The following piece was written in 1989 - for the anniversary of the strike - and published in the long forgotten 'South London Record'. It was almost the first piece I ever had published and, reading it now, I realise how much the text reflects - well - reflects 1989.
It have published it because on Friday I did a talk for Lewisham Local History Society on gas in Greenwich. Afterwards people asked questions, mentioned the strike and said that as 'everyone knew' Will Thorne set up a 'new union' for gasworkers, and struck for the 8 hour day in South London agains George Livesey and South Met. Gas.. They all got quite annoyed when I said that nothing in that statement was true.
Reading this piece now I am not sure that among all the detail that I made that clear even then. The 'new unions' were a concept dreamt up by 1960s academics and demonstrably rubbish. Gasworkers had been organised for years and there had been major strikes before 1889. It was illegal for gasworkers to strike, so what happened was a mass giving in of notices. Will Thorne was in Manchester throughout and didn't return to London until all was lost, and then gave a nonsense speech. The South Met. workers didn't come out for the 8 hour day - which they already had - they came out for union reconition and the right to organise in the workplace.
The South London union members were playing by what they thought were the rules - and they expected management to behave predicatably. But management was George Livesey who always talked conventionally and then did the exact opposite.
I would write this now very differently. I think the South London workforce were basically stitched up - although I am not sure who by. Livesey had nursed the ideas of a 'partnership scheme' with the workforce for the past 30 years and been stopped from implementing it by his Board. He hated the idea of the union - 'outsiders' in 'his' gasworks - but he probably hated the North London Gas managers at Beckton more than that. It also looks - between the lines - if Beckton had done a deal with Thorne of some sort.
Who knows! The piece contains lots of local detail - fights in Blackwall Lane, goings on in local pubs, Birmingham roughs upsetting Rotherhithe , and much more ............
South London in 1889 was the scene of a massive strike of gas workers. In these quiet streets workers and police battled while thousands of blacklegs worked under siege conditions until the strike was broken.
The gas industry was changing. Until the 1880s gas had been
sold mainly for street lighting - now electricity was a competitor; traditional
ways of working were being changed. London Gas Companies had been forced by
government and consumer group pressure to cut prices and profits and made to
amalgamate for efficiency. Companies were often owned by the local authority
but in London (with no unified strong local government) they stayed in private
hands. In 1889 the first London County Council had been elected with a remit to
municipalise.
Gas workers, managers and owners all felt under threat.
The strike took place in the South Metropolitan Gas Company,
which supplied gas to Lambeth, Greenwich and Southwark and prided themselves on
a good public service; with low prices. They also prided themselves on good
employee relations. Since the 1870s there were paid holidays and help with sick
and superannuation schemes. They did not get on with the Chartered Company
which covered most of North London.
Most important was South Met's remarkable Chairman, George
Livesey who had helped along several revolutions in the industry. For years he
had nurtured idealistic views. He intended to put it into practice.
The company’s works were at Old Kent Road; South Met.'s
original works. George Livesey had been
brought up in a house on site. Opposite
is the library he gave to the people of Camberwell in 1888
These events happened in the same streets we see today, to people
who lived in thesame houses, used the same shops, churches. parks and pubs. -
Gas workers were not all 'stokers'. Others handled the coal worked
in the streets, were tradesmen, meter readers, fitters. More stokers were
employed in the winter than the summer and they were big men at the peak of
their strength with more involved in the job than unremitting shovelling. Most
works ran 12 hour shifts on and off seven days a week.
Many of these men were churchgoers - deeply respectable,
involved in temperance and friendly societies, as well as political parties and
trade unions. Among them George Livesey was known as a benefactor, a local
Sunday School teacher, a founder of the Band of Hope, local boys and temperance
clubs. Both sides laid claim to temperance - it was a sign of respectability
and status. Roughs drank in pubs - respectable gas workers were abstainers.
People know about Will Thorne and have read how he and
Eleanor Marx formed the Gas Workers
Union and won the 8 hour-day. The impression that gas workers hadn't been unionised until 1889 is not so.In fact gas workers had organised
together from the first days of the industry including a major strike in 1872
federated throughout London when activists were imprisoned. Laws were passed to
make strikes illegal and notices hung inside gas works about this. Local union
branches probably just lay low.
