The Great Dock Strike of 1889
Resolution 1
At the beginning of September pressure was mounting on the employers to resolve the strike. They still seemed unwilling to make concessions even though shipowners and wharf owners were increasingly critical of the dock companies.
Mr Henry Lafone, manager of Butler's Wharf, held separate negotiations with the strike committee.
Thomas Sutherland, chairman of the P & O Company (shipowners), suggested that the shipowners might take over the discharge of ships. There was also a threat of a general strike in London and this prompted action.
On 5 September, when the strike was in its fourth week, the Lord Mayor of London formed the Mansion House committee to try to bring the two sides together to end the strike.
An important member of the committee was Cardinal Manning, Catholic Archbishop of Westminster. He had shown that his sympathies were with the dockers and the people of the East End, many of whom were Catholics.
The Cardinal was a superb mediator. The Mansion House committee persuaded the employers to meet practically all the dockers' demands. But there was still the question of when the new payments would be made.
Manning went to an East End school room on 10 September to persuade the dockers to accept the employers' offer that the payments should start on 4 November.
The Dock Strike was over and it was agreed that the men would go back to work on Monday 16 September.
On Sunday 15 September a last great procession was held ending with a rally in Hyde Park. It was a triumphant occasion as Smith and Nash recorded:
'All along the Commercial Road, the women
turned out in thousands to see their husbands and
their sons pass in triumph.
The sun seemed brighter, the music more inspiring, the banner more in number than ever before.
A: 'C M. Norwood, the leader of the employers, was described by The Star as "in appearance and manners, the very embodiment of the insolence of capitalism. He is stout, well-fed, and arrogant.'
quoted in London's Docks by John Pudney
C: Nobody more human, more diplomatic, more skilled in dealing with the human heart and mind, could have been found ... patient, persuasive, but very, very firm in handling the injured feelings of the Lord Mayor, and the harsh and unsympathetic attitude of the Bishop, no less than the thrusting aggressiveness of John Burns.'
Ben Tillett, Memories and Reflections, 1931.
E: 'It was late before Cardinal Manning summed up. In an address which deeply moved his hearers, he reviewed the arguments on both sides ...
Unaccustomed tears glistened in the eyes of his rough and work-stained hearers as he raised his hand, and solemnly urged them not to prolong one moment more than they could help the perilous uncertainty, and the suffering of their wives and children.
Just above his head was a carved figure of the Madonna and Child, and some among the men tell how a sudden light seemed to swim around it as the speaker pleaded for the women and children.
When he sat down all in the room knew in their own minds that he had won the day. and that so far as the councils were concerned that was the end of the strike - the Cardinal's peace.'
Smith and Nash, The Story of the Dock Strike. 1889.
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Contact
Nigel Sagar
Design and Technology
London Borough of Barking
and Dagenham
Email: nigel.sagar@lbbd.gov.uk
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