George Garrett Archive Course

Module One, Workshop Four.

From The Walker Art Gallery to the First Hunger March.

Detective Sergeant John Barnes, in a written report of the unemployed demonstrations in Liverpool throughout September 1921, held in the lead up to the Police attack upon the demonstrations at The Walker Art Gallery, reports hearing George Garrett speaking at one of the meetings along the way. Garrett, he quotes, said he was,

‘Taking a stand for the working class of this country against the parasites living on the workers. “They are living over there” pointing to the North western Hotel “and they will have to come out of it. In 1914 you fought for your King and Country but why should you fight for a man simply because he wears and ermine collar and has a crown of jewels. It is the wealth of that which you produce and must get. When this is done you will share equally the good things of life and that time will witness the end of unemployment and distress in this country. I do not want to say any more but will close my remarks by saying, “To hell with 1914, up 1921”.’

In our fourth workshop of Module One we discussed the significance of Garrett’s statement, against the backgroundof the prevailing world-wide financial orthodoxy of wanting to hark back to the economic conditions prior to WW1. Tony Wailey, quoting the economist Kondatrievtalked about the pressure in a ‘down period’ to cut supply when demand is slack. This was a continuation of the discussions in the previous workshop relating to the development of nationalism and the national state. Britain and France desired to return to the world of free trade, but post WW1 looked far different, and as borders rose so trade became restricted. This was to have a direct impact upon George Garrett and the Liverpool working class as in the early 1920’s 169,000 people depended upon shipping and the associated port industries for their livelihood.

Before WW1 British shipping represented 44% of the world fleet. In 1921 it had fallen to 30%. At the same time the former dominions of the British Empire, Australia, Canada, South Africa, India and the countries of Latin America, had begun to build their own infrastructure.

The move towards nationalism led to the formation of the National Maritime Board A cartel began to coalesce, forging an uncertain unity between the shipowners, The National Seamen and Firemen’s Union, and the state. As discussed previously, this saw extreme developments including the formation of the ‘White Seafarer’s Union’. This jarred with Garrett, and others like him, who had spent time in the US and had mixed with, or as in Garrett’s case, even joined The Wobblies’ (IWW – Industrial Workers of the World’), and had an internationalist outlook.

Some of the trade union leaders dressed like Lords, even turning up to meetings in top hats, seeing little distinction between themselves and the bosses they were meant to oppose. The problem of cosying up to the state became clear later: what were they to do when Lloyd George wanted to cut seafarer’s wages due to there being no demand for shipping? The Seamen were heavily criticised and threatened with jail for rejecting wage cuts.As restrictions were imposed on their protests at home, this period also seamen beginning to take action when docked in foreign ports where they felt they had more freedom to move and more power over the ship owners.

When there was no work you were forced to go ‘On the Parish’ and seek support from the poor law Guardians. Garrett, and other activists such as Jack Braddock, recognising the difficulties of dealing with Guardians across the country, some of whom were generous while others, Liverpool being a case in point, were extremely harsh, tried to drive a wedge between the state and the Guardians by raising the cry for ‘Work or Maintenance’ to be provided by the Government. However, some, such as GDH Cole and Raymond Postgate, writing in The Common People, argue that ‘it was commonly said in the winter of 1921 & 22 that the ‘dole’ saved Britain from revolution.’ Easy to say in hindsight, but what were activists like Garrett meant to do, among the poverty and suffering that they, their families, and their fellow unemployed were enduring?

The Trades Unions had grown rapidly in the period leading up to 1921, but although unemployment was a major problem across the UK, there was little articulation between the trade unions and the unemployed. The trade unions did not know how to deal with them.

1920 saw the birth of the British Communist Party. This galvanised the unemployed as a force and led to the formation of the National Unemployed Workers Movement, a movement that brought under one banner a cross section of society, of Catholics and Protestants, and even, as demonstrated in the leadership of the unemployed struggles in Liverpool, the clergy marching alongside ex-policemen.