Will Thorne was from Manchester and had worked at the Old
Kent Road .He described vividly the hardness of gasworkers' lives. By 1889 had
moved to East London and in early 1889 he began to organise and set up a union structure. Individual
branches organised separately, gas workers of South London saw very little of
him and nothing at all of Eleanor Marx,
although she lived in Sydenham.
Some activists were members of the left wing Social
Democratic Federation with branches in Deptford, Peckham and Wandsworth - and a
social life of brass bands, club rooms, draughts and cards. Union activity spread to South London and on
11th May 1889 a half mile long
procession of gasworkers’ converged on Deptford Broadway with a stevedores brass band, silk banners
from local temperance bodies and Will
Thorne. They called for the eight hour shift system. Soon branches were active in most works
including Old Kent Road (with a paid secretary, Mr Heard, ordering handbills)
and Greenwich (buying bills and posters). They met in Coffee Taverns in
Blackwall Lane, Peckham High Street and
Woolwich; Lambs Lane Schoolroom; St
Joseph's Catholic Church or Three Cups Hall in East Greenwich.
Two South Met. branch representatives attended an all-London
meeting of the GWU on 20th May where it
was decided to petition management for
72 retorts per shift (the 8 hour day). This petition was agreed to by a mass meeting at Deptford
and sent to the South Met. Board. The
Manager at Rotherhithe told Mr Rowbottom, the union representative, 'if the men acted
straightforward' they would be treated
similarly.
They met Livesey and a week later a notice appeared in all
the works. This gave possible changes
and asked the men to decide which scheme
- 8 or 12 hours - they would prefer with a ballot for each works. The offer made was complex and
detailed. The eight hour system involved
a different pace.
It was not necessarily easier. The ballot result showed that 'in all cases the 8
hour shift was preferred' but the Board
minuted that after this there should be 'no more concessions'.
Most gas workers were now on 8 hour shifts and the GWU named
28th July as "the day of our
emancipation". A celebration demonstration was held in Hyde Park. 12,000
heard Will Thorne, and John Burns - with
local leader Mark Hutchins, and MP Mark Beaufoy (the vinegar magnate whose Kennington Liberal Party
branch had just called on him to support
the gasworkers).
Once the eight hour day had been won life returned to
normal. A benefit was held at the
Deptford Liberal Club, the SDF held meetings at 20 Frobisher Street, and at Hadleys Coffee
Shop, Deptford Bridge; their Peckham
drum and fife band practised, South Met. Directors were proud to announce a reduction in gas
prices following their successful campaign to abolish coal dues and the Star
Band of Hope Drum and Fife Band played
at the Athletic Club prize giving. Throughout
August South Met. fought the Chartered" Gas Company in the House of Lords. Judgement was found against
them and George Livesey was not happy. He was too busy
to attend the meeting of the Local
Option Movement but went to the Workmen's Association for Defence of British Industry in Camberwell,
chaired by a Conservative Fair Trader
and a few days later he distributed prizes at a Peckham school on behalf of the Band of
Hope. At the same time one of the most
significant events of the decade was taking place - the great dock strike - 'the match to set the Thames afire'. Along the Riverside dock workers marched, suffered and
won their 'tanner'. Gas companies and
union men watched their progress.
The GWU concentrated on recruitment - 'a determination to persuade, and if that failed to compel every
man in the Company's employ to join'. They
were helped by the SDF with meetings like that outside Christ Church, East Greenwich, where a
gas worker talked about socialism, or at
the gasworks gates in Marsh Lane where they could intercept churchgoers. A meeting on Peckham
Rye called for Livesey to be forced to
recognise the union and in September the union wrote to him saying that retort house workers should
be union members. The company replied
that the union would not be recognised and that non-union men would be protected. Men were
sacked at Vauxhall and the union said
that unless they were reinstated work would cease. 'The entire body of stokers' handed in their
statutory weeks’ notice.
