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The Belfast Labour Dispute and Riots of 1907
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
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Almost all studies of industrial unrest in Britain before the First World War neglect the Belfast dock strike of 1907. Yet throughout the summer of 1907 that city was convulsed by a bitter and protracted strike involving dock labourers, carters and coal carters. At its height the dispute was estimated to have involved 10,000 on strike or locked out as a consequence of the strike, and threatened to involve a further 50,000 workers employed in the flax-spinning industry. In addition the strains which it imposed on the Belfast Royal Irish Constabulary precipitated a mutiny within that force, which induced the Liberal Government to sanction the despatch of some 6,000 regular soldiers to Belfast to maintain order.
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- Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1977
References
page 1 note 1 For example Pelling, H., British Trade Unions (Harmondsworth, 1971),Google Scholar does not mention the strike, while Clegg, H. A., Fox, A. and Thompson, A. F., A History of British Trade Unions since 1889, I: 1889–1910 (Oxford, 1964),Google Scholar only provide a brief comment. The best accounts are contained in Larkin, E., James Larkin (London, 1965)Google Scholar, and Clarkson, J. D., Labour and Nationalism in Ireland (New York, 1925),Google Scholar but both rely almost entirely on two Ulster newspapers, The Irish News and the Northern Whig, respectively.
page 2 note 1 The Manchester Guardian, August 16, 1907.
page 2 note 2 Forward (Glasgow), March 9, 1907.
page 2 note 3 Ibid., June 1.
page 3 note 1 The Irish News, May 9, 1907.
page 3 note 2 Forward, May 18, 1907.
page 3 note 3 Ibid., June 1.
page 3 note 4 Cf. SirSexton, J., Sir James Sexton, Agitator: An Autobiography (London, 1936), pp. 201–08.Google Scholar
page 3 note 5 Cf. H. A. Clegg, A. Fox and A. F. Thompson, op. cit., p. 451.
page 3 note 6 Labour Leader, July 5, 1907.
page 4 note 1 Ibid., July 12.
page 4 note 2 House of Commons Debates, Fourth Series, Vol. 177, cc. 112–13.
page 4 note 3 Cf. ibid., cc. 373–74.
page 4 note 4 Ibid., c. 1174.
page 5 note 1 Labour Leader, July 5, 1907.
page 5 note 2 For an account of the ASRS's struggle with the railway companies in 1906–07 cf. P. S. Bagwell, The Railwaymen (London, 1963), pp. 262–73.
page 5 note 3 Labour Leader, July 12, 1907.
page 5 note 4 Ibid.
page 6 note 1 The Belfast News Letter, July 12, 1907.
page 6 note 2 For an account of the IOO cf. Boyle, J. W., “The Belfast Protestant Association and the Independent Orange Order, 1901–10”, in: Irish Historical Studies, XIII (1962–1963), pp. 117–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 6 note 3 Buckland, P., Ulster Unionism and the Origins of Northern Ireland 1886–1922 (Dublin, 1973), p. 30.Google Scholar
page 7 note 1 Cf. Forward, January 26, 1907.
page 7 note 2 Belfast North was fought three times in successive years with the following results:
By-Election 1905 General Election 1906 By-Election 1907
Sir D. Dixon 4440 Sir D. Dixon 4907 G. Clarke 6021
William Walker 3966 William Walker 4616 William Walker 4194
Majority 474 Majority 291 Majority 1827
page 7 note 3 Budge, I. and O'Leary, C., Belfast: Approach to Crisis (London, 1973), p. 123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Somewhat surprisingly, this study almost totally ignores the dock strike and even suggests that it was engineered by James Connolly, who was, in fact, in America at the time.
page 7 note 4 The Belfast News Letter, July 11, 1907.
page 7 note 5 Ibid., July 13.
page 8 note 1 The text was printed in Labour Leader, July 19, 1907.
page 8 note 2 Cf. The Manchester Guardian, August 24, 1907.
page 8 note 3 Labour Leader, July 19, 1907, cf. The Co-operative News, July 27, 1907.
page 8 note 4 The Co-operative News, ibid.
page 9 note 1 The Irish News, July 25, 1907.
page 9 note 2 The Manchester Guardian, July 29, 1907.
page 9 note 3 The Irish News, July 29, 1907.
page 10 note 1 The Manchester Guardian, August 22, 1907.
page 10 note 2 Labour Leader, July 19, 1907.
page 10 note 3 The Manchester Guardian, ibid.
page 11 note 1 House of Commons Debates, Vol. 180, c. 349.
page 11 note 2 The Nation, August 3, 1907.
page 11 note 3 The New Age, An Independent Socialist Review of Politics, Literature, and Art, August 8, 1907.
page 11 note 4 House of Commons Debates, ibid., c. 1071.
page 11 note 5 Ibid., c. 349.
page 11 note 6 Cf. ibid., cc. 346–50.
page 12 note 1 The New Age, August 1, 1907; also The Clarion, July 12, 1907, and Labour Leader, July 19, 1907.
page 12 note 2 Forward, July 27, 1907.
page 12 note 3 Ibid.
page 12 note 4 Labour Leader, August 9, 1907.
page 12 note 5 Cf. The Irish News, July 31, 1907.
page 13 note 1 Ibid., August 12.
page 13 note 2 The Spectator, August 17, 1907.
page 13 note 3 The Times, August 14, 1907.
page 13 note 4 The Irish News, August 13, 1907.
page 13 note 5 The Times, August 15, 1907.
page 13 note 6 House of Commons Debates, ibid., c. 1666.
page 14 note 1 Cf. J. W. Boyle, loc. cit., p. 149.
page 14 note 2 The Times, August 15, 1907.
page 14 note 3 The Manchester Guardian reported a similar resolution from the Bury Trades Council on August 31.
page 14 note 4 The Manchester Guardian, August 13.
page 14 note 5 Cf. ibid., August 12 and 14.
page 15 note 1 The Scottish Co-operator, August 23,1907.
page 15 note 2 The Clarion, August 16, 1907.
page 15 note 3 Justice, August 24, 1907.
page 15 note 4 House of Commons Debates, ibid., cc. 1660–61.
page 15 note 5 Ibid., c. 1675.
page 15 note 6 The Socialist, October 1907.
page 15 note 7 Justice, August 17, 1907. The New Age, August 15, wrote of “Russian methods of government” and said Belfast “was turned into an Irish Warsaw”.
page 16 note 1 Justice, ibid.
page 16 note 2 Ibid., August 24.
page 16 note 3 The Nation, August 17, 1907.
page 16 note 4 The Times, August 26, 1907.
page 16 note 5 Cf. The Manchester Guardian, August 27, 1907.
page 17 note 1 Lord, Askwith, Industrial Problems and Disputes (London, 1920), p. 112.Google Scholar
page 17 note 2 The Irish News, September 6, 1907.
page 17 note 3 Industrial Council, The Report on the Enquiry into Industrial Disputes [Cd 6952] (1913), p. 243.Google Scholar
page 17 note 4 Ibid., p. 247.
page 17 note 5 Cf. The Manchester Guardian, August 24, 1907.
page 18 note 1 Ibid., August 27.
page 18 note 2 The Irish News, September 5, 1907.
page 18 note 3 Industrial Council, op. cit., p. 246.
page 19 note 1 J. W. Boyle, loc. cit., p. 150.
page 19 note 2 Cf. McCann, E., War in an Irish Town (Harmondsworth, 1974), p. 141.Google Scholar
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