General Strike 1926 – The Melting Pot

Penywern

by Carolyn Jacob

Penywern was a typical industrial village built for the workers of the Ivor Works in 1839. Here was the permanent barracks for the Volunteers. After the Merthyr Rising of 1831 soldiers were permanently barracked at Penywern to keep an eye on the growing town of Merthyr Tydfil. On the tithe schedule of 1850 the owner of the land here was the Dowlais Iron Company.

A section of the 1850 Tithe Map showing the barracks in Penywern

At first all there was in Penywern were the Barracks, as is shown on the 1850 Tithe Map, however by the 1875 Ordnance Survey map Penywern had developed and Lower Row and Upper Row are shown. The reservoirs and ponds which once fed water into the Dowlais Works are situated in this area. These are now of great historical significance, especially as so little now remains of the great Dowlais Works. There are 2 large and 2 small ponds east of Penywern and also a reservoir to the south.

A section of the 1875 Ordnance Survey Map. Two of the reservoirs can be clearly seen.

This was a self-sufficient community and there were a number of shops here. Late nineteenth century directories show that Morgan Evans was a baker, grocer, tea dealer at number 4 Penywern. The working men of the area were mainly employed in coal mining. The community built their community church vestry during the General Strike of 1926, when so many skilled men were force to be idle due to the national economic climate.

The famous historian Gwyn Alf Williams was born in Lower Row in a cottage belonging to his grandmother, Mrs Morgan. In 2005 the Dic Penderyn Society and the Merthyr Tydfil Heritage Trust erected a plaque on the walls of this property in commemoration of the birth of Gwyn Alf.

There was quite a large Spanish community here before the First World War. The Spaniards who settled here from 1900 onwards built Alphonso Street and King Carlos Street.

Alphonso Street. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

The exposed height of this area means that it is very vulnerable when there are any falls of snow. During the severe winter of 1947 a train at Penywern became snowbound for several days.

This village has undergone many changes in recent years; the Tre-Ivor Arms public house, now closed was once called the Ivor Arms. Penywern Chapel, was an Independent Chapel, but it was demolished in the late 1990s, and today modern houses are on its former site.

The Forgotten ‘Merthyr Tydfil Judgment of 1900’

by Roger Evans

Poverty, and hardship went hand in hand with worker exploitation during the industrial revolution, accompanied by disease and starvation. As a measure of help for the destitute, Poor Law Unions were established under the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, administered by the local Board of Guardians. Many of these Unions, including that of Merthyr, continued in operation until 1930 when they were replaced by local authority Public Assistance Committees. After 1945 the Poor Laws were replaced by Welfare State legislation brought in by the post war Attlee Government.

In 1898 South Wales miners went on a prolonged and historic strike. It was an attempt by the colliers to remove the sliding scale, which determined wages based on the price of coal. There was widespread agreement that Merthyr Board of Guardians had no choice in law but to support destitute strikers, even though they had voluntarily withdrawn their labour.

The strike quickly turned into a disastrous lockout which lasted for six months and ultimately resulted in a failure for the colliers. There were some concessions but the sliding scale stayed in place.

The strike however was viewed as an important landmark in Trade Union history as it saw the true adoption of trade unionism in the coalfields of The Valleys. The South Wales Miners’ Federation union originated from this dispute. As a result, coal companies took the Merthyr Board of Guardians to court, as they did not want to see striking workers gain any financial support.

In the subsequent famous High Court ruling in 1900, the Master of the Rolls (the equivalent of today’s Supreme Court), ruled the policy of relieving the strikers had indeed been unlawful. The Guardians were allowed to help dependents of strikers if they were destitute. Unmarried strikers however, had no access to poor relief whatsoever. The high court verdict became known throughout Britain as ‘The Merthyr Tydfil Judgment of 1900’. Often cited in subsequent strikes elsewhere in the country, including the 1926 General Strike.

Historians viewed the ruling as part of the employers’ counteroffensive against the labour movement of the 1890’s and 1900’s.

The 1834 Poor Law Act was replaced by The Local Government Act, 1929. Workhouses were abolished and The Board of Guardians dissolved, functions being transferred to the Public Assistance Committee. The Merthyr Judgement effectively rendered null and void.

Taff Merthyr Colliery

Opened in 1926, the Taff Merthyr Colliery was one of the last collieries to be sunk in Wales by a private company – the Powell Duffryn Steam Coal Company. It was also one of the most controversial.