Unable to cope and with preparations only partly made 'Mr
Livesey stated his willingness to
recognise the union'. An agreement was signed
'The Company agree ... that members of the Gas Stokers Union shall not .,. be interfered with by ...
the company'. The Directors had also
resolved that the union 'cannot be recognised'.
All over Britain GWU branches put demands to management, sometimes
- in Bristol and Manchester - these turned to
strikes. Elsewhere they were conceded'. The trade press wrote that a major
confrontation must soon come 'in a
London works' and although John Burns was not 'in the same berth as the anarchist of the
Continent' in South Met. 'only directors
rule'.
At a Barking meeting the GWU agreed, with 'vigorous socialist
speech', to ask for the abolition of Sunday working. Sunday working is a more complicated issue than it appears. Livesey
had tried to get it abolished 20 years
earlier carrying out a survey with the Lords Day Observance Society - accusations of exploiting
workers on a Sunday would provoke an
angry reaction.
In times of industrial unrest London Gas Company managements
always set up a joint committee and such
a meeting was held on 4th November at
the Cannon Street Hotel between the Union and London Managements - including South Met. The
meeting saw a measure of agreement -
both sides acknowledged the need for recreation and agreed that technical
problems were the difficulty on a day of
peak demand. They adjourned for consultation and reconvened on the 11th with much agreement - the GWU
'devoutly wished for peaceful working so
admirably put by the Chairman' and the Chair, Mr Jones of the Commercial Co., was
'overwhelmed by the virtue of the strike committee'. South Met. management did
not attend this second meeting and
union representatives reported 'overtures being made by South Met. to the men to detach
themselves from the union for a "
bonus'.
Livesey had declared war on the GWU. South Met. had
abandoned moves towards a formal
negotiating structure. Between the two Cannon
Street meetings Livesey introduced plans to smash the smash the union, reduce costs and implement
his grand and long dreamt of scheme for
partnership of consumer, shareholder and workforce.
He and his wife had been in Eastbourne and on returning to
the works he walked across Telegraph Hill. He had the
idea then that it ought to be a public
park. At Old Kent Road he met Charles Tanner head foreman who said 'the stokers are all in
the union - we have lost all authority - unless you do something - we
shall be completely in the power. Livesey said 'I had not thought out anything
but in a quarter of an hour on half a
sheet of paper!'
In this he was a liar. This profit sharing scheme was
something he nursed lovingly for years
and had only been prevented from using
it by board members who saw it as madness. It was no straightforward scheme but something so
clever" and intricately thought out
that it became an instrument by which South Met. workers became the willing slaves of the
company; happy, obedient, property owning,
non-union men. It called for hard work, conformity and respectability . it offered security.
Livesey saw a partnership of company and consumer embodied
in the sliding scale by which the gas industry
price and profit was calculated and
originally promoted by him. Now he was to add the workforce into this partnership. The bonus was directly linked to the price of gas; rising as it fell. In order to qualify
workers had to sign an agreement to work for a year. Dates of agreements would
be staggered to make strikes impossible.
Many workers signed at once sending their thanks 'to the Employers - for their generous
concession'.
On 21st November the company held a meeting at Old Kent Road
for men who had signed (a transcript was
published). Livesey told them 'the
orange has been squeezed dry ... now is the time to have some- thing more than the mere labour of workmen -
we want his interest'. Some of the
workers present raised their concerns - what would happen, for instance, if someone was
victimised by a foreman? Concessions
were made in detail and a consultation structure set up. But the clause penalising strike action, on
which Livesey was adamant, remained. A
carpenter, Henry Austin, suggested that company
shares should be sold to workers under the scheme. Austin was an eccentric amateur etymologist who
became one of the first worker directors
at South Met. after share purchase was introduced four years later.
Will Thorne said 'those that signed the agreements were
cowards, tyrants and curs' and he went
to Manchester to stay for the next six weeks.
Union men did not sign the agreement and within a fortnight union activists at Vauxhall had said they
could not work with three men who had
signed. They said 'all the men in the South Metropolitan Gas Works are justified in giving
their notices forth- with until the
scheme be abolished'. The Board sent this on to the daily papers commenting 'it has been the rule
of the company for at least fifty years
that men who strike leave the company without hope of return'.
