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The Origins of the 1852 Lock-Out in the British Engineering Industry Reconsidered*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

P. J. Murphy
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The engineers' lock-out of 1852 is just one of those historical events which, while receiving extensive coverage and being long pondered over, remain to this day a bone of contention. In terms of scale and in the sophistication of the tactics employed, it “was the first of a new class of strikes or lock-outs”. It aroused more sustained interest than any previous industrial dispute. It stimulated “a discussion of the strike by the press, so comprehensive and exhaustive that a reproduction of the newspaper articles would fill volumes”. At this time, the only other trade unions of any appreciable size were still less than half the strength of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. Some earlier combinations had been larger, but they had been formed solely in relation to specific strikes and, as such, were ephemeral in character. The mass movements of 1830–34 generally rested upon the precarious financial foundations of irregular levies. The Webbs concluded that a “trade society which […] could count on a regular income of £500 a week was without precedent.”

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , August 1978 , pp. 242 - 266
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1978

References

1 Hughes, Th., Account of the Lock-Out of engineers, & c. 1851–2 (Cambridge, 1860), p. 5.Google Scholar

2 S., and Webb, B., The History of Trade Unionism, revised ed. (London, 1920), p. 215.Google Scholar

3 Pole, W., The Life of Sir William Fairbairn (London, 1877), p. 324.Google Scholar

4 S. and B. Webb, op. cit., p. 214, note to p. 213.

5 Hughes, op. cit., p. 12.

6 Northern Star, January 10, 1852.

7 Jefferys, J. B., The Story Of The Engineers 1800–1945 (London, n.d., reprinted 1970).Google Scholar

8 Pelling, H., A History of British Trade Unionism (Harmondsworth, 1963).Google Scholar

9 Jefferys, op. cit., pp. 37–39. Italics added.

10 Pelling, op. cit., p. 51.

11 S. and B. Webb, op. cit., pp. 214–15.

12 Hughes, op. cit., p. 13.

13 Burgess, , “Trade Union Policy and the 1852 Lock-Out in the British Engineering Industry”, in: International Review of Social History, XVII (1972).Google Scholar

14 Ibid., p. 656.

15 Ibid., p. 655.

16 Ibid., p. 645.

17 Ibid., pp. 656–57. Italics added.

18 Jefferys, op. cit., p. 29.

19 Their official title was “The Journeymen Steam Engine and Machine Makers and Millwrights' Friendly Society”.

20 S. and B. Webb, op. cit., p. 213.

21 The Operative, April 12, 1851.

22 Ibid., May 31.

23 The Times, January 1, 1852.

24 Ibid., January 19, quoted by Burgess, “Trade Union Policy”, loc. cit., p. 650.

25 Thomas Wood in Useful Toil, ed. by Burnett, J. (London, 1974), p. 310.Google Scholar

26 Jefferys, op. cit., p. 35.

27 Wood, loc. cit., p. 310. Wood worked at Hibbert and Piatt for thirteen to fourteen months from the summer of 1845.

28 Burgess, , “Technological Change and the 1852 Lock-Out in the British Engineering Industry”, in: International Review of Social History, XIV (1969).Google Scholar

29 Hughes, op. cit., p. 9.

30 The Operative, May 3, 1851.

31 Ibid.

32 Burgess, “Trade Union Policy”, loc. cit., p. 652.

33 Supplement to The Operative, December 30, 1851.

34 Minute book of the Executive Council, quoted by Hughes, op. cit., p. 10.

35 Jefferys, op. cit., p. 35. Source not indicated, italics added. I was unable to determine whether these statements derive from two separate meetings or were the products of the same meeting and a confusion of dates.

36 The Operative, May 17, 1851.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid.

39 The Times, January 14, 1852.

40 The Operative, May 17, 1851.

41 Jefferys, op. cit., pp. 35–36.

42 The Operative, May 17, 1851.

43 Quoted by Hughes, op. cit., pp. 10–11. Norbury and Hemm were members of the remnants of the “Old Mechanics”, who were just about to amalgamate with the ASE.

44 The Times, January 1, 1852.

45 The Operative, May 24, 1851.

46 Jefferys, op. cit., p. 36.

47 The Operative, May 24, 1851, quoted by Burgess, , “Trade Union Policy”, p. 654.Google Scholar

48 The Operative, May 24, 1851.

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid.

51 The Times, January 1, 1852.

52 Ibid.; also see Supplement to The Operative, January 3.

53 Hughes, op. cit., p. 11. Also see Howell, G., “The Engineers' Strike and Lock-Out, 1851–2”, in: R. and E. Frow and M. Katenka, Strikes: A documentary history (London, 1971), p. 57.Google Scholar

54 The Times, January 1, 1852.

55 Burgess, , “Trade Union Policy”, pp. 646–50Google Scholar, provides an account of some of these earlier disputes.

56 Hughes, op. cit., p. 6.

57 Ibid., pp. 6–7.

58 Jefferys, op. cit., p. 36.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

61 Hughes, op. cit., pp. 7–9.

62 Ibid., p. 9.

63 Quoted by Hughes, op. cit., p. 25.

64 Lord Cranworth's name was floated as a possible arbiter in the dispute, but this suggestion did not meet with the approval of the Executive Council of the ASE.