The two shafts of the Taff Merthyr Colliery were sunk between 1922 and 1924 to approximately 1900 feet and were 21 feet in diameter, but the development of the colliery took place during the 1926 General Strike. The pit officially opened just after the end of the strike, but the owners of the company insisted that no members of the South Wales Miners’ Federation could be employed at this new pit and they set up a company union, the South Wales Miners Industrial Union, which the miners were expected to join in order to work.

Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s the pit, together with others in the South Wales valleys became major trouble spots in the struggle for democratic representation with torchlight processions, stay down strikes and mass meetings, culminating in the strike of 1934/5. Taff Merthyr ‘strike breakers’ went into the mine under police protection and fought with the stay-down strikers resulting in 40 men being injured in the battle.

The anger felt by miners and their wives towards the ‘scab’ workforce often spilled into the streets with physical violence and other forms of intimidation. Crowds would assemble on the streets and as this labour-force passed silence was observed with doffing of caps and caps until they passed out of sight (taken from the Western Mail 1935). This resentment was to remain in the village for many years.

Police Sergeant Gooding after being hit by a stone during the Taff Merthyr Riots in Trelewis. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

During the peak years of the early 1930’s however, the pit employed more than 1,600 men and produced an annual tonnage of over 600,000. With the outbreak of the Second World War, Bevin Boys were employed at the colliery, and in 1945 it was reported that 1,119 men were employed at the colliery.

The colliery was nationalised in 1947, and at that time it employed 153 men on the surface and 874 underground.

During the early seventies, 735 men were employed and they produced 340,000 tons of coal annually from the seven feet coal seam. £ 8 million was invested in the colliery in the mid-seventies and the work was completed in August 1978 and it involved deepening shafts to 640 meters and building a new coal preparation plant and MGR dispatch system.

Taff Merthyr Colliery in the 1970s. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

In 1992 Taff Merthyr was amongst 31 pits scheduled for closure, despite protests and the widely held opinion that there were at least 10 years reserves of coal. Safety and maintenance work continued during a review, but it seemed inevitable that 368 coal workers would lose their livelihood when tons of rubble and other material for filling the shafts were delivered before the review was even concluded. The final shift was worked on 11 June 1993. There was talk of a miners buy out but it never materialised and the winding gear was demolished by explosion on 22 July 1994.

Arthur Horner – part 2

courtesy of John Simkin

It soon became clear that A. J. Cook and Horner would play an important role in the proposed strike. David Kirkwood remarked that: “Arthur Cook, who talked from a platform like a Salvation Army preacher, had swept over the industrial districts like a hurricane. He was an agitator, pure and simple. He had no ideas about legislation or administration. He was a flame. Ramsay MacDonald called him a guttersnipe.

That he certainly was not. He was utterly sincere, in deadly earnest, and burnt himself out in the agitation.”A Conference of Trade Union Congress met on 1st May 1926, and afterwards announced that a General Strike “in defence of miners’ wages and hours” was to begin two days later. The leaders of both the Trade Union Council and the Labour Party were unhappy about the proposed strike, and during the next two days frantic efforts were made to reach an agreement with the Conservative Government and the mine-owners.

The Trade Union Congress called the General Strike on the understanding that they would then take over the negotiations from the Miners’ Federation. The main figure involved in these negotiations was Jimmy Thomas. Talks went on until late on Sunday night, and according to Thomas, they were close to agreement when Stanley Baldwin broke off negotiations. The reason for his action was that printers at the Daily Mail had refused to print a leading article attacking the proposed strike. The TUC negotiators apologized for the printers’ behaviour, but Baldwin refused to continue with the talks. The General Strike began the next day.

The Trade Union Congress adopted the following plan of action. To begin with they would bring out workers in the key industries – railwaymen, transport workers, dockers, printers, builders, iron and steel workers – a total of 3 million men (a fifth of the adult male population). Only later would other trade unionists, like the engineers and shipyard workers, be called out on strike.

On 7 May, Sir Herbert Samuel, Chairman of the Royal Commission on the Coal Industry, approached the Trade Union Congress and offered to help bring the strike to an end. Without telling the miners, the TUC negotiating committee met Samuel and worked out a set of proposals to end the General Strike. These included: (1) a National Wages Board with an independent chairman; (2) a minimum wage for all colliery workers; (3) workers displaced by pit closures to be given alternative employment; (4) the wages subsidy to be renewed while negotiations continued. However, Samuel warned that subsequent negotiations would probably mean a reduction in wages. These terms were accepted by the TUC negotiating committee, but were rejected by the executive of the Miners’ Federation.