Before noon on the 5th December 2000 notices had been handed
in and the Board set in motion their
plans. Agents had been sent round the
country to obtain blacklegs; in the Kent
brickfields 'willing workers' were being offered a bonus and free food on top of wages - 5/4 for an eight hour
shift. The entire staff of Ramsgate Gas
Works was recruited - to the annoyance of Mr Valon, its manager; agents were giving away beer in
Cambridge . In Yarmouth 'scabs protected by the police were taken off by tram
but the local SDF branch saw them off
'with a warm groan'. Barclay' Brewery
sent men, workhouse inmates were told to apply or lose benefit; the Prisoners
Aid Society directed discharged prisoners there, Gas workers on strike from the
Manchester arrived - they said Londoners always blacklegged on them. 'Free
Labour' also came -men recruited as dedicated strike-breakers by politically
motivated agents like William Collinson,
who wrote a book about it although John
Burns said Livesey 'dropped Free Labour like a hot potato' .
Corrugated iron huts were erected inside the works. Food was
hrought in - animals, tinned meat,
tapioca and bread from the Golden Grain
Bread Co. Beer from the Lion Brewery was provided _ criticised by temperance strikers who thought
Livesey was on their side in this
-'this virtuous gent is one of the shining lights of the temperance platform
yet he has collected numerous barrels of beer anxious to make his blackleg crew roaring
drunk.' '
Success for the strikers would need stoppage of the coal
supply. The coal porters union had just
submitted a claim to all London employers for an increase but South Met.
disputed it. This parallel dispute continued.
. Another union involved was the Sailors and Firemen's with some success in stopping cargoes
arriving.
A strike committee, with Mark Hutchins as Chair opened' its headquarters
opposite the works at 592 Old Kent Road. Picketing began and soon men sent from Mitcham Workhouse were
given breakfast and sent home. A party
from Portsmouth returned home from Clapham
Junction taking union leaflets.
John Burns sent a postcard from Manchester 'Dear Sir, I will
render the strike committee all the help I am capable of to resist this latest demand to crush your union'. He was the local
hero - at demonstrations men wore pictures of him in their hats.
In very cold weather 2000 people met on Peckham Rye to hear
Mark Hutchins say the bonus scheme had
been set up to break the union. A lamplighter
called out 'stokers did not get such a bad wage'. He was knocked down and dumped in a pond.
The incident pointed to a problem. The public did not
understand why relatively well paid gas
workers should strike against something apparently
offering financial advantages and security.
'People are willing to help the docker because
he was very poor but are not willing to help
the stoker who is reported to get 35/- a week'.
The strikers had given a weeks’ notice; tension mounted. On
Monday afternoon Livesey returned from
an interview with Police Commissioner
Munro to find a crowd of stokers in the yard at Old Kent Road arguing with the Chief Engineer. He
threatened them all with prosecution
alleging thereply was 'can't help that master we must obey the union'. Forms for summonses had
already been made out and by late
afternoon 50 policemen had marched into each works 'to relieve public fear of destruction of geometers'.
On Tuesday morning nine strangers were
seen in East Greenwich and men downed
tools until they were gone.
On Wednesday Livesey met the Union Executive. Positions were
restated. The Union wanted the scheme
withdrawn - the company refused.
There were attempts at reconciliation by outside bodies. A
deputation of local MPs and local
clergymen tried for an hour and a half to persuade Livesey that the right to strike was
'sacred'. He told them to mind their own
business. Non-conformist ministers were told unionists had given in their legal
notice and were leaving. Later on the Labour
Co-partnership Association which had been agitating for years for schemes like Livesey's as a solution
to industrial ills made a major attempt
at negotiating a settlement.
The Strike Committee issued a statement: 'the directors will
not advance one inch .... we deeply regret
this step fully knowing the inconvenience
to which it will put the general public .... we hope that all trade unions will see in this a test case
as to the right of existence of trade
unions versus bonus'.
