Brian Pearce, the great historian of rank and file trade unionism, wrote this brief account of the 1919 rail strike in 1960. It is well worth rereading now because it shows how popular the strikers were and how they won with decisive solidarity action from other workers…and how the trade union leaders let the chance to capitalise on the victory slip away

‘A notable feature was a revolt of the compositors and printers’ assistants, who threatened to strike and stop the newspapers altogether unless the railwaymen were allowed to present their case and unless abusive posters were abandoned.’

This fact, recorded by the Webbs in the 1920 edition of their History of Trade Unionism was typical of the great railway strike of 1919. It was the other side of the famous publicity campaign organized on behalf of the NUR (National Union of Railwaymen) by the Labour Research Department.

Such solidarity by all other sections of the working class with a section on strike had not been seen before in this country and was not to be seen again until 1926. C.F.G. Masterman, a Liberal politician, noted in a newspaper article at the time that ‘before the strike ended the railwaymen had rallied nine-tenths of the industrial workers to their side’ and ‘were increasing sympathizers from the middle classes by hundreds of thousands a day’.

Wartime rationing was still in force in 1919, and the Government intended to withdraw ration cards from strikers and their families; but the co-operative movement foiled that scheme by publicly agreeing to honour in their shops any vouchers issued by local strike committees.

The soldiers, sent to guard railway stations, in some cases fraternised with the pickets, and had to be withdrawn to barracks. In contrast to what it had done in the railway strike before the 1914 war, the Government announced that it would not try to use troops to run the trains; and everyone knew that this announcement had been forced from them by the mood in the ranks.

The railwaymen won their battle in 1919, and inflicted such a fright on the employers and their Government that a general offensive against the working class was held off until 1921, when the post-war slump was well under way and mass unemployment hampered the workers’ resistance. Unfortunately, the time so gained was not fully used by the Labour movement, or the capitalists could have been deprived for good of their power to do harm.

In the crisis on the railways the NUR leaders were careful not to call on the miners’ and transport workers’ unions to fulfil their obligations under the ‘Triple Alliance’ concluded during the war. (The Webbs’ record that the miners’ and transport workers’ officials had difficulty in ‘restraining their own members from impetuous action in support of the railwaymen’). Nothing was done to foster and develop the sympathy spontaneously expressed by soldiers.

Lord Northcliffe, founder of the Daily Mail and leading Press Lord of the day, expressed the gratitude of the ruling class in characteristically dramatic terms:

‘Without labour unions our strike last week would have been a civil war. It was the control of the men by their leaders which made it a peaceful struggle’

(quoted in K.G.J.C. Knowles’ Strikes, 1911–1947[1952])

The railway strike of 1919 was a great and inspiring victory. Compared with what could have been won for the whole working class at that time by a really single-minded and determined militant leadership it must be seen, however, in a different light – as an occasion when British labour ‘missed the bus’ and allowed capitalism a fresh lease of life in this country.