| Battle of George Square | |||
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| Part ofRed Clydeside | |||
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| Date | 31 January 1919 | ||
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| Lead figures | |||
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| Many injured; one police constable died later of injuries received | |||
TheBattle of George Square was a violent confrontation inGlasgow, Scotland betweenCity of Glasgow Police and striking workers, centred aroundGeorge Square. The "battle", also known as "Bloody Friday" or "Black Friday", took place on Friday 31 January 1919, shortly after the end of theFirst World War. During the riot, theSheriff of Lanarkshire called for military aid, andgovernment troops, supported by sixtanks, were moved to key points in the city, though troops never clashed with the rioters. Thestrike leaders were arrested for inciting the riot. Although it is often stated that there were no fatalities, one police constable died several months later from injuries received during the rioting.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
After World War I, the United Kingdom'sdemobilization of its military and industry, combined with the increasingly worsening post war domesticfiscal and monetary environment, created the prospect ofmass unemployment, which theScottish TUC andClyde Workers' Committee (CWC) sought to counter by increasing the availability of jobs for demobilised soldiers by striking to obtain a reduction of theworking week from a newly-agreed 47 to 40 hours.[7] The resulting strike began on Monday 27 January, with a meeting of around 3,000 workers held at theSt. Andrew's Halls.[8]
On 29 January, a delegation of strikers met theLord Provost of Glasgow and it was agreed that he would send a telegram to theDeputy Prime MinisterBonar Law asking the government to intervene. It was agreed that the strikers would return at noon on Friday 31 January to hear the response. After the meeting, the Sheriff of Lanarkshire contacted the government to ask if military aid would be available to him, if needed, should there be any disorder on the Friday.[1]
The telegram and the Sheriff's request prompted theWar Cabinet to discuss the 'Strike Situation in Glasgow' on 30 January[9]
At the meeting, concern was voiced that, given the concurrent Europeanpopular uprisings, the strike had the possibility to spread throughout the country. While it was government policy at the time to not involve itself in labour disputes, the agreed action was justified to ensure there was 'sufficient force'[10] present within the immediate locale of Glasgow to secure the continuation of public order and operation ofmunicipal services.[11] The decision to use thearmed forces to provide the requested force, in the absence of a declaration ofmartial law, required those forces be acting on behalf of acivil authority.[12] On the meeting's close, instructions were sent toScottish Command informing of the situation and to be prepared to deploygovernment troops if requested.[9]
On 31 January, a large number of strikers (contemporary estimates range from 20,000 to 25,000[13]) congregated in George Square. They were awaiting an answer to the telegram the Lord Provost of Glasgow had sent to the Prime Minister on behalf of a delegation of strikers on 29 January, asking the government to intervene.[14]
The failure of the tram workers to join the strike and thereby paralyse transport in the city had been a source of growing tension in the preceding days. Some of the strikers tried to stop the tram traffic in the Square. Attempts by the police to clear a way for the trams led to a series of baton charges and growing violence.[15]
As the fighting started in George Square, a Clyde Workers' Committee deputation was in theGlasgow City Chambers waiting to meet the Lord Provost of Glasgow. On hearing the news, CWC leadersDavid Kirkwood andEmanuel Shinwell left the City Chambers. Kirkwood was knocked to the ground by apolice baton.[16] Then he, Shinwell, andWilliam Gallacher were arrested. They were charged with "instigating and inciting large crowds of persons to form part of ariotous mob".[17][18]
The fighting between the strikers and police, somemounted, spread into the surrounding streets and continued into the night.[19] During the evening, Police Constable William McGregor (who had recently returned to the police from the army) was struck on the head by a bottle thrown by rioters in the Saltmarket; he died of his injuries on 1 June 1919.[2]
The events of the day prompted the request for military assistance by the Sheriff of Lanarkshire (Alastair Oswald Morison Mackenzie, 1917–1933) the most senior locally based judge, also known as theSheriff Principal. The deployment had already begun before the day's meeting of the War Cabinet,[20] which convened at 3pm.[21]
During that meeting,Robert Munro, Secretary for Scotland, described the demonstration as "aBolshevist uprising". A force made up mainly of Scottish troops was dispatched from bases in Scotland, and one battalion was sent up from northern England. GeneralSir Charles Harington, theDeputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff informed the meeting that 6 tanks supported by 100lorries were "going north that evening".[21]
