By 1936, the global
Great Depression was laying waste to major economies across the world. Areas that relied largely upon heavy
industry, like the Northeast of England, were hit particularly hard. On the
southern bank of the River Tyne, Jarrow was just one of many industrial towns
ravaged by poverty and unemployment.
Meanwhile, the National Coalition Government under Conservative Prime
Minister, Stanley Baldwin, appeared to be looking the other way.
Baldwin himself was
a champion of One Nation
Conservatism, yet for some of the worst affected areas, the reality of the government’s economic
management appeared to remain very much laissez-faire.
New, or One Nation Conservatism had seen Prime
Minister Baldwin steer the Tory ideology toward a much more compassionate,
inclusive and interventionist position,
at least in theory. Nineteenth Century
Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli had contended that the divide between rich and
poor had rendered Britain two nations, between which there was no intercourse and no sympathy.
“...We
stand for the union of those two nations of which Disraeli spoke two
generations ago: union among our own people to make one nation of our own
people at home which, if secured, nothing else matters in the world..”
Lord Alistair Lexden, Conservative Historian, argues that
Baldwin’s reforming attitude laid the foundation for the Welfare State that
would emerge under post-war Labour, led by Clement Attlee.
“...Tory policy was
reshaped to advance the cause of One
Nation. Social reform became the Party’s dominant preoccupation for the
first time in its history. The
Conservative Party, Baldwin declared at the 1929 election, regards the prosperity of trade and
industry, not as an end in itself, but as a means to improve the condition of
the people…”
It would be fair to
observe that Jarrow, and many places like it, by design or accident, remained
outside of Mr Baldwin’s envisaged single nation.
Here are some
recollections from Jarrow residents, as told to the BBC in 1986:
“...Pathetic. The
Jarrow of those days was a filthy, dirty, fallen down consumptive area in which
the infantile death rate was the highest in the country, and TB was a general
condition…”
Labour MP for Jarrow Ellen Wilkinson |
“...We used to lie in bed ‘til dinner time to save a meal...”
Jarrow Labour MP
Ellen Wilkinson later wrote;
“...There was no work.
No one had a job except a few railwaymen, officials, the workers in the
co-operative stores, and a few workmen who went out of the town...The plain
fact is that if people have to live and bear and bring up their children in bad
houses on too little food, their resistance to disease is lowered and they die
before they should...”
Palmer’s Shipyard,
the principal source of employment since 1851, had closed down in 1934. Many proud, skilled workers were now
unemployed, and could no longer provide for their families.
Government unemployment benefits in
those days lasted six months, after which responsibility was handed to the
Unemployment Assistance Board, from which any tangible support was difficult to
access and ultimately far from adequate.
Eligibility was also subject to the Means Test, first introduced in
1931. This meant that the combined wages
and assets of all members of the household were taken into account when
deciding whether or not unemployment relief should be forthcoming.
During an interview with the BBC in
1976, Jean Clarke, who was one of the small minority lucky enough to remain in
work, recalled the shattering personal effect of unemployment on individuals,
her own father included;
“...It was rather hard on the family, as well, to
watch...Week by week you could see them all getting a little more morose, trying to keep
cheerful, but the effect it had on them, you could begin to see it showing in
their own faces, judging from my own father, sitting in a chair, head on hand,
dreaming…”
Facing indifference
from Westminster, and the admonition that Jarrow would have to sort out its own
problems, the local Borough Council initiated a non-partisan campaign to try to
bring employment, in the form of a new steelworks, back to the area. Two hundred unemployed men, selected from a
pool of around 1400 volunteers,
would march more than 280 miles to London to petition the government to
establish new industries.
The marchers set
off at 11 am on October 5th, 1936. As
the Manchester Guardian reported, it wasn’t a hunger march, but a protest
march. This was an important distinction
in the context of the times, as the hunger march movement was seen as a
communist initiative one short step away from revolution, and a movement from
which the mainstream Labour Party was keen to keep its distance. The Guardian also pointed out that at that
time, less than 15% of the eligible
Jarrow workforce was actually in work.
“... The unanimity of the protest that Jarrow is making to
the rest of the country is indicated in the fact that the political parties
represented on the Jarrow Town Council have agreed to bury the political
hatchet to the extent of holding no elections this November. Further, although
the town cannot by law spend a farthing of the ratepayers’ money on this
demonstration, the labours of its Mayor in the despatching of about 200,000
letters to other corporations, trade unions, co-operative societies, and
similar bodies at the expense of the march fund has raised that fund to £850,
and it is hoped to have the round £1,000 before the marchers reach the Marble
Arch on October 31…”
The Guardian went
on to discuss the unified nature of the protest.
