Women, Rough Music, and Direct Action during the 1926 lockout in the Forest of Dean
Ian Wright will discuss the use of rough music and skimmington-style protest by miners’
wives against blacklegs and the police during the 1926 miners’ lockout in the Forest of Dean.
The talk will then explore the subsequent occupation of Westbury Workhouse by around
300 women and children in response to the withdrawal of Poor Law relief for miners’
families.
Resistance and resilience: the 1926 General Strike and lockout in the Somerset Coalfield
On 4th May 1926, 5,000 members of the Somerset Miners’ Association from 20 local collieries answered the TUCs General Strike call. They came out to a man, in solidarity with their comrades in other coalfields, despite the fact that no lockout notices had been posted in Somerset, and no proposals had been received to lower wages or lengthen hours.
Dave’s talk will cover the ‘Nine Days’ and the seven month’s lockout that followed, and will include such hitherto forgotten events as the faked ‘guss and crook’ photo; the Radstock Middle Pit Bomb Plot, and a Radstock miners’ rally that was nearly the death of A. J. Cook.
Dave’s book is the first trade-union based Somerset Coalfield history, and is the first published result of three years’ research in the wonderful Somerset Miners’ Association archive at the Bristol University Special Collections.
Event details