Arrangements were made for the day when men would leave. All
workers contributed 3d a week to a
superannuation scheme and would withdraw
their 'lump sums' - they would have to live on some- thing. The 'old men' would leave the works by
6am - the 'new men' would come in two
hours later. Men at, West Greenwich threw blankets into Deptford Creek. The last gangs
at Greenwich and Old Kent Road, set fire
to washrooms. An effigy of Livesey was burnt outside the Pilot in Riverway, and a black fog
hung over London.
Men began to leave on 13th December, played out by the SDF
brass band. A procession of sympathisers was turned back by police who, many mounted, lined the streets - others were
in reserve in railway waiting rooms. A
train from Spalding arrived at Victoria and replacement workers marched across
Vauxhall Bridge. A train from Margate came
into Cannon Street at 10 am with new workers for Bankside. Men were brought to the West Greenwich works
wharf in 'two strange steamers' having embarked at Woolwich from trains at Arsenal station.
The ‘'new men' needed to be big and strong to do the work.
Reporters hurl noted the 'old men' had
an 'average height of at least 5'10"
and wore all of powerful build'. Now the
'new men' were evaluated, 'there were many of Herculean build - there were seamen,
navvies 'and raw youths.
1000 stokers' wives lined the streets to see the shift out
watched by the police under Inspector
Munro. The press reported men leaving 'in dejected state'. The 'new men' left the
station and walked two by two down the
middle of the road between 'two compact lines of constables on foot' to gates
where the pickets had been withdrawn. In the Old Kent Road there was a fight at Canal
Bridge gate - the' Strike Committee
wanted Livesey to come and witness police behaviour.
There had been a fight at Rotherhithe. Out of a crowd of 100
Fred Cook from Wapping was arrested for
striking a policeman on the back. He
said the policeman had cut his lip and he had a witness to it - William Causton, secretary of the
Rotherhithe Strike Committee. Causton
took the policeman's number to the police station - from where he was ejected with force. Jim Bright of
Peckham was arrested for kicking
policemen in the legs while drunk - Jim Beaton had tried to rescue him until he too was arrested with
Sarah Manor and Edith Calvert for
throwing stones at the police.
In Blackwall Lane 50
mounted police escorted blacklegs from Westcombe
Park Station to East Greenwich works when 'a lively scrimmage' broke out. Police said that
striker's stones had concussed one
sergeant - a stone was produced in court. Another had his helmet knocked off - also produced, muddy and dented.
One striker had been snatched from
custody by pickets. Despite a local clergyman's testimony to the good character
of James Parker, age 20, he and three others
all living around Blackwall Lane were sentenced to hard labour.
Picketing was more successful at Vauxhall where 160 from Birmingham agreed to return. Reports
circulated that police would not let
blacklegs out even if they wanted - they were pushed back over the wall when they tried to climb out.
The blacklegs were now in the works and the only question
left was - can they make the gas? It was
mid-December-freezing and foggy. Local
people watched the great gasholders at Old Kent Road, Oval and East Greenwich all landmarks in their
districts, to try to gauge' the success
of the strike by
the amount of gas in them. Rumour said that the holder at Old Kent Road was really
full of air. By morning the fog had
begun to disperse. Gas was made - the company was coping.
The 'loyal workforce' produced an ecstatic memorial of
thanks but the people showed sympathy for their striking neighbours. The local papers
thought the strike committee 'a fine body of men' and the local vestrys would
not co-operate with Livesey's requests for help. Mr Stockbridge, Vice-Chairman of the Lambeth
Guardians spoke on strike platforms. Dulwich and Penge Liberal Party passed a resolution
against police violence and collected for the strike fund. The George Livesey Lodge of the Old Comrades and
Sons of Phoenix changed its name to the
John Bums Lodge. At Bermondsey vestry Harry
Quelch, SDF activist; complained the street lighting wasn't safe and proposed they sue the company - it
was referred to the LCC. Kennington
Liberal and Radical Club passed a resolution against the use of police in labour disputes.
Support came from other unions, the Dockers' Hydraulic
Branch would not lift coal, the Bakers'
Union would not bake bread inside the Works.
