David Swallow & the early miner's union

TWENTY eight people attended a Wakefield Socialist History Group meeting on the history of the Yorkshire Miners at the Red Shed in Wakefield on Saturday.
The first speaker, Ken Capstick (former Vice President of the Yorkshire NUM), gave a fascinating account of the life of David Swallow.
Swallow was born at East Ardsley, Wakefield in 1817.   He is credited with being the founder of the first national miners' union -meeting were held at the Griffin Inn, Northgate in Wakefield.   He also played a leading role in the first national miners' strike in 1844.
Ken argued that Swallow was an organiser of "rare quality" and a great orator who drew large crowds wherever he spoke.  It is "time to recognise and honour a great miners' leader who did not receive the recognition he deserved during his lifetime."
The second speaker, radical historian Alan Brooke, then spoke about working conditions in collieries particularly around Huddersfield in the 19th century.
He noted that hurries -as vital to the operation of colleries as the colliers themselves- were "invariably children or women" and their job was to "push or pull the corves full of coal to the pit bottom."   One hurrier, John Dixon -later Secretary of the West Yorkshire Miners' Association- started work in a pit at Briestfield in 1835 at the age of 7!
Alan -who has a website Underground Histories- also spoke about various reforms/ innovations such as the safety lamp, pit ponies, Mine Inspectors and checkweighmen.
The speeches were followed by a lively discussion session with questions in particular about Swallow's life after he was deposed as a miners leader.
The next Group event, a meeting on the Bolshevik Revolution, is on Saturday 11 November 1pm again at the Red Shed.

Fraternally
Alan Stewart
Convenor Wakefield Socialist History Group

Early Syndicalism discussed in Wakefield

YESTERDAY, the Wakefield Socialist History Group debated syndicalism at the start of the last century.   The speakers included Robin Stocks who has written 'The Hidden Heroes of Easter Week'; the Huddersfield historian Alan Brooks; and Robin Stocks who spoke about the South Wales' miner and syndicalist, Noah Ablett.
The title of the meeting at the Red Shed was 'SYNDICALISM & the GREAT UNREST'.
Alan Stewart, the convenor of the event, drew our attention to Bob Holton's book 'British Syndicalism' (1979), which described the developments before and after World War I asRobin Stocks,  a form of proto-syndicalism. 
In the introduction for the meeting  it was stated:
'The early years of British syndicalism saw, Holton (1976) suggests. a "slow and unspectacular advance."  He says there were three "currents of revolutionary  industrial feeling" at this stage.
The first, centred around the writings of Daniel de Leon, the American socialist.  Though sometimes marred by a certain "sectarian rigidity" his works -brought back to Britain by seamen and other workers- were lively and accessible (Challinor 1977).
'His ideas were welcomed in particular by dissidents in the Social Democratic Federation who felt the SDF had lost momentum and was neglecting industrial struggles.  In 1903 a GS Yates of Leith led a de Leonist breakaway.  The Socialist Labour Party was formed. It in turn spawned the British Advocates of Industrial Unionism (1906).
'Now de Leon had been involved in the establishment of the American IWW (Wobblies) in 1905.  Yet Holton (1976) notes that there were problems with applying the "dual unionism" strategy to British conditions.'
There did not appear to be much reference to or attempt to discuss the founding conference of the 'Leeds Soviet'  a hundred years ago this month, which was considered in detail by Chris Draper on this Blog in January this year:
'HISTORY's most remarkable social experiment began one hundred years ago. As the Russian war effort disintegrated, autocratic Czarism was abolished and a revolutionary SOVIET system substituted.  Soviets were collectives of workers and soldiers organised to end the war and radically democratise Russia.  In March 1917 (February in the old Russian calendar) the PETROGRAD SOVIET led the revolution and despatched a four-man delegation to England to encourage British workers to follow their lead.  On 3 June 1917, over a thousand workers’ representatives met at LEEDS COLISEUM, Cookridge Street to emulate their Russian comrades and organise a British network of ”extra-parliamentary Soviets with sovereign powers”. 
www.northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-leeds-soviet-1917.html 

British Syndicalism Talk in Wakefield

Comrades
British syndicalism emerged in the years after 1900 in response, Holton (1976) says, to "urgent economic and political problems facing the working class."
Firstly, British capitalism was still struggling -despite the end of the "Great Depression"- and real wages fell some 10% between 1900 and 1912.
Secondly, capitalist industry was increasingly concentrated.  Businesses were amalgamating.  Employers associations were being set up.  "Federated capital" was more visible (Holton 1976).
Thirdly, technological change was displacing/downgrading certain craft skills.
And finally labour leaders were increasingly being incorporated into state sponsored collective bargaining structures and into the bourgeois parliamentary system.  Trade union officials now seemed increasingly remote from the rank and file.  And Lloyd George would boast in 1912 that parliamentary socialists were the "best policemen" when it came to managing and diffusing industrial unrest.
Face with all this -falling wages, deskilling, larger units of capitalist production and conservatism on the part of traditional labour leaders- workers began to look beyond sectionalism and reformism to class unity, direct action and industrial unionism.
This syndicalist sentiment was influenced by what had been going on in Europe, the US and Australia.  But it also drew from domestic traditions of workplace militancy and what Holton (1976) describes as "anti-State socialism."
On Saturday 13 May at 1pm at the Red Shed, Vicarage Street, Wakefield WF1, the Wakefield Socialist History Group are holding an event, SYNDICALISM AND THE GREAT UNREST.  The speakers are Robin Stocks and Alan Brooke.  Other speakers tbc. The chair is Adrian Cruden.  Admission is free and all are welcome.  A free light buffet will be provided.

Fraternally

Alan Stewart

Convenor, Wakefield Socialist History Group