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Description: | This song refers to the 'Nine hours movement', a strike at Armstrong's manufacturing works in Elswick. Following a strike in the spring of 1871, engineering employees on Wearside had achieved a reduction of their working day to nine hours. Hearing of this success, workers on Tyneside met in the April of 1871 to establish a 'Nine Hours League' in order to negotiate the same rights. On 22 May, having being refused their terms, the League recommended their fellow workers hand in their notice and thousands of men began a twenty-week strike.The strike became known throughout the country and paralysed the engineering works of Armstrong, Hawthorn, W. Abbott of Gateshead and many other Tyneside engineering works. On 3rd August the employers offered a deal of a fifty-seven hour basic week, but the League refused. The employers thereupon brought in over a thousand workers from Belgium, Germany and Scandinavia, causing violent reactions from locals. Armstrong was determined not to bend to the will of his workers but, faced with the complete loss of skilled labour and of orders to other regions was forced to reach a compromise. Finally it was agreed that the men would have a fifty-four hour week, but would work such overtime as the employers required. By October of that year most of the men were back at work.This song was written by Rowland Harrison. Harrison was born in King William Street, Gateshead, on 23rd June 1841. From the age of 23 he found success as an author and comic singer, appearing at a number of music halls throughout the North East. Known for his talents at character portrayal, Harrison went on to manage the Geordy Black pub in Gateshead, the Commercial Hotel at Winlaton, and various music halls. It is not known when Rowland Harrison died but references in Allan's Tyneside songs indicate that he outlived Joe Wilson, Ned Corvan and other contemporaries by a number of years.'Chep on strike' forms part of a small song book issued by an unidentified publisher. It contains over 50 pages of local songs composed by Harrison, and contains an interesting illustration of the author as 'Geordy Black' in his famous song of the same name. The latest reference in the book dates its publication to around 1871. ; A collection of songs composed by Rowland Harrison. | Publisher: | unknown | Rights holder: | rights holder : Newcastle University | Subjects: | protest & industry and occupation strikes & engineering & protest | Temporal: | start=1861;end=1900; | Source: | Folk Archive Resource North East | Identifier: | farne:B0305002 | Go to resource |
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Ejected
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