Chapter 3 The Derby Lock-Out

Cole’s description above of why the Derby lock-out took centre stage in the trade union history of 1834 seams beyond criticism when contemporary documents are examined. Rule’s and Parssinen and Prothero’s contention that the London tailors’ strike was the central dispute fails to convince when taking into account such factors as the tailors’ union’s meeting of 10 April 1834, where the opinion of the 1,200 tailors present was that upon the outcome of the Derby lock-out "would depend a great deal the fate of the Union (the GNCTU)". The events in Derby were both an important and new form of all out class warfare and the continuation of a solid tradition of trade unionism as will be seen below. These events are rightly commemorated by local Trades Unionists as evidenced by their banner as well as the plaque mentioned in the introductory chapter.

 fig. 3

The "Trades Union" first came to Derby in October 1833 according to their District Secretary, John Hall. Nowhere is this Trades Union referred to in any other fashion than as the Trades Union. It seems likely that it was the Birmingham Trades Union from James Morrison’s enthusiastic support. Thirty-seven men were initiated at the Pheasant Pub, Derby at an inaugural lodge meeting proposed by "friends from Loughborough". Within seven weeks Hall claimed they had 1,500 members, "combined for the protection of their only property - their labour". The "protection of labour", was an argument which came easily to his lips from former involvement with the NAPL. Hall and others prominent in the Derby dispute were clearly experienced union organisers, even the Reporter praised "the organisation of the working classes in ‘Union’" at Derby. The familiarity and trust in which the Derby workers held well known local activists, combined with the feeling of frustration brought about by the actuality of the Reform Act, seem the most likely combination of causes for so many joining a new and untried form of organisation - one influenced by the proto-syndicalist ideology of Morrison - rather than around trade protection.

The Derby Lock-out as Oliver says commenced with a "strike of a smallish number of silkweavers" in one factory. However, the masters soon escalated this into a lock-out of five months duration involving between 1,800 and 2,400 workers, (including non-silkworkers), in a town of only 23,000 inhabitants. The initial strike was one of solidarity over the discharge of a single employee and involved only one manufacturer. This was reported in The Reporter on 21 November 1833:

The attitude of the commentator to workers (one shared by the propertied class in general at the time as noted ten years later by Engels) can clearly be seen in this quote where he describes them as "hands", as though they are merely mindless appendages and describes the process of sacking as "discarding", as if the worker was a piece of rubbish to be thrown away. This strike was seen as a direct challenge to their authority by the masters of Derby. They saw the Union as a new growing and threatening force. The Reporter had indicated in the same issue that "during the last week upwards of 800 of the workmen have joined the Trades Union" . This was in a town that according to the census of 1831 had "900 males over 20 years employed in factory work". If the masters believed that virtually all of their "workmen" had joined a union whose first move was to take strike action against one of the employers for dismissing an employee, it is no wonder that they felt the need to meet to discuss a joint response. This they did, and decided to combine themselves declaring their intention to dismiss any worker who remained a Trades Union member, as can be seen below in the resolution adopted by the twenty masters at Derby, 26 November1833:

The masters then clearly formed a new combination against what they perceived as a modern threat. However, it beggars belief that an entirely new union could convince the vast majority of workmen to join unless they were already used to the ideas of union. This they most certainly were. The NAPL delegates met in Derby in 1831, and the NAPL’s subscription records show that 15 Derby branches paid a total of sixty pounds in 1831, one of the largest amounts. This not only indicates that the silkworkers of Derby, (all the Derby branches listed in the NAPL’s records were silk trades), had been organised in the NAPL but also, as was indicated in the previous chapter, according to the Association’s rule 17: only existing, "regularly organised and united" trades could join, suggesting that there was a tradition of trade unionism existing in the town predating the NAPL.