“...There is no political aspect to this march. It is
simply the town of Jarrow saying send us
work. In the ranks of the marchers are Labour men, Liberals, Tories, and
one or two Communists, but you cannot tell who's who. It has the Church's
blessing; in fact, it took the blessing of the Bishop of Ripon (Dr. Lunt) and a
subscription of £5 from him when it set out today. It also had the blessing of
the Bishop of Jarrow (Dr. Gordon)...
It is clear from a
number of accounts that the progress of the march was celebrated and the
participants were welcomed warmly as they passed through villages and towns
along the way.
“...Harrogate welcomed the Jarrow Marchers today as
cheerfully as if they were a relief column raising a siege. The music of the
mouth-organ band might have been that of the bagpipes so surely did it bring
the people flocking, and when the two hundred reached the Concert Rooms there
were hundreds of folk drawn up on the slopes around to cheer them. The police
were in attendance and there was a big banner raised saying, Harrogate workers welcome the Jarrow
Marchers. At the Drill Hall, the headquarters for the night, the crowd was
even denser...It was the same today all along the road from Ripon. The
villagers of Ripley and Killinghall rushed to their doors to see the marchers
pass; motorists waved as they went by; one shouted, How are you sticking it? and a woman cried, Hello, Geordies. And the Geordies
themselves were in great form…”
The Guardian went
on to applaud the generosity of the supporters, from both Jarrow itself and
along the route of the march, and marvelled at how well the march was being
run.
“...The organisation seems well-nigh perfect. It includes a
transport wagon - a bus bought for £20 and converted - which goes ahead with
the sleeping kit, waterproofs for every man worn bandolero fashion, 1s 6d.
pocket-money and two 1p. stamps a week, medical attention, haircutting (and
shaving for the inexpert), cobbling, accommodation at night in drill halls,
schools, church institutes, and even town halls, and advance agents in the
persons of the Labour agent at Jarrow, Mr. Harry Stoddart, and the Conservative
agent, Mr. R. Suddick, who work together in arranging accommodation and getting
halls for meetings…”
It's interesting to
note here how opposing political machines from Jarrow were seamlessly working
together. As a gesture, The Guardian
observed, the march was proving to be a bounding
success.
One marcher later
recalled to the BBC, in 1977;
“...The spirit of the men was such that we were expecting
something. We were expecting to prove to
the capital, at that time, that here’s men from Jarrow. The spirit they had shown all the way
down...Here we are, we want work and we are going to put our case that we must
have work for the benefit of our wives and children…”
Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin |
The marchers
reached London by the end of October; exhausted, yet fit, well fed and in good spirits. A rally was held in Hyde Park, followed
subsequently by the official presentation of the petition to parliament by Ellen Wilkinson MP. The government remained
unmoved, and there proved to be little or no immediate effect on economic or industrial
policy. The men returned home by train,
courtesy of donated tickets, with apparently nothing to show for their nearly
300 mile march.
Even the Labour
Party itself was, at best, lukewarm in its support. Ellen Wilkinson had addressed their Edinburgh
conference on the issue of Jarrow, but had found the agenda dominated by
discussions of the Spanish Civil War and issues surrounding rearmament. There was even criticism of the idea of the
march itself, and the physical burden it placed on unemployed and starving men.
Marcher Sam Rowland
suggested that while the majority of politicians seemed unconcerned, public
opinion was markedly different;
“...If the march achieved anything...it made the condition
and lives of people a factor that
should always be brought into
consideration at the top level... and not left to work out their own
salvation…”
The next general
election was held nearly a decade later, in 1945, as World War Two was coming
to an end. Memories of the Baldwin and
Chamberlain National Governments and the desperate times of the interwar years
would be a key factor in the landslide victory for the Labour Party, which
promised a radically different approach in the way that Britain was to be
governed. Sam Rowland might have been
right.
According to the
BBC World Service, the last surviving participant of the march died in 2003.
The Guardian, BBC News and multiple other sources however, name the last survivor as Con Shiels, who died in 2012, and who had felt that the march had made not one hap’orth of difference.
The Guardian, BBC News and multiple other sources however, name the last survivor as Con Shiels, who died in 2012, and who had felt that the march had made not one hap’orth of difference.
You can listen to some first hand recollections here, thanks to the BBC World Service podcast, Witness, which was a research source for this article;
References:
●
BBC
News
●
Liverpool
Echo
●
The
Guardian and Manchester Guardian archives
●
Blogspot-Class
Warfare
●
Spartacus
Educational
●
Lord
Lexden - Official Historian of the Conservative Party (Website)
●
BBC Radio 4 -
Great Lives (Ellen Wilkinson)
●
BBC
Witness -The Great Depression and The Jarrow March
●
BBC
History-Referencing Ellen Wilkinson’s The
Town that was Murdered
●
Jarrow
Memorial photo by Andrew Curtis Link to Source
Post sponsored by the Armstrong and Burton Book Series
Post sponsored by the Armstrong and Burton Book Series
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