Shop Workers Against Fascism

The onset in 1930 of the severest recession  the world had ever  known made 20 per cent of Britain's workers unemployed.
 
The town of Jarrow in the North East of England epitomised the human misery of unemployment  in the hungry thirties.

Virtually a single-industry town, its life blood came from Palmer's shipyard. when the shipyard closed down the consequences were catastrophic. Nearly 80 per cent of the workforce was out of work. 

Malnutrition was claiming lives and the death rate from tuberculosis was double the national average.   

In 1936, with Shop Workers union sponsored MP Ellen Wilkinson at their head,  the men of Jarrow set off to march to London. Throughout the journey the march was fed.and sheltered largely by.the efforts' of trade union members  and Co-operative Societies.  


Ellen spoke nightly at public  meetings en route  and  finally led  the weary yet triumphant marchers into London's Parliament Square.  

The  march  roused  the  whole  nation, but the Tory Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, refused to see any of the marchers.

Apart from the recession, another great  shadow lay over the political scene of the thirties—the  increasing power of Fascism across Europe and the threat of a second world war.

The Shop workers union joined with other unions in highlighting the abuses of fascist regimes in Europe, while opposing fascism in Britain at a time when the ruling establishment including the Daily Mail, Conservative MP's and members of the Royal Family were embracing Hitlerism and his fascist ideology.

Union members fought the fascists on the streets of the East End and elsewhere. They died in the International Brigade defending Republican Spain against fascist enemies.

When the second World War came the union would lose over 2,000 members fighting fascism and a further 140 civilian members killed in aerial attacks  on Britain



NOTE
The Shop Workers union lost 2,047 member during World War 2 fighting fascism, to add to the 2,103 killed in World War 1

Reclaim the Monument

From the top of the Monument the great stone pillar that towers 200 feet high in the heart of the City of London, there streamed yesterday (Friday 30^th December 1938) a huge banner:-

“For a Happy New Year Unemployed Must Not Starve in 1939”

The unemployed (NUWM) themselves who were finally ejected by the police, told reporters how it was done. Seven or eight men walked up the steps to the top of the Monument. A diversion was created which drew away the attendant. Then the door was wedged.

Mr Alf Salisbury Secretary of the Stepney Branch National Unemployed Workers Movement “We took part in this demonstration to protest against the vicious administration of extra winter relief regulations”

Alf Salisbury

Alf Salisbury (far left) demonstrating in Stepney in 1936

Alf was born to Latvian Jewish immigrant parents in 1909, one of ten children. He left school at 14 years of age and joined the merchant marine and the National Union of Seamen.

In 1926, he jumped ship in New York. A three-year trek across the USA saw him become involved with the IWW, the `Wobblies’. Back at sea in 1929, he was arrested in Guatemala as a spy and spent seven weeks in prison.

Returning to Britain, he joined the Communist Party in 1929 and remained a loyal Communist until the end of his life. In 1936, he was victimised by being placed on a proscribed list from going back into the merchant navy. Before then, and perhaps prompting this act, he had become an activist in the National Unemployed Workers Movement and participated in anti-fascist struggles, including Cable Street.

Alf joined the International Brigade in 1937 and returned to Britain in 1938 after the Brigades were withdrawn and became secretary of the Stepney NUWM.

Rejected on medical grounds for wartime military service, in 1940 he married Lilly Nicklansky, and moved to Maryport, Cumbria, where he worked in a munitions factory, organised for the Party, and became a shop steward. Back in London in the post-war period, in 1949, Alf was to be found throwing himself in front of lorries trying to cross the picket of striking hotel workers at the Savoy, in the Strand, London.

Alf was involved in East End housing campaigns and started a rent strike, becomg evicted in the process. Over the next years, he worked in the textile, clothing, chemical and furniture industries, on the railways, edning up with the London Co-Operative Society.

He spent his remaining years as a local activist of considerable renown, being involved with trades councils, and latterly with the shopworkers' union Usdaw, until his death. In 1970, he co-founded the Waltham Forest Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

He remained involved with his union post-retirement, with London pensioners' organisations and the International Brigade Association. In the 1980s, he was exceptionally active in supporting the miners' strike and the printers sacked by Rupert Murdoch at Wapping, and the pensioners' movement.