The Sailors and Firemen were 'still pegging away' to prevent coal arriving. 50 men watched from Creek Bridge as
a screw collier unloaded. By Tuesday two
ships were ready - one at the jetty And one
in the Commercial Docks. Fifty men were sent under police escort to unload them.
Conditions were bad inside the works. Blacklegs complained
of drunkenness. A foreman left because
of the dirt. Men were ill. There special
sanitary arrangements with unpleasant disinfectant - blacklegs were re 'wallowing in filth'. The
Medical Officer of Health at Lambeth Vestry
inspected
works at the striker's request. There was ale in zinc buckets, and clay pipes. Between
the gasholders at Old Kent Road was a
marquee with a piano and an old retort bench for heating. The work was unfamiliar and more
skilled 'than many recognised. Men were injured
- 150 were burnt and one was killed moving a coal truck. Military ambulances were
requisitioned for injuries.
William Derry a striking stoker, got into a fight at the
Dover Castle Deptford. He had taken a
'pint of ale' there together with two herrings
ands a haddock from a blackleg's pocket. The police found them all in the Rose and Crown unable to walk
and buying hot rum.
“Free Labour” meant Birmingham teenagers. 'Not worth the
expense of bringing them down' said the
Company. Thomas Cooper and John Henny
both 16 from Birmingham were arrested drunk and disorderly in Rotherhithe. Disgusted strikers said they were 'a rough
lot who did not mean to work and were
busy dodging the foremen'. They said blacklegs
smoked through church services held in the works. Mr Cady
complained bitterly - Birmingham roughs, too young to work.
Union representatives met Livesey to find he would make no
concessions . He would take men back when there were vacancies _ he could not discharge new hands to whom he had a legal
obligation. The union stated 'We went
out on strike with no object of gaining an increase we cannot forget the attachment that
we feel to our old employers and nothing
would give us greater satisfaction than a return to our previous good relations.'
Two strikers entered the West Greenwich works on Saturday
night - Tom Elliot (31 Bellot Street)
and Tom Jevons (21 Coleraine Road). They
spoke to the blacklegs in the canteen 'why don't. you act as men it's
through you our wives and children are starving', They were arrested.
Striker's families were feeling the pinch. Money collected
at demonstrations was the main source of income and men were advised to find other work if they could. Strikes in
Manchester and Woolwich Arsenal had to
be financed too. Parades as morale builders continued every day and funds collected. R. Smith of
Deptford raised money through publishing a book of poems. Deptford
SDF held a grand dioramic and vocal
entertainment', and at Trinity Hall, Deptford the brass band of the Greenwich branch of the gas
stokers played selections. Strikers marched from East Greenwich to the concert
where there were speeches.
Despite very bad weather, Greenwich gasworkers marched all the
way to Hyde Park with an effigy of
Livesey to hear Edward Aveling and Ben
Tillet. They were overshadowed by Mr Weir, a compositor who said that Livesey should not be allowed
'to live 24 hours - he ought to be got
rid of.' There was a furore in the press and Weir ~as tried for incitement to murder. Livesey also
received threatening letters 'Note Mr
Livesey as you won't give in and my family is starving for a bit of bread beware o'dynamite
your place will be blown up a bit before
Christmas'.
On Christmas Eve the holders were full of gas and the strike
in Manchester had collapsed. Xmas
brought extra strike pay, beer and tobacco
at Vauxhall Working Men's Club thanks to Reverend Morris. Blacklegs got extra food, tobacco, pay and
amusements. Street fighting continued in Rotherhithe.
800 met on Peckham Rye, 'in the middle of a dense fog upon
till I Cr "I. n as hard as iron and
white with hoar frost'. What they needed was support from North London gasworkers who
had stayed resolutely in work. An
unsavoury incident involving the leader of the Coal Porters Union who offered the North London
Chartered Company a 110 strike deal if
they would persuade their workers to leave the GWU and join the Coal Porters.
By New Year 1890 the
'new men' were hardly 'new anymore and afraid
they would be discharged if the strike was settled - they were aII reassured but 'old men' were returning to
work - coal porters at West Greenwich
with promises of future good behaviour. Those still out described them as 'sneaking rats, double dyed
traitors - the ordinary blackleg is
white in comparison with such miserable curs'.