 fig. 4

The opportunity to organise was there as Derby had a history of factory based silk manufacture going back to the mid Eighteenth Century, with Britain’s first purpose built silk mill which has been preserved as the Derby Industrial Museum (above). The masters must have been aware of, and tolerated, the existence of these societies. So what was it in 1833 which made them respond in this extreme fashion? As an economic dispute it made no sense having all the factories in the town producing little for five months and as rate payers financing twenty-four hour police cover. With this in mind it is difficult to see the dispute in terms other than those which the protagonists themselves claimed for them: a battle between capital and labour for absolute control. The masters make this position clear in their list of resolutions referred to above when they say:

as a result they go on to say:

This was the action of issuing ‘the document’ as it was called, - a legally binding contract that they would abandon the trades union - a standard anti-trades union tactic at the time. They are careful not to preclude union outright but specify the proto-syndicalist objectives of the Trades Union. The Trades Unionists in their "Address to the People of Derby", (which appeared in local papers as well as in the Radical and Trades Union press), made their social revolutionary objectives equally clear:

No room for negotiation or compromise, just a straightforward statement of their intention to consign the masters economic oppression of the workers to the dustbin of history.

Derby was not the only dispute to take place at this time. The Derby masters specifically stated that they had locked out their workers in imitation of successful action taken by employers in other towns. What makes Derby historically important is the national support it received, which gave rise in February to the GNCTU. Why did Derby, and not for example a similar lock-out in Leicester, become this national cause celebre? There is no obvious single answer to this. The dispute was a classic case of injustice and oppression, and therefore, ideally suitable. However, as stated above other disputes were similar. What is different about Derby can be reduced to three things. First, and most importantly, the enduring strength of solidarity and organisational discipline amongst the Derby Trades Unionists. According to Mr. Walthall a Derby resident in 1834 "not a single worker in the whole of the borough deserted the union". The second reason for Derby’s national celebrity was the clearly stated resolutions of the masters. That they put their position so boldly and proceeded to publish it in the local newspaper (which was then reprinted by the Trades Union press) led The Pioneer to say to the masters of Derby that they had "in great measure been instrumental in forming the GNCTU; for the naked intolerance of your declaration aroused thousands from their apathy, and awoke a general desire to amalgamate our interests and resources." The final factor was the skill of the local activists, who not only used the local and Trades Union media to publish their ‘Trades Unionists’ address to the people of Derby’ and pleas for assistance from fellow Trades Unionists, but also made journeys as delegates to meetings in London and Birmingham to press their case for assistance.

The local solidarity and national support, combined with the intransigent positions of masters and workers led to the Lock-Out continuing throughout the winter months. This was more than anyone had expected. The local bourgeois press had predicted that "the conflict cannot last long", while the Trades Unionists intended to become independent of the capitalists altogether through co-operative production rather than be dependent on their fellow workers for any length of time. It was this unexpectedly drawn out need for support which led the London tailors to suggest the setting up of a General Union at a ‘Special Meeting of Trades Union Delegates’ organised in February at London for that purpose.

Therefore, as Rule argues: the formation of the GNCTU’s

Unlike these earlier disputes though, support was not " mere sympathy for unionists on strike", but "something much more positive: an experiment in co-operation". By this, he is arguing that the GNCTU’s support for the Derby dispute was political and revolutionary as well as economic. Oliver makes the same point when he indicates that "the London carvers and guilders, for example, saluted ‘the men of Derby - the pioneers of our social revolution’ ". The Derby Unionists saw themselves in this light also, in their ‘Address’ they implore: "Operatives of England . . . in whose cause we now struggle, will you stand by and see us crushed to the earth by such men?". Parssinen and Prothero’s assertions that the GNCTU was set up by the London Grand Lodge of Tailors (the London Tailors’ Union) in effect to finance their own desire to take strike action later in the year, simply does not stand up to examination. The London Tailors undoubtedly had a long history, as had many other unions, but long history is not necessarily the same as conservative aspirations. Oliver has pointed out that the Tailors’ Union had been re-organized in November 1833 "to form a single union including all grades of workmen, thus ending the domination of the long-service ‘honourables’". He also quotes Place as saying they had become "Owenized and Union mad". The change of the organisation and membership requirements of the Tailors effectively from a trade union to a trades union in November happened at the same time as the enthusiasm for a similar transformation was occurring in the silk workers organisation of Derby. These were not actions explicable simply by indicating the traditional trade support activities of trade unions which is what R. Sykes attempts to do when he discusses the GNCTU in the quote below:

