The Great Dock Strike of 1889
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F: 'Dockmen, lightermen, bargemen, cement workers, carmen, ironworkers and even factory girls are coming out. If it goes on a few days longer, all London will be on holiday.
The great machine by which five millions of people are fed and clothed will come to a dead stop, and what is to be the end of it all?'
Evening News & Post. 11 August 1889.
G: 'A banner hangs at the top of Star Street. Commercial Road:
"Our husbands are on strike; for the wives it is not honey. And we all think it is right not to pay the landlord's money. Everyone is on strike, so landlords do not be offended: The rent that's due we'll pay you when the strike is ended".
Evening News & Post, 26 August 1889.
H: To the Editor of the Manchester Guardian Sir Because women are not in the front in this strike, it does not mean that their hearts are less than earnestly and pathetically angry about the matter.
They acknowledge it to be a time for "deeds not words" but none the less are they taking share of labour in the battle of wrong against right; and if I venture to break the silence as one of themselves, I do so to remind some, so ready to condemn the strikers because of the sufferings brought upon weakly wives and innocent children that those whom they pity rejoice to suffer.
Nor is it, perhaps too much to say that these brave-hearted women are proud to teach the innocent children at their knee that if it is only in this way that oppression and wrong can be successfully combated, it is best to meet it thus.'
Manchester Guardian, 1 September 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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