65 The Operative, January 14, 1852.

66 Jefferys, op. cit., p. 35.

67 The Times, December 22, 1851. It was later revealed that this self-styled paragon of detachment was one Thomas Fairbairn, the son of the master millwright Sir William Fairbairn. Pole, Sir William Fairbairn, op. cit., pp. 323–24.

68 The Times, December 23, 1851.

69 Jefferys, op. cit., p. 36.

70 The Times, January 1, 1852.

71 Ibid.

72 The Times, December 31, 1851.

73 Hughes, op. cit., p. 12. Italics added.

74 The Times, December 20, 1851. Italics added.

75 Hughes, op. cit., pp. 14–15. Italics added.

76 Ibid., p. 11.

77 Ibid., p. 15.

78 Ibid., p. 16.

79 The Times, January 9, 1852.

80 Ibid., January 1. Incidentally, Jefferys's not significant, but indicative, aside that the Manchester employers locked out their workers on January 10 in spite of the fact that the men at Hibbert and Platt had not struck work over the employment of labourers (op. cit., p. 38), is not strictly valid. By their earlier affiliation to the Central Association the resolution of the Manchester group had been superseded by the resolution of the London body (Hughes, op. cit., pp. 12, 16).

81 Northern Star, January 10, 1852.

82 Representation of the case of the Executive Committee of the Central Association of Employers of Operative Engineers, quoted by Neale, E. Vansittart, May I not do what I will with my own? (London, 1852), pp. 3–4.Google Scholar

83 The Times, December 23, 1851.

84 Vansittart Neale, op. cit., pp. 3–4.

85 The Times, January 12, 1852.

86 Clapham, J. H., An Economic History of Modern Britain. The Early Railway Age 1820–1850, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1939), p. 207.Google Scholar

87 S. and B. Webb, op. cit., pp. 204–05.

88 Jefferys, op. cit., p. 10.

89 S. and B. Webb, op. cit., p. 84, note to p. 83.

90 SirFairbairn, William, A Treatise on Mills and Millwork (London, 1861)Google Scholar, Preface.

91 The source of this new class of worker is not entirely clear. Some evidence and opinion suggests that the millwright continued, in spite of the adverse circumstances, to defend his position, while other material indicates that he reluctantly adapted to the new conditions. It would be strange had not the frustrated inventors and engineering employers made strenuous efforts to tap and channel the skills of the millwright into the techniques demanded by the new manufactures, but this source could hardly meet the needs of expanding industry.

92 Jefferys, op. cit., p. 21.

93 Ibid., p. 24.

94 Ibid., p. 34.

95 Ibid., p. 22.

96 Ibid., p. 34.

97 Ibid., p. 26.

98 Ibid., p. 27.

99 While receiving no mention in Burgess's paper on the lock-out, Newton does make a fleeting appearance in his coverage of the affair in his subsequent book, The Origins of British Industrial Relations (London, 1975), p. 23.Google Scholar

100 The Times, December 29, 1851.

101 Jefferys, op. cit., p. 38.

102 The Times, December 31, 1851. Incidentally, in his strenuous efforts to refute charges of exclusiveness, Newton rather indiscreetly accused Amicus of resorting “to terms of abuse worthy of an irritated cabman”. Ibid., January 7, 1852.

103 Ibid., December 27, 1851.

104 Ibd., January 1,1852.

105 Ibid., December 29, 1851.

106 Ibid., January 2, 1852.

107 Ibid., January 9.

108 Ibid., December 29, 1851.

109 Jefferys, op. cit., p. 35.

110 The Operative, May 17, 1851.

111 The Times, January 1, 1852.

112 Jefferys, op. cit., p. 38.

113 Burgess, op. cit., p. 23.

114 The Times, December 27, 1851.

115 This preoccupation is perhaps most clearly expressed when he laments the treatment meted out to Robert Applegarth, a leading member of the “Junta”, by his own union. It seems his union refused to allow him time off to perform his duties as a Commissioner of the “Royal Commission on Contagious Diseases”. In consequence, he resigned his union membership. Pelling comments: “To be forced out of the movement in this way was a sad fate for a man who had contributed more than anyone else to making unionism acceptable to the public opinion of the upper classes.” Pelling, op. cit., p. 73. Italics added.

116 Ibid., p. 215.

117 Ibid., p. 227.

118 Ibid., p. 51. Italics added.

119 Ibid., p. 227.

120 Ibid., p. 260.

121 Burgess, op. cit., Introduction, p. iv.

122 Ibid., p. 48. Italics added.

123 Ibid., p. 47.

124 Ibid., p. 49. Italics added.