Rumours of fever at
Rotherhithe led to notices of denial on entrances although five men were in Guys with 'Russian
influenza'. Worse were rumours of lice.
Anxious to end the siege conditions the company got local ‘reverend gentlemen of the State
superstition' from Greenwich to find lodgings
through a door to door canvass by their Sunday School teachers
On the 8th January the strike committee were
thrown out of their offices. The police
came in the morning and without knocking broke down the shutters and windows. Furniture,
books, papers and musical instruments
were all thrown into the street. They went to a coffee house at 87 Old Kent Road and put up a poster 'The
Battering Ram Brigade of London'. Meanwhile Greenwich branch had a new banner with “two figures standing in the road,
one a gas worker about to enter the gas
house and in the other a capitalist dressed in the usual Mother Grundy fashion'.
By the end of the next week the press were claiming the
strike was over. A meeting was held at
Mile End Assembly Rooms - 2000 men were
still out and it was costing £1000 a week, while weather was improving and the chance of casual work
lessening. They said they would call on
Parliament, people and trade unionists for help for unity and freedom and, and
for progress and right. They must appeal to trade union movement Livesey could not hold
out against the miners and coal trimmers
There was a promise of a weekly levy from 800 hatters and £5
a week from the glassblower but the press
claimed that Will Thorne was being paid
£2.5s a week and Mark Hutchins was getting nothing. T.Bailey of the Southern Counties Labour
League said from the window of the Rose
and Crown in Lambeth that the union was not bankrupt. Thorne had told West Southwark
Radical Club that there was only £800
left.
Thorne spoke on 17th January: 'they had come out for eight
hours and they would go back for eight
hours,' continuing with more drama 'they
were not going to creep and crawl to Livesey for work, they would become revolutionists - a revolt of
every working man in England to
overwhelm the
country'. Mark Hutchins said he had hoped to be able to announce the end of the
strike. They had been to Livesey with an
offer but while they were talking the Secretary pulled him away. The London Trades Council had
been asked to find a solution and on 4th
February it was announced that an agreement had been reached at a mass meeting at the
Hatcham Liberal Club.
'That, except where mutually agreed to the contrary the
company reverts to the eight hour system
- that in the event of any vacancies arising
the directors will give their former workmen the opportunity of returning to their employment in preference
to strangers.'
The strike headquarters became an agency co-ordinating help
for hard-pressed families and an appeal
was issued. They were soon to be visited
by Livesey with a donation.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
Telegraph Hill was dedicated as a memorial to the strike. Livesey's bonus scheme flourished. It became
'co-partnership' and all workers became
shareholders.
They were encouraged to put bonus payments into property -
the company formed a building society. A
consultation process was set up with
elected representatives to discuss workplace problems and policy. Three company directorships were
elected by the shareholding workforce -
with the same rights and powers as directors appointed by capitalist shareholders. Livesey fought
long and hard to get legislation for these changes through a hostile board and
House of Commons. By the 1920s most gas
companies still in private hand had
schemes like it - but without the worker directors.
Following a speech by Will Thorne in 1892 GWU membership was
banned at South Met. There are stories of workers victimised when their union membership was discovered.
Although GWU maintained branches in the
area membership was often from other trades.
The South Met. gas workers' dispute has been described as an
episode in new unionism. This is only partly
true - it is about something more complicated. New unionism is about the casual
unskilled previously unorganised joining
together. Gas workers in 1889 probably
didn't see themselves as casual and unskilled but as workers whose status as respectable people
with steady jobs was under l threat. The
union offered them a means of maintaining their deputy and achieving some control over it.
George Livesey responded by offering his workforce a means
of achieving both identity and control.
The union spoke of liberty of the individual
Livesey offered them the chance to become Company men. His success can be measured in the hundreds of
gas industry employees who still in 1989 see themselves and their families as
something special because they work in gas in South London. To
quote one 'I am a socialist and I know it was all wrong - but it was a very
good scheme.
Today workers are being offered property ownership,
respectability, in return for membership
of the institutions of labour -which is
why what happened in South London in 1889 is something we should, take heed of