It is sometimes suggested that the War Cabinet ordered this deployment, but this is incorrect: the government lacked the authority to deploy troops against British civilians without declaring martial law, which was not declared. The War Cabinet discussed the issue but the military deployment was in response to the request from the Sheriff of Lanarkshire.[20]
The first troops arrived that night,[22] with their numbers increasing over the next few days. The threeMedium Mark C tanks, and threeMark V* tanks of theRoyal Tank Regiment arrived fromBovington on Monday 3 February.[23] The Observer newspaper reported that "The city chambers is like an armed camp. The quadrangle is full of troops and equipment, including machine guns."[24]
The military arrived after the rioting was over and they played no active role in dispersing the protesters.[20] The troops guarded locations of importance to the civil authorities throughout the period of the strike, which lasted until 12 February. The troops and tanks then remained in Glasgow, and its surrounding areas, until 18 February.[25]
A common misconception around George Square is that tanks and troops were used against protesters. According to historian Gordon Barclay, no evidence exists to support this assertion.[3]
Key members involved in the strike were arrested in the immediate aftermath of the events of the 31st. Only two – William Gallacher and Emanuel (Manny) Shinwell – were convicted, and were sentenced to three months and five months in prison respectively.[26]
Some of those involved claim that this came close to being a successful revolution. Gallacher said "had there been an experienced revolutionary leadership, instead of a march to Glasgow Green there would have been a march to the city's Maryhill Barracks. There we could easily have persuaded the soldiers to come out, and Glasgow would have been in our hands."[27] Most historians now dispute this claim and argue that it was a reformist rather than revolutionary gathering.[27] Gallacher always regretted not having taken a more revolutionary approach to the 40-hour strike and to the events in George Square in 1919, writing afterwards that, "We were carrying on a strike when we ought to have been making a revolution".[28] Shinwell, born to aJewish immigrant family inLondon, ran in the municipal elections to theGlasgow Corporation following his release from prison.[29]
In thegeneral election of 1922, the second election held after the passage of theRepresentation of the People Act 1918, Scotland elected 29 Labour MPs. Their number included the 40 Hour Strike organisers andIndependent Labour Party members Manny Shinwell and David Kirkwood.[30][31] TheGeneral Election of 1923 eventually saw the first Labour government come to power underRamsay MacDonald. The region'ssocialist sympathies earned it the epithet ofRed Clydeside.[32]
The Battle of George Square has become part of both left-wing andScottish nationalist folklore, where it is often couched in explicitly anti-capitalist andAnglophobic terms, and portrayed as "English troops and tanks" being sent against Scottish demonstrators byWinston Churchill.[5][6] Churchill in fact played no role in the events: he was not a voting member of the five-man War Cabinet, and did not believe that deploying troops to Glasgow was necessary. The troops were only deployed at the request of the Sheriff of Lanarkshire: the War Cabinet had no power to order the deployment of troops against British citizens without a declaration of martial law. The claim that Churchill ordered the deployment of troops dates no earlier than Emanuel Shinwell's memoirs of 1973. Willie Gallacher claimed in his 1936 memoir that Scottish troops were locked into Maryhill Barracks out of fear that they would join the strikers and replaced with English troops. In reality, Scottish Command was ordered to draw troops from across Scotland, and soldiers of theSeaforths,Gordons,Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, and theRoyal Scots were ultimately deployed to Glasgow. There was at the time only one English battalion based in Scotland, from theEast Surrey Regiment, at Bridge of Allan. At no point did troops encounter the strikers, nor were shots fired: the troops were used to guard public buildings after the worst of the rioting had passed in order to release police for crowd control.[1][3][4][5]
A photograph taken at theTrongate of aMark IV tank, surrounded by a crowd that includes soldiers, is frequently mispresented as an image of a tank at the Battle of George Square. In reality, the photograph was taken in January 1918, almost a year earlier: the tank, Number 113 "Julian", was exhibited during "Tank Week" parades across the UK as part of awar bonds drive. "Julian" attracted considerable interest, and £14 million in National War Bonds and National Savings Certificates was raised from Glasgow, compared to £6.7 million in Birmingham and £4.7 million in Edinburgh.[6]
The Battle of George Square remains highly politicised: as late as November 2018, the website of theScottish Government agencyEducation Scotland contained an educational resource titled 'The Road to the Scottish Parliament', which described the Battle of George Square as "an event unique in British history", in which "English troops and tanks" were deployed against demonstrators on the orders of Winston Churchill, and repeated the claim that "Scottish troops already present in Glasgow were locked in Maryhill Barracks for fear that they might join the demonstrators and precipitate a major revolution."[1]
