'Plug Plot Riots'

Perseverance Mill


In August 1842, Perseverance Mill was the scene for a Plug Riot. The 'Plug Plot' Riots refer to a couple of days in August 1842 when thousands of workers and Chartists, intent on pulling out the drain plugs of recently installed boilers in the mills, were met by troops of Hussars, Lancers and Infantry. The inevitable result was a series of clashes in the area, with people killed on both sides and the Riot Act being read out. Skirmishes occurred at Skircoat Moor, Perseverance Mill in Brighouse, the bottom of Salterhebble Hill, and North Bridge in Halifax. Those arrested were tried at York Assizes.

The building has been renovated and is now called Prego, a restraunt and hotel.

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IN THE SUMMER of 1842 a low point was marked by a trade depression that gripped industrial England.

This lasted for nearly a year with, short-time working, wage reductions and escalating food prices were leading to boiling unrest. Times were so bad that, in Manchester, £2,800 that had been raised by subscription to buy a gift to mark the birth of the Prince of Wales was diverted to buy blankets distributed by ticket to 6,500 of the neediest townspeople.

On October 7th, 1841, the city despatched a cartload of petitions to Queen Victoria, begging her not to prorogue (hold back elections) Parliament "till the distress of the people was taken into consideration," while four months later the Quakers opened a huge soup kitchen in Bale Street, Manchester to feed the starving.

By August, discontent in Lancashire and Cheshire textile towns had reached exploding point. It needed one spark