Talk:1926 United Kingdom general strike

Britain's General Strike
The Brits call this 'Britain's General Strike' as seen on ITV1's Millionaire. NOT 'British General Strike'. If nothing else then provide a link through.

And probably the one in How Green Was My Valley as well, though someone sensationalized, as the author had never actually been in Wales! (though the article says "Victorian times," the book mentions Winston Churchill which was 1926. Student7 (talk) 01:51, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This strike is also depicted in the Upstairs Downstairs episode The Nine Days Wonder--82.0.207.86 (talk) 08:14, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Surely as in the article, the main title should have General Strike beginning with capitals? I don't know how to change it but if someone else can and sgrees please do so

Rrose Selavy (talk) 10:04, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

POV
This article is strongly in favour of the strike in tone. A single reference to "volunteer workers" and an inaccurate description of the OMS as a militia (with or without quotation marks) does not do justice to the fact that many Britons opposed the strike by filling in for strikers; most famously, for instance, driving London buses. This is what most people associate with the General Strike; so why is there not more information about it here? How many volunteered? What were their reasons? What were their experiences? One quote from a Special saying he wished he hadn't joined is insufficient, and gives a misleading impression as to the views of other OMS Specials. Moreover, what was the involvement of revolutionary groups in the UK in the GS? Prominent left-wing groups such as the Labour Party and the TUC are described as concerned about them; with what justification? - Richard Murray —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.143.148.105 (talk) 13:50, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I had come to a similar view on the article Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies, after considering the references to Fascists. The article, British Fascists says that its members "were not however permitted to join the government's official Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies (set up to mobilise a non-striking workforce) without first relinquishing Fascism. As a result a further split occurred as a number of members, calling themselves the Loyalists and led by former BF President Brigadier-General R.B.D. Blakeney, did just that."  The organisation was set up by the Home Secretary.  This seems to have been because, the Prime Minister had concluded that the state was not ready to face a General Strike at the Beginning of August 1925, at least partly because it could not mobilise volunteers without declaring a State of Emergency (Renishaw, General Strike (1975), 121-4).  It looks to me as if the whole thing was set up under government auspices, but at arms' length from the government.  Since it was intended to oppose union action, it was innevitably right wing, but that does not make it fascist, even if the British Fascists may have tried to infiltrate it.  I am not an expert on this period and would like top see other comments before altering this article or that on OMS.  Peterkingiron (talk) 12:43, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I have partly fixed that probelem with the article mentioned, but suspect that certain of the source works may lack objectivity. Peterkingiron (talk) 14:20, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Clarification wanted - Miners' pay
Notice in section Background to the Conflict that miners' pay went down from £6 to £3 before the strike. Does this refer to weekly pay? (Pertinent question given difference in scale to later 20th century wages/salaries.Cloptonson (talk) 21:37, 29 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Can anyone give an answer to this? As stated, it's hard to make a guess.  BMJ-pdx (talk) 07:19, 26 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I have added "weekly", based on this from https://www.historytoday.com/archive/black-friday-1921: "Their average pay fell from 89s. 8d. a week in the first quarter of 1921 to 58s. 10d. in the fourth ...". (20 shillings = £1 .)  BMJ-pdx (talk) 07:58, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Significance of 1 May?
With 1 May - two days before launch of the strike - having become marked in recent decades as Labour Day, I wonder if that had any evidenced real or seriously suspected influence on the willingness to strike?Cloptonson (talk) 21:46, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

The General Strike
I don't think Wikipedia is serving its readers well when a search on the term The General Strike brings up an article on the eighth album by a punk rock band from Pittsburgh, rather than this page. Nor do I think the rather odd and ungrammatical title of this page helps. Can I suggest that this page is renamed The General Strike or, if wanting to avoid confusion with the general strike page, or general strikes in other countries, something like The 1926 UK General Strike. Even its old title of UK General Strike of 1926 would be an improvement. Then the album page could be renamed The General Strike (album). I think this would remove much confusion. KJP1 (talk) 13:36, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Role of George V
I query the context of your quoted comments by George V about the striking workers and their pay and suggest more be looked into and said about the background in which it was said. My understanding is that it was not, as it may appear to the reader, said in the context of a broadcast speech or an appeal to the government (as a constitutional monarch the king had proprieties to observe), for I recall when much younger reading a book about one of the Royal Family that it stated the king said this in reply to a spoken comment by the Earl of Durham (a coal owner) in conversation. Durham had referred to striking miners in speaking before the king as ".....[adjective forgotten]...revolutionaries", which drew the royal comment. I do not have the biography with me and the passage there did not credit a third party that could have recorded the conversation. Was it noted by the king in his own published diaries?Cloptonson (talk) 05:40, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
 * This is a fair point. The King never made any such public statement and would never have done so. The article misrepresents him on that score and falsely claims that he sought to 'stabilise the situation' by saying it, when in fact he is only supposed to have said it in a personal conversation with a pit owner. If the King did want to 'stabilise the situation', he would say something to the Prime Minister at their weekly audience, but those audiences remain private and unrecorded. The King, unlike his son David, did read through his red boxes and would have been aware of the revolutionary intent behind the General Strike (and the TUC and the Labour Party were aware of that and distinctly concerned), so it's improbable that he was in favour of it, however much he may have sympathised with the poorly-paid miners. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:48, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Once Again Using Long Outdated Source For Biased Statement
This is starting to get old at this point. Every single time I go to google something that interests me from something I watch or read and click on the Wikipedia page in the past year 9 times out of 10 there will be recent edits that are heavily biased, use books that are out of print or hard to obtain but either way are very old and oudated but due to non-fiction text having more weight than internet links for some reason they seem to get by. Take this edit for example that wasn't here at the beginning of the year:

Keith Laybourn says that historians mostly agree that, "In no significant way could the General Strike be considered a turning point or watershed in British industrial history."

So this is from a book written in 1993, which makes it problematic as a source for that reason but especially when using it to back up quotes that, "most historians agree" on something since historical knowledge and historians view on topics has changed drastically in the past 24 years. Not to mention simple googling shows that statement to not be true, I mean Britain is still affected by a non sympathetic strike law put into place by Thatcher who had reinstated an earlier law that was made right after the strike and that's just one thing.JaqenHghar80 (talk) 05:53, 26 December 2017 (UTC)