Garrett’s writings on this period, Liverpool 1921-22 and The First Hunger March, coming as they do from someone who is both an active participant and keen observer, must rank as among the most outstanding pieces of writing about the unemployed struggles and the plight of the working class, and the response of the political and state forces of that period. 

Garrett, while carrying in his mind the heady mix of ideas and internationalism he had imbibed from his time in the States, now had to consider what might be achieved in Liverpool and the UK. He was now forced to go into the minutiae of the law on benefits and relief to be able to be of service to those suffering all around him. His scrapbooks, with detailed notes and newspaper cuttings, reveal this dedication to exposing and exploiting the law and the rules for relief to the benefit of the unemployed.

The unemployed marchers, led by ex-police striker Bob Tissyman, The Reverend Vincent Laughland, Jack Braddock, George Garrett, and others representing a diverse group of political outlooks and experiences, led a sustained, well organised and inventive campaign for work or maintenance, to get the Liverpool Guardiansto raise their rates of relief. These campaigns are brought to life in Garrett’s work, drawing you in with such a fluidity of pen and turn of detail that you are tempted to look at your feet to check you aren’t shoeless yourself.

The first stage of the campaign culminated in a ‘riot’ at The Walker Art Gallery. Frustrated by a lack of progress in their campaign for work or more relief, under pressure to win some sort of victory, and undecided about how to take the movement forward, Bob Tissyman, rather than leading the demonstrators gathered at the plateau at St George’s Hall on their usual demonstration around the city centre, called upon them to take a ‘walk’ over to the Walker Art Gallery

The demonstrators who reach the Walker Art Gallery, even though gathered peacefully inside and in negotiation with the manager who was trying to contact the mayor by telephone, becomea prime target for the police who were waiting behind St George’s Hall, in the Assizes and in the Museum. They attack the demonstrators from behind and within the art gallery, and charge them on horseback outside. They lock the gallery doors and proceed to beat the demonstrators and staff so savagely that people jump from the windows to save themselves. By the end of the day 16 were injured so badly they are taken to hospital, including ex-policeman Tissyman who has a broken arm and gashes to his head, and 140 were arrested, Garrett among them, who was picked up after the demonstration is over.

When the case came to court the judge, clearly shocked by what he sees and hears, jails the main defendants - for one day, ensuring they are immediately released. His understated comments that, ‘I think most unnecessary violence was used to these men in The Walker Art Gallery,’ gives an indication of the disquiet at the role of the Police on the day.

In the aftermath of The Walker Art Gallery the demonstrations continue, but ironically, it was the general shock at brutality employed by the Police in their efforts to curtail the demonstrations that may have contributed most to the decision by the authorities to back down and grant an increase in relief.

The idea for a national march is born, and it is this that Garrett throws his energies into next. George’s description of this campaign in The First Hunger March, organised by the National Unemployed Workers Movement,demonstrates the full range of his character as a leader of the march, and his skills as a reporter and writer. From the marchers’ refusal to accept poor food and bedding from ‘stingy’ Guardians; their protests and liberation of parents and children who are separated from each other by chicken-wire in a workhouse they stay in for the night; to the mock funeral, with George Garrett himself in the role of chief mourner and priest, leading the prayers at the burial of their old ‘comrade’ Bully Beef, the pitiful dish served up once too often to a march full of ex-servicemen, the life of the march on the road to London is brought to life, without pity, or the desire for sympathy, but with anger, pride, humour and humanity.

At the end of the march, after speaking outside parliament, George realises his prospects are still no better, and, due to an intense period of radical activity, are in fact probably far worse. And so in 1923 he embarks upon his second spell in New York…as George Oswald James.

The workshops are free and open to all. We meet every Monday, 6-8pm in Liverpool John Moores University’s AldhamRobarts Library, Maryland Street, L1 9DE (off HopeStreet).