ALL OUR Dramatic days when strike action brought violence to Newsome
THE NEWSOME WEAVERS’ STRIKE, 1881 - BY PROFESSOR DAVID TAYLOR, EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, SCHOOL OF MUSIC, HUMANITIES & MEDIA, UNIVERSITY OF HUDDERSFIELD
IN the spring of 1881 dramatic reports about the “Newsome outrages” appeared in the local press: “cruel ruffianism”, even a “system of terrorism” was being perpetrated in a village barely a mile from Huddersfield town centre.
In the most dramatic incident, a woman weaver, having been followed from Newsome to Lockwood and thence to Chapel Hill was rescued from “a pack of human animals” by none other than Alderman Reuben Hirst.
The high-profile incidents and subsequent trials were the most visible phase of a strike at Taylor & Littlewood’s mill that ran from January to June of that year.
Newsome Mill, rebuilt after the devastating fire of 1873, dominated the Huddersfield skyline and the firm of Taylor & Littlewood was one of the more successful in the district, winning prizes at international fairs in Paris and Sydney in the late1870s and exporting to Europe, North America and Australasia.
At this time the firm employed about 750 men, women and children, the major of source of employment in Newsome and attracting employees from many parts of the Huddersfield district and beyond. The difficulties encountered in 1880 ended the years of prosperity and harmony.
In mid-January 1881, rather than lay off workers, it was decided to introduce a new product but not to offer the usual “penny a string … for the extra shuttling”. The employers were adamant that existing arrangements remained unchanged, but many weavers were unconvinced. The situation worsened as “learners and beginners” were brought in to complete the order.
The weavers’ leaders called a strike, setting up a committee to handle matters, though the firm claimed that the strike had finished and a lock-out had been imposed. The strike/lock-out was not total and there was considerable tension in and around Newsome but remained below the radar.
The situation deteriorated markedly in March. Weavers were recruited from Bradford and Shipley and Littlewood himself played an active role, travelling to Bradford to recruit men and women, who were assured that there was no strike in Newsome. Adverts appeared in the local and regional press exhorting weavers to stay away from Newsome during the dispute. More seriously, the appearance of strike-breakers from Bradford led to large-scale protests and scenes of violence. Returning from work, new weavers were followed by crowds, hooting and hissing, shouting out “Blacksheep” and “Bah!”
Clods of earth and stones were thrown as men and women made their way back to accommodation in the Castle Coffee-house, Beastgate and other places in town.
Police guarded the mill and, as the situation worsened, Taylor and Littlewood arranged for beds to be installed so their workers could sleep in the mill itself.
Within days of these outburst trials took place under the recent (1875) Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act. On March 11 the three local men, John William Denton, a weaver from Stile Common, John Arthur Brook, a spinner from Damside and William Haigh, a millhand from Hall Bower appeared in court. Haigh was found guilty of intimidating Sarah Holdsworth and was fined £1 and 7s expenses. Brook was found guilty but fined only 1s (with 7s expenses) while Denton was discharged. The magistrates expressed the hope that such leniency would ease tensions. Their hopes were illfounded. In one incident workers were followed from the mill, down Newsome Road to the Bridge Inn and taunted with cries – “You’ll get your ---- heads poised off if you stay much longer” – and assailed with stones. In another a crowd, estimated to be at least 200-strong, confronted “Blacksheep” at the Woodman beerhouse, Stile Common; while in yet another two women, one whose husband was working at the mill, the other a weaver there, were met at Lockwood by “a great crowd of people”. Worse, one of the women, unable to find shelter, was “set upon by the excited throng, knocked down … and kicked.” As a consequence of these incidents there were two very well attended trials at which three teenage boys and six men were prosecuted. The latter, particularly, were treated severely, with fines of £5 for “persistent following” and £10 for intimidation and also costs.
The trials revealed the polarised feelings in the town. The Chief Constable thought it “a scandal that in a Christian country like this, and in a civilised town like Huddersfield, that people could not pass to and from work without being assaulted” and he was not alone as editorial comment and correspondence in the local press made clear. In court it was a different story.
Family and friends of the defendants expressed their hostility, hissing and whistling as sentences were handed down. Such was the anger that prosecutors and their witnesses required police protection as they left court. However, the storm had broken. The strike continued until June, but no further violent incidents were reported.
Indeed, the strike ended in something of an anti-climax. The Huddersfield papers had nothing to report but the Leeds Times, in a couple of very brief references noted that Alderman Woodhead was acting as an arbitrator, before announcing on June 25 that an arrangement had been made and the last of the striking weavers were about to resume work.
On July 1 the Huddersfield Chronicle carried an advert from Taylor & Littlewoods, who “wanted, immediately, several good menders”. Business was resumed but within months the Huddersfield and District Power-loom Weavers’ Association came into being.