1836 strike

Resource Type: Image | Posted on 9th December 2011 by Liam Physick

This page from the NUR’s pamphlet The Railwaymen mentions the first strike on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. A number of employees had threatened to strike unless the wages of the firemen were increased: when the management refused, the driver John Hewitt reiterated his determination to strike and was sacked, and most of other drivers and firemen struck in protest at his treatment - the “first railwayman to be victimized for taking part in an organised movement.” The four strikers under contract to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company were sentenced to a month’s hard labour at Kirkdale for breach of contract (until 1875, breach of contract was a criminal offence when committed by a worker, but only a civil offence when committed by an employer), and the Company board refused to hear pleas for mercy

Tagged under: liverpool and manchester railway, rocket 150, railway workers, drivers, firemen, national union of railwaymen, john hewitt

Categorised under: Work & Industry