OCTOBER 5, 1936
Two hundred men from the town of Jarrow, South Tyneside, began an organised march to London to protest against the poverty suffered in their town following the closure of its shipyard two years earlier.
During the 1930s unemployment was particularly heavy in Britain’s traditional staple export industries of coal mining, shipbuilding, iron and steel and textiles, all of which were in a slow decline from their Victorian heydays.
In 1930 Jarrow’s shipyard, Palmer’s, launched its 1,000th ship, a tanker. But there were no more orders on its books. An order for two destroyers kept the yard busy until 1932, by which time the yard was insolvent, and the following year it went into receivership.
After the closure of the yard, a group of men set off from the town to deliver a petition to Parliament, calling for the government to re-establish industry in the town. The march attracted massive support along its route.
The petition was received by the House of Commons but not debated, and the march produced few immediate results. The Jarrovians went home believing they had failed.
But the march has since became recognised as a defining event of the 1930s.
It helped to foster a change in attitudes which prepared the way to social reform measures after the Second World War, which their proponents thought would improve working conditions.