On 11 May, at a meeting of the Trade Union Congress General Committee, it was decided to accept the terms proposed by Herbert Samuel and to call off the General Strike. The following day, the TUC General Council visited 10 Downing Street to announce to the British Government that the General Strike was over. At the same meeting the TUC attempted to persuade the Government to support the Samuel proposals and to offer a guarantee that there would be no victimization of strikers. This the Government refused to do. As Lord Birkenhead, a member of the Government was to write later, the TUC’s surrender was “so humiliating that some instinctive breeding made one unwilling even to look at them.”

On 21 June 1926, the British Government introduced a Bill into the House of Commons that suspended the miners’ Seven Hours Act for five years – thus permitting a return to an 8 hour day for miners. In July the mine-owners announced new terms of employment for miners based on the 8 hour day. The miners were furious about what had happened although the General Strike was over, the miners’ strike continued.For several months the miners held out, but by October 1926 hardship forced men to begin to drift back to the mines. By the end of November most miners had reported back to work. However, many were victimized and remained unemployed for many years. Those that were employed were forced to accept longer hours, lower wages and district agreement. It was a terrible defeat for A. J. Cook and Horner. Horner remained a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and in 1933 he stood unsuccessfully as a Parliamentary candidate in the Rhondda East by-election.

Horner retained his popularity with union members and in 1936 he became President of the South Wales Miners’ Federation. According to Will Paynter: “It is my opinion that Arthur Horner was without question the ablest negotiator to come out of the British coalfields.”

On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Horner and the CPGB was involved in the creation of the International Brigades. Horner was a major critic of the British government policy of Non-Intervention. According to the author of The Spanish Civil War and the British Labour Movement (1991): “Arthur Horner moved the resolution which called on the government to abandon Non-Intervention and to give Spain the right to buy arms, and called on the TUC to convene a meeting of executive committees to examine how to achieve this.”

Horner became president of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1946. He retired from the post in 1959 and was replaced by Will Paynter.

Arthur Horner died in 1968.

To read more of John Simkin’s excellent essays, please visit:
http://spartacus-educational.com

The Building of St Mary’s, Merthyr Vale

In the last post, a newspaper cutting appeared announcing the opening of St Mary’s Church in Merthyr Vale. The story of the building of the church is a fascinating one, as the church was built at a time of austerity, actually coinciding with the General Strike of 1926.

A number of people from Merthyr Vale and Aberfan worshipped in the Anglican faith, and indeed they had their own vicar – Rev P Evans. The one thing they didn’t have was their own church. Encouraged by Rev Evans, they decided that they would build a church themselves, and despite the deprivations of the time, and having very little money, plans were drawn up by Rev Evans; Mr Walter March, the engineer of Merthyr Vale Colliery; and Mrs Lewis James.

One of the first problems facing them was where to get the materials needed to build the church. Fortunately the owners of the Glamorganshire Canal told them that they could have the dressed stone from the old, disused pump house near the Pontyrhun Bridge in Troedyrhiw, but they would have to dismantle the building and transport the stones themselves. Mr Ernie Williams, a coal delivery driver from Troedyrhiw offered them the use of his delivery lorry, and every day, people from Merthyr Vale, led by Rev Evans went to Troedyrhiw and pulled down the pump house, stone by stone, and Ernie Williams delivered the stones to Merthyr Vale. After many months of back-breaking work, the building was finally completed, but the generosity didn’t stop there.

merthyrvale_stmaryschurch — Rev Evans and volunteers during the building of the church

Money being very scarce, the group had very little to spare for fixtures and fittings for the new church, however, a church in Aberdare offered the people of Merthyr Vale a pulpit. Once again, the services of Ernie Williams were called upon, and with the aid of a steam wagon borrowed from Merthyr Vale Colliery, not to mention many willing helpers, the pulpit was loaded on to the wagon for the journey to Merthyr Vale. Hearing of the endeavours of the Merthyr Vale group, the firm of Williams and Williams, colliery lamp makers, gave those who had journeyed to Aberdare a free meal.

The journey from Aberdare to Merthyr Vale was not an easy one. The steam wagon travelled at a speed of five miles per hour, and was so heavy that several bridges en route had to be strengthened to take its weight. Despite this, the pulpit arrived in one piece and was installed in the church. The church was consecrated on 12 December 1926.

Sadly, due to subsidence caused by the mine workings at Merthyr Vale Colliery, St Mary’s Church was demolished in 1967, after just over 40 years serving the community. A new church was built on the same site in 1974.

Photos courtesy of Old Merthyr Tydfil (http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm)