirely peaceful.
Laybourn is
a tour de force when speaking. His 35-minute presentation kept the audience
entertained as he outlined the background – including “the Chancellor Winston
Churchill’s restoration of the £ to the Gold Standard” - to the struggle in
which 10,000 were out in Halifax, 24,000 in Huddersfield and 55,000 in
Bradford. 55% of the operatives were women and juveniles. 45% were men.
UNITY
According
to Laybourn; “there was a tremendous amount of support regionally with large
amounts donated with the colliers prominent.” In return textile workers,
“despite not being asked to assist, took strike action in support of the miners
in 1926.”
When the
Government intervened in 1925 to bring both sides to the negotiating table the
result was the establishment of a 5-man Court of Investigation with an
independent chair and two from the employers and trade unions. With the workers
back at work it was agreed to restore wages as they were with no cuts in pay. As
Laybourn explained “this success encouraged the TUC into supporting the miners
a few months later.”
Dalton went
into how tens of thousands of textile workers not previously in a union joined
up. Unable to claim strike pay “this encouraged big demonstrations to the Board
of Guardians to encourage outdoor relief,” in order to prevent destitution.
Laybourn
and Dalton were joined on stage by Alan Fowler who provided a fascinating and amusing
historical summary of Calderdale’s much better organised cotton
operatives.
You can
also watch Keith Laybourn speaking at length on textile workers in Bradford up
till 1930 and his take on the 1925 dispute – titled STITCHED UP at:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e58Hfhboes
Bradford’s
early trade union struggles till 1930 by Keith Laybourn:-
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