Ten Per Cent and No Surrender
The Preston Strike, 1853–1854

This is a study of industrial unrest in the cotton industry at a time when the economy was on the threshold of mid-Victorian prosperity.

H. I. Dutton (Author), J. E. King (Author)

9780521072571, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 4 September 2008

288 pages
22.5 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.43 kg

This is a study of industrial unrest in the cotton industry at a time when the economy was on the threshold of mid-Victorian prosperity, and when Chartism was still much more than a memory. The town of Preston was the crucial battlefield, and here the masters and men fought out a bitter trial of strength. The strike of 1853–54 closed the Preston cotton industry for seven months, and disrupted production in many other towns in Lancashire. Against the implacable opposition of the masters, the strikers toured the country to organize support, and raised £100,000 in subscriptions from their fellow operatives. The dispute featured prominently in the national and provincial press, and the weavers' delegates, notably George Cowell and Mortimer Grimshaw, became celebrities overnight. After five months, the employers brought in blackleg labour, and when the detested `knobsticks' failed to break the strike they had the operatives' leaders arrested. These moves did not deter the cotton workers, who were forced back to work only when their financial reserves were exhausted. Their campaign ended defiantly, as it had begun, with cries of `Ten Per Cent still, and no surrender'. This book is their story.

1. Industry and Unions
2. Ten Per Cent (5 June–14 October 1853)
3. The Operatives
4. The Masters
5. Locked Out (15 October 1853–9 February 1854)
6. Council and Bench
7. Guardians of the Poor
8. Lord Palmerston
9. The Press
10. Defeat (10 February–13 May 1854)
11. Posterity.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1]