I leave Stalybridge tomorrow after a short and unproductive stay, moving back to Manchester for another new start at another call centre the day after.  But first, I thought I’d share a local folk remedy for dealing with pay freezes and economic crises:

Blue plaque on the ruins of Stalybridge Town Hall

It says:

The first general strike (1842) originated in this area. It began as a movement of resistance to the imposition of wage cuts in the mills and was also known as the ‘Plug Riots’. It spread to involve nearly half a million workers throughout Britain and represented the biggest single exercise of working class strength in nineteenth century Britain.

It most certainly did…

At the root of the strike were the swingeing wage cuts that accompanied a downturn in trade, at a time when the economy had been in desperate straits for a full five years. But the strike grew into something far more than that as workers took up the political demands espoused by Chartism, leading to confrontation not just with employers but with the state…

the mill and factory workers of the North West were politically aware and quite able to make the link between demands demands for better wages and the need for the Charter.

The focus of activity in late July and early August was in South East Lancashire, where local Chartists played a leading role in organising mass meetings to oppose wage cuts and make the case for the Charter. This was an important stage in building support for collective action later. These leaders succeeded in uniting workers who were more hesitant in their opposition to the employers behind the more militant factories and mills, and created a base for a widespread strike.

August 7 was a crucial day: two mass meetings of workers from Ashton and Staleybridge were held on Mottram Moor, and support was given for a “Grand National Turn-Out” to begin the next day. Support for the Charter was incorporated into the resolutions passed. The next day, workers left their factories and began to move from workplace to workplace, “turning out” other workers to join them. The derogatory name often given to these events – the “plug plot” – derives from this time; as the workers closed down a factory they would frequently remove the boiler plug to prevent it restarting. The movement spread rapidly, not only in Manchester but in the towns around it. At Preston, Burnley, Blackburn, Chorley, Todmorden, Bacup, Stockport, Macclesfield, Leek, Congleton, Oldham, Glossop, Dukinfield, Wigan, Bolton, St Helens and in the mining villages, work ceased.

As the strike went on, the workers took control. Factories were permitted to operate only with the permission of “committees of public safety” that now began to co-ordinate action. These committees gave permission, for example, for work to be completed so that goods would not spoil or for humanitarian reasons. In one case, permission was granted to keep water pumps operating without which coal mines would have flooded.

The authorities were powerless: troops were drafted in from London and the South East – but even in the capital they had to run the gauntlet of strike supporters and were compelled to fix bayonets and march with police escorts to the trains that would carry them north.

One solution…!