For four decades, he was a delegate to Westminster and City Trades Council. In 1970, he co-founded Waltham Forest CND. He died on November 5^th 2000, aged 91.

Sources: Morning Star November 11^th 2000; Guardian December 8^th 2000; The life and times of Alf Salisbury by Liane Groves Cities of London & Westminster Trades Council.

The WSPU - The Monument

On the 18th April 1913 suffragettes of the WSPU stormed the Monument in London (built to mark the Fire of London)

You can see in the WSPU flag flying from the railings

Local Hayes WSPU supporter Marion Cunningham lived at Oakdene, Hayes End,

The National Unemployed Workers Movement (NUWM) also occupied the Monument during the Thirties and unveiled a banner


An extra message was chiselled on in 1681 – But Popish frenzy, which wrought such horrors, is not yet quenched. This was a reference to the anti-Catholic feeling of the times, and was scrubbed out in 1831 when Catholics were given civil rights.From London tourist guide

The Monument was designed by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke, and built between 1671 and 1677, After it was completed an extra message was chiselled on it in 1681 –

But Popish frenzy, which wrought such horrors, is not yet quenched.

This was a reference to the anti-Catholic feeling of the times, and was scrubbed out in 1831 when Catholics were given limited civil rights in England.

An extra message was chiselled on in 1681 – But Popish frenzy, which wrought such horrors, is not yet quenched. This was a reference to the anti-Catholic feeling of the times, and was scrubbed out in 1831 when Catholics were given civil rights.From London tourist guide
An extra message was chiselled on in 1681 – But Popish frenzy, which wrought such horrors, is not yet quenched. This was a reference to the anti-Catholic feeling of the times, and was scrubbed out in 1831 when Catholics were given civil rights.From London tourist guide

Maud Brown - National Unemployed Workers Movement

Maud Brown


Maud Brown was the women's organiser of the National Unemployed Workers Movement (NUWM) and in that capacity helped lead the great hunger marches of the nineteen thirties.

In 1929 a Women's section of the NUWM was established on the initiative of a Mrs Youle of Sheffield Women's Section of the NUWM.

Maud Brown became the head of the new department, according to Richard Croucher who wrote a comprehensive history of the NUWM "her appointment marked the beginning of a rapid and qualitive improvement in the movements work among women".

Maud Brown, was unlike many other leaders of the NUWM not a member of the Communist Party

With the failure of the Government to abolish the "not genuinely seeking work" clause or address other unemployed grievances It was decided that the "hunger march" of march 1930 consisted of some 1,100 men included twelve contingents coming chiefly from Scotland, Durham, Northumberland, Plymouth, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, derby, south wales, Staffordshire, Midlands and Kent would include

It was also agreed that for the first time a women's contingent . This contingent from the derelict textile areas comprised of eight women from Barnsley and fourteen from Bradford. This decision may partly be explained by the appointment of Margaret Bondfield as Minister of Labour.


They set off from Leeds with Maud Brown at the head of the Women's contingent and arrived in London on may day to be greeted by 50,000 supporters May Day. However, the women's contingent marched separately according to Margaret McCarthy Secretary of Burnley NUWM "to avoid scandalous gossip".

The women's contingent was met in London by the London Committee of Action set up to support the Hunger March. This committee presented with a red scarf

After the rally in Hyde Park many of the marchers sought accommodation In Fulham Workhouse, after a major stand off with the marchers and the huge crowd who supported them, they were allowed inside, almost immediately a huge red flag was hoisted, despite the protestations of the workhouse master.

In 1935 the NUWM published "stop this starvation of mother and child", Maud Browns booklet presented a wealth of medical evidence to show the close relationship between poverty and mother and child morbidity.

At her eightieth birthday in August 1968 Maud Brown spoke of her role in the unemployment movement and her part in Aberdeen, when tenants hauled rats from homes at councillors. Her special job was to throw the only live one.

Nan Macmillan stated of her role in the hunger marches that she organised them with "courage and fearlessness".

Hilda Vernon speaking at Brown's eightieth birthday she did so "With a stern sense of duty, a kind heart and a sense of humour".

Michael Walker



29th June 1975
died aged 86


Maud Brown (below)