It must be said that the interpretation of the GNCTU as a traditional formation of trade societies to assist each other in a time of crisis is not completely without merit. The GNCTU could certainly not have been organised so quickly had there not been a history, and personal experience amongst trade unionists of this sort of solidarity tactic. The weekly list of subscriptions in the Pioneer were providing this function and continued to do so after the founding of the GNCTU. However, there remain significant novelties within the GNCTU which cannot so easily be explained away. The Derby Lock-out was, as has been noted, not based on the masters demand to workers to abandon trade union, but trades union (and the social revolutionary agenda which went with it). This was a position so opposed by Derby workers that they were prepared to be thrown into poverty for five months as a result. The London Tailors who were obliquely accused in the quote above of having a selfish hidden agenda, were "arguing that money should be deflected from mere relief to co-operative production" at the founding meeting of the GNCTU. This is what Oliver describes as

Contrary to Sykes’ opinion that "there is no evidence of Owenite involvement with individual local unions", Owen was recorded by the Derby Reporter as speaking at two separate meetings, one of masters and the other of workers in the town during January 1834 (he also visited the town on 31 March). The meeting of workers was apparently packed out and his speech received enthusiastic cheers when he made points in praise of the workers. Unfortunately, as K. Taylor argues: Owen "wished to avoid the kind of social conflict which many elements in the working class seemed to regard as inevitable". At the masters’ meeting he met a predictably hostile reception. Typical of Owen, his stated aim was to convince the masters and workers to come to an amicable agreement. Something which neither set of class enemies could possibly do.

With these intractable positions set there was always likely to be a long drawn out dispute. That it was not also spiced by violent mob action was less predictable, as there was plenty of precedent locally and in traditional disputes. Reaction to the rejection of the second Reform Bill in 1831 at Derby (as in other parts of England) was brutal where "a mob attacked the city gaol and released the prisoners, and a few lives were lost". The five months of the lock-out are almost entirely devoid of reports of serious violence from the Unionists side. If anything the Trades Unionists reduced the level of violence in the town by a show of strength and organisation in February when they stopped the local "ancient custom" of Shrovetide football in which:

They replaced it with two days of marching to outlying villages. This restraint and organisation was clearly a departure from the "mayhem and destruction" of two years previously and owes much to Owen’s ideas that:

The local propertied class press certainly saw the level of working class organisation as a new and frightening development not one beneficial to them at all. On 26 February the Derby Mercury, for example said:

The distinction between a customary wages strike and the social revolutionary proposal of a "committee of workmen" dictating terms to the masters is clear in this passage. The implication being that a wages strike would be a damnable inconvenience but that this new form of dispute was a threat to their whole structure of society.

It is important to note that the dispute was not of an entirely novel kind. It has previously been indicated that it rested upon a base of trade union organisation and popular rebellion. There are also records of community behaviour with roots in the Eighteenth Century such as the practice of ‘rough music’. These events surround the - on the whole again surprisingly non-violent - confrontations between the Trades Unionists and ‘black sheep’ (scabs brought in to replace the locked-out in the mills). One such event recorded in The Pioneer, saw ‘black sheep’ being taunted by the burning of an effigy of a sheep and continued bleating "Ba" at the scab ‘black sheep’ by Derby women Trades Unionists. It all ended when "the whole of the black sheep absconded with their shepherd, to the neighbourhood of Thorn Tree Lane, accompanied by a band of music formed by various culinary utensils". The partiality of the magistrates was cast in the traditional role of supporting the ruling classes interests (now including the bourgoisie). The incident above was punished by fining and binding over the three women who led it; a mild sentence compared to the earlier three months imprisonment of a woman "for crying Ba! to a black sheep" at a previous incident. The involvement of women both here as leaders in customary community action and as participants in industrial action for refusing to sign the document is well recorded. This was something which the supporters of the Trades Unionists took pride in and the masters showed fear of. The 12 February Mercury reported that "latterly a considerable number of females have ceased from their usual employment, in consequence of refusing to sign the declaration required of them by the Manufacturers". This can only mean that the masters had overlooked these women as potential Trades Union members on account of their gender and, as it was a lock-out rather than a strike, the women saw no obligation to leave work until presented with the document. Clear evidence of the local success of The Pioneer’s policy of encouraging women into Trades Union membership.

