Name: The General Strike in Gloucester and Swindon
Start: 2026-04-25T14:15:00+00:00
End: 2026-04-25T15:05:00+00:00
Location: M Shed

Gloucester Docks, Sugar and Strife – Tony Conder

As an industrial city Gloucester’s industries were hit by the strike in 1926. The dock workers and boatmen of Gloucester played a key role in taking action and suffering in the aftermath. The business of the docks pitted powerful conservative forces who made no attempt to recognise the emergency against an almost cheeky gallantry by their striking workforce.

A Railway Town and the General Strike: Nine Days in Swindon in May 1926 – Stuart Butler

Swindon was a proud GWR town with 14,000 workers ‘inside’ the railway works’ 310 acres. But the GWR ‘railway servants’ were anything but servile during the General Strike. Hear the fascinating tale of the mock funeral cortege where ‘coffins’ decorated with weeds for nine strike-breaking footplatemen were symbolically cremated on the municipal rubbish tip. The police even cleared the streets of traffic for the cortege … But there’s so much more than that to hear about in the unique story of solidarity in Swindon.

Event details

Date: Sat 25th Apr, 2026

Time: 2:15pm to 3:05pm

Location: Level 2 - General Strike room

Venue: M Shed, BS1 4RN

Price: Free

With: Tony Conder, Stuart Butler

Series: Bristol Radical History Festival 2026