E119: 1926 general strike, part 2

Working Class History

Society & Culture, Education, History

5.0 • 813 Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2026

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Part 2 of our three-part miniseries about the UK’s 1926 general strike, which saw one and three-quarter million workers walk out in the biggest single work stoppage in British history. In collaboration with the General Strike 100 project and told using interviews with striking workers themselves.

In this episode, we go into the action of the strike itself, the self-activity of the 'Councils of Action', and first-hand accounts of clashes between workers, scabs, and police.

Our podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters. Our supporters fund our work, and in return get exclusive early access to podcast episodes without ads, bonus episodes, two exclusive podcast series – Fireside Chats and Radical Reads – as well as free and discounted merchandise and other content. Join us or find out more at patreon.com/workingclasshistory

Listen to Part 3 now (without ads) by joining us on Patreon
Listen to our bonus episode to hear more from two participants in the general strike, exclusively on Patreon
Listen to our bonus mini-episode where we explain the history behind the theme song used for this series

More info

Find out about events to commemorate the strike in your area (and beyond!) on the General Strike 100 website
- You will also find dozens of stories about incidents which took place during the strike in cities, towns, and villages across the UK
Get a copy of our interviewee, Judy Cox’s Revisiting the General Strike of 1926: When Workers Were Ready To Dare
More information including sources, further reading, images and a transcript available on the webpage for this episode: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e119-121-1926-general-strike/

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our Patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands and Fellow Worker.
Episode graphic: Strikers and their supporters in the Poplar district around the East London docks (where Harry Watson, one of the speakers in our series, was on strike). Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Our theme tune for this episode is Montaigne’s version of ‘When the Coal Comes from the Rhonda’, a folk song originating from Welsh miners in the early twentieth century and sung during the general strike. Download the song here. More from Montaigne: website, Instagram, YouTube.
Edited by Jesse French

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, and welcome back to part two of our mini-series about the British General Strike of 1926.
0:05.8	If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, I'd go back and listen to that first.
0:10.0	Oh, you men have done your pandi who dig the veins of coal.
0:15.7	With me little pick and shovel, I'll be there.
0:20.8	For the boss may own the colliery but I'll never own your soul
0:25.7	with my little pick and shovel I'll be there our podcast is brought to you by our patron supporters
0:33.4	our supporters our supporters fund our work and in return get exclusive access to podcast episodes without ads,
0:39.5	bonus episodes every month, free and discounted merch and other content.
0:44.4	So our supporters can listen to all three parts of this mini series now,
0:48.1	as well as an exclusive bonus episode with more information and context.
0:52.7	So if you can, please join us and help us preserve and promote
0:56.0	our history of collective struggle. Sign up and listen today at patreon.com slash working class history.
1:02.7	Link in the show notes. The strike was scheduled to begin at 1159pm on Monday the 3rd of May.
1:09.9	However, unofficial action in some areas was already beginning
1:13.1	over the weekend. On Sunday, printers at the right-wing Daily Mail newspaper refused to print
1:18.7	an editorial which claimed the general strike aimed to inflict pain on innocent people in the
1:23.7	community. On Monday, printers at the star, the evening standard and the evening news
1:29.0	took similar action against similarly worded editorials in those newspapers. And on Tuesday,
1:35.3	the Times and the Telegraph newspapers were also affected, even though the General Strike
1:39.9	hadn't officially started at the time they were supposed to be printed. Once the strike officially got going, however, the response was overwhelming.
1:48.0	Ministry of Labour figures put the number of strikers at between 1.5 and 1 and 3 quarter million.
1:54.0	On top of this, there were around a million miners who were locked out.
	...

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