ONE hundred years ago this week, the 1926 General Strike began in Britain, writes Stephen Wainwright.
At the time no-one knew how long what the St Helens Reporter called a "momentous crisis" would last.
And so St Helens Council chose to make contingencies for a lengthy stoppage.
These centred on the recruitment of paid volunteers to keep essential services going, with this notice posted around the town: "Men, women and children must be fed.
"Essential services must be maintained.
"Vital industries must be kept going.
"For this purpose volunteers are needed.
"Are you prepared to serve?
"If so, give in your name to-day.
"Every kind of volunteer will be wanted."
The stoppage was in support of the miners' fight against wage reductions and began the day after the May Bank Holiday.
The St Helens Reporter's mid-week edition that was published on May 4, 1926, reflected on both the holiday and the general strike that was beginning that same day: "St. Helens bore a Bank Holiday aspect yesterday amid the sunshine, and everybody seemed to be dressed in their Sunday clothes, as though it were a festival day.
"It was, however, the eve of the most catastrophic industrial tragedy that has ever threatened the country.
"Every vital trade, and public service is affected."
The strike was coordinated in St Helens by a Council of Action led by Labour councillor Thomas Boscow, with their HQ being the Railway Institute in Salisbury Road.
Transport was badly hit, with trams and buses in the town completely stopped and train services reduced.
However, not every industry was affected, and some firms only suffered a partial withdrawal of labour.
For example, the town's brickworks carried on as normal, and although Pilkington's glassmakers remained at their jobs, other trades at Pilks' plants were brought out by their unions.
At a meeting of St Helens Town Council on the 5th, Labour councillors furiously complained about guns having been brought to the Town Hall.
These had been transferred from the Volunteer Hall in Mill Street, where St Helens' part-time army reserves were based.
Alderman Richard Waring said some would assume that the intention was to slaughter the miners, who had been locked out of their pits just days before.
But Norman Pilkington, the commander of the local battalion of the Territorials, explained that the arms had been relocated for safe custody, insisting such transfers were standard practice in St Helens whenever there was a crisis.
A consequence of the General Strike was that few newspapers were published.
The Liverpool Echo and its sister paper, the Daily Post, collaborated with their rival title, the Liverpool Evening News, to produce a daily strike sheet containing snippets of typewritten news.
On the 8th, one brief item said: "St. Helens & Prescot – 75% of men other than miners at work."
And the St Helens Reporter also produced a "Crisis Bulletin", free from adverts.
A special meeting of St Helens Council took place on the 8th to discuss the strike, including a threat to shut down the town's electricity plant and gas works.
St Helens Corporation ran both utilities, and the Electrical Trades Union had threatened to stop them if their own members were not exclusively employed.
Consequently, both works were placed under government control, the only such case in the country.
Later, in an editorial, the Conservative-supporting St Helens Reporter criticised the "attempted revolution" which they declared had "brought St. Helens nearer to disaster than ever it was even during the darkest days of the war."
And at a Town Council meeting in June, Alderman Bates told the Labour contingent, "Your town was in the hands practically of a Soviet, an imitation of the Russian terror".
Of the incidents that took place during the General Strike, the most notable occurred at the Sutton Sheeting Sheds.
These were owned by the LMS Railway and situated in Penlake Lane, where they made and repaired tarpaulin sheets for railway wagons and acted as general stores.
It was there that two volunteers called Nicholas Cunliffe and John Stirling were sent from Manchester to collect bedding.
The striking railwaymen told the pair that they needed a permit from the Council of Action in St Helens, and one said to a driver: "You fellows call yourselves volunteers, but we call it blacklegging."
Having loaded their lorry, the volunteers found the chain on the works' gate padlocked.
Not only were they prevented from leaving, but an angry crowd of up to 600 now surrounded them.
Abuse was shouted at the pair, with one striker saying they were going to have their necks broken.
After a three-hour stalemate, the bedding was unloaded and returned to the stores and the lorry was allowed to leave without its intended cargo.
Another incident took place on Redgate Bridge in Blackbrook, when a group of over 100 tied a rope across the canal bridge.
As a result, traffic was stopped so that vehicles could be searched to ensure they were not strikebreaking.
However, the police intervened and removed the rope, and prosecutions later occurred.
There was not much violence during the strike, although there was an incident in Sutton Manor involving 40 miners and the police.
At the subsequent court appearance of the mob's two ringleaders, the police asked the magistrates to deal with them severely in the light of the General Strike.
The men had been arrested after leaving the Green Dragon Hotel, but the police had not been shy of using their batons.
The Reporter said the two defendants presented in court a "…shocking appearance.
"With their heads swathed in blood stained bandages, blood stains over their shirts and clothes, and their faces and eyes cruelly damaged."
The General Strike ended on May 12 after nine days as a result of the TUC unexpectedly backing down – although in St Helens, there was confusion.
The news came through by radio just before 2pm, and an official notice was posted outside the Food Office in Hardshaw Street.
However, the Council of Action refused to accept that the TUC had capitulated, and posters were displayed around St Helens telling folk to ignore the rumours.
Although the General Strike had ended, the miners' campaign against planned wage reductions would continue for many more months and will be described in next week's Looking Back.
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