The Manningham Mills Strike, which began one cold December day 108 years ago, had quite an impact on our predecessors Manningham Rugby Club. Financially the club was hit by a reduction in attendances and socially as many of club officials and players actively supported the strike.The era saw a general rise in trade unionism, but locally, it had been slow to take hold, partially because during the boom years of the 1870s mill owners had been paternalistic, but with trade slowing, they were no longer willing to subsidise the local church, brass band, mechanics institute or cricket team. Also, the majority of textile workers tended to be women engaged in what was termed as unskilled work. In 1885 65,000 females were employed in Bradford’s mills, compared to 30,000 men.
However, when on 9 December 1890 wage cuts of 25% were announced at Manningham Mills, it sparked a dispute that was to change the face of industrial relations in Bradford and beyond. The cuts came in response to American trade tariffs. The reductions were to be implemented at Christmas. Five thousand workers walked out in protest. In a letter to the Bradford Observer mill owner Samuel Cunliffe Lister said the cuts were fair. He claimed that whatever the level of wages: ‘The women spend their money on dress and the men in drink’. A response in the Observer said: ‘In Mr Lister’s eyes, probably the spending of an extra shilling a week on dress and drink represent the acme of short-sighted and foolish self-indulgence, and the purchase of big estates seems the perfection of far-sighted thrift and philanthropy’. The average wage at the mill was 70p a week, Lister himself was estimated to be worth around £6m and had spent £750,000 on two landed estates in North Yorkshire.
Forty policemen would be on duty to keep strikers and workers apart during shift changes. Despite the police presence strike breakers were assaulted on a regular basis, sometimes a fair distance from the mill itself. Windows were broken in several homes where strike breakers were lodging. Eventually, one hundred and fifty beds were set up in the mill so the workers didn’t have to run the gauntlet of the pickets. However, given that 5,000 workers were on strike, a couple of hundred people working was nothing more than a token gesture.
A food depot helped to feed and clothe striking families. Local butchers donated meat and Dr Smith of Lumb Lane waived his fees when treating strikers who fell ill. A strike fund attracted donations from all over the north. A fund raising rugby match between Manningham & District and the Yorkshire Nomads was played at Valley Parade on 19 January. Appearing where the Manningham’s trio Firth, Hardaker and Redman. Over 1,000 spectators boosted the fund by £24. The Fattorini family, Manningham residents and well-known jewellers, also made a donation of £2 2s to the fund. Tony Fattorini had been involved with the junior Manningham Rangers club and joined the Valley Parade committee during 1891, the start of a long and fruitful relationship with Manningham and later Bradford City.
By April 1891 the authorities were trying to prevent rallies and public meetings taking place in the city centre. A weekly meeting was held every Thursday at the Star Music Hall, but they were halted when the Chief Constable threatened to withdraw the licence from the Star unless the striker pledged not to hold city centre meetings on Sundays. Those meetings attracted huge crowds and the police claimed that fire exits had been blocked at St Georges Hall and blasphemous language had been used at an open air meeting in Forster Square. The Chief Constable’s actions escalated the dispute into a battle for free speech.
In defiance of the ban 20,000 gathered in the city centre on 13 April. When the police broke up the meeting fighting left the Chief Constable injured and only the intervention of troops from Bradford Moor barracks disbursed the crowds. The following night mounted police cleared the square outside the Town Hall, but the police were beaten back and once again the troops were called in. The Chief Constable read the riot act outside the New Inn at the bottom of Thornton Road. One hundred and six men of the Durham Light Infantry fixed bayonets and charged the crowd. The police backed them up with repeated baton charges.
Almost overlooked during the dramatic confrontations was the fact that the strikers were slowly being starved into submission. The harsh winter had played its part in sapping morale and over 200 strikers had emigrated to the USA. After nineteen weeks the spinning hands gathered at the Valley Parade Skating Rink and voted to return to work. The strike crumbled, but in its wake the Independent Labour Party was formed, an organisation that evolved into today’s Labour Party.
The bitterness of the strike lasted for years. Among the ranks of the police who baton charged the strikers were three of Bradford’s international players acting as special constables. Also in the police line was Joe Hawcridge, one of the founders of the Manningham club, one can only guess at his feelings as he waited to face a mob that would have contained many of his former friends and neighbours?