Even with the evidently high levels of solidarity in the town and unprecedented support from the emergent working class movement nation wide, the Trades Unionists which had looked so strong and increasing in determination to The Mercury in February was all but finished in April. The high hopes of co-operative production and self organisation were dashed and the workers forced back to wage slavery entirely on the masters terms. What had caused this complete turn around of the fate of a solid local organisation which had survived the hard winter months intact? The answer lies not only in the reduction of funds flowing into Derby from the national solidarity network as historians such as Cole have assumed. It is also tightly entwined with the formation of the GNCTU and the sentencing of the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

Funds certainly were diminishing, the Pioneer published lists of subscribers to the Derby fund weekly and although still a long and impressive display of country wide solidarity it fell off a little in March and April. This can in part perhaps be explained by the shilling levy to the GNCTU replacing individually acknowledged branch subscriptions. If that was the case the money was not all reaching its target, by April the Derby delegates were again writing and travelling out to lodge meetings around England to plead for support. The 26 April edition of J. E. Smith’s co-operative movement journal The Crisis painted a bleak picture of the plight of the Locked-out in which they reported:

Why had the condition of the Derby Trades Unionists deteriorated so rapidly from their condition of reasonable health and spirits in February when they had been fit enough to embark on marches into the countryside on mass? This can be explained by local and national factors. Locally, many women Unionists were still employed until mid-February and so were bringing in wages for their families as well as contributing to the Derby Union fund. Nationally, The Crisis blames the executive of the GNCTU which had taken over control of the Derby fund from March, heaping particular scorn on executive officer James Hall (a different Hall from the capable Derby district secretary) who they accused of having "already embarked for Sydney, New South Wales, [with] God knows how much of the money of the poor operatives". This accusation of mishandling of funds has some evidence of justification as the mid-February founding meeting of the GNCTU had pronounced a clean bill of health on the management and "strictest economy" of disposal of funds by the Birmingham Committee. Ironically, the setting up of the GNCTU had indirectly led to the demise of the Derby dispute which had inspired the Consolidated Union’s establishment.

The single event which seems to have had the most impact on the end game of the Lock-out was the sentencing of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. This led to a shift in emphasis of Derby’s supporters from the Lock-out to the Martyrs and gave the masters of Derby a big legal stick with which to beat the Trades Unionists. This opinion is contradictory to Parssinen and Prothero’s that the "result [of the sentencing of 6 Dorchester labourers] was to reinforce trade union solidarity, strengthen the GNCTU, and bring it radical support". The sentencing on 19 March of these pitiable agricultural labourers weakened the working class identity of the Grand National (it was at this point that Owen joined the union) and split its focus away from pure concentration upon the Derby dispute. The Magistrates of Derby moved swiftly to take advantage of this newly discovered legal weapon and issued a "Borough of Derby Caution" in the local press threatening Derby Trades Union organisers with transportation .

By 23 April The Mercury was exulting that:

This constitutes continued acknowledgement of workers solidarity and order from their media enemies even at the point of the absolute victory of the masters.

The total failure of the GNCTU to adequately support Derby due to the corruption of one class traitor (James Hall) and the complicating factor of Tolpuddle led to the smashing of the earlier confidence of the GNCTU’s leaders. It can come as no surprise that after pumping funds and huge effort into a five month battle, fought over the prize of the workers’ control of production that ended in total defeat, they became more cautious. It would seem that Derby not only led to the formation of the GNCTU, but also to its demise. In the final chapter the case will be put for Derby against other historians contentions that the Tailors strike, Owenism or Tolpuddle were the most important aspects of this period of labour history.