n being the loudest”. Louise Raw also notes further support for the dock strike among women workers: “Female participation in the strike was again demonstrated when 150 tinplate workers, ‘mostly girls’, came out in solidarity, and ‘when a procession of dock labourers passed [them]... they followed in the rear, singing and dancing and playing mouth-organs’.”
During the Dock Strike, Eleanor played an important role behind the scenes. She undertook much of the administration during the strike. This was a critical task to organise support for thousands of strikers and their families while employers were trying to force them back to work. A newspaper report of the time describes how Eleanor Marx and local women “work in the interests of the strikers, some 16 or 17 hours a day”.
Eleanor Marx and other socialists argued for the importance of solidarity and self-organisation. The move away from “up on high” preaching of socialist ideas towards on-the-ground organisation was a radical departure from the norms of British socialism at the time.
The May Day demonstration of 1890 was when New Unionism was at its most visible. It was here that Eleanor Marx made one of her most famous speeches (see below).
From Silvertown to Stepney to the cities across Britain, New Unionism represented — without overstatement — one of the turning points of working class history. On 7 September, The East London News main editorial, with the headline “Strike Fever”, summed up how widespread the strikes were:
“The present week might not inaptly be called the week of strikes — coal men, match girls, parcels postmen, carmen, rag, bone and paper porters and pickers and the employees in jam, biscuit, rope, iron, screw, clothing and railway works have found some grievance, real and imaginary, and have followed the infectious example of coming out on strike.”
That “infectious example” remains an inspiration today. Workers who were told and believed for years that they could not improve their working conditions, their pay or their hours were beginning to fight back. Their example destroys the myth that anyone is “unorganisable”. Eleanor played an important part in the success of New Unionism and in giving workers the confidence to fight back.
This is an edited extract from A Rebel’s Guide to Eleanor Marx by Siobhan Brown, published by Bookmarks, £3
Speech on the First May Day
Hyde Park, 4 May 1890
We have not come to do the work of political parties, but we have come here in the cause of labour, in its own defence, to demand its own rights.
I can remember when we came in handfuls of a few dozen to Hyde Park to demand an Eight Hours’ Bill, but the dozens have grown to hundreds, and the hundreds to thousands, until we have this magnificent demonstration that fills the park today. We are standing face to face with another demonstration, but I am glad to see that the great masses of the people are on our side.
Those of us who have gone through all the worry of the Dock Strike, and especially the Gasworkers’ Strike, and have seen the men, women and children stand round us, have had enough of strikes, and we are determined to secure an eight hours’ day by legal enactment; unless we do so, it will be taken from us at the first opportunity.
We will only have ourselves to blame if we do not achieve the victory which this great day could so easily give us.
There is in the park this afternoon a man whom Mr Gladstone once imprisoned — Michael Davitt; but Mr Gladstone is now on the best of terms with him. What do you suppose is the reason for the change? Why has the Liberal Party been so suddenly converted to Home Rule? Simply because the Irish people sent 80 members to the House of Commons to support the Conservatives; in the same way we must kick these Liberal and Radical members out if they refuse to support our programme.
I am speaking this afternoon not only as a Trade Unionist, but as a Socialist. Socialists believe that the eight hours’ day is the first and most immediate step to be taken, and we aim at a time when there will no longer be one class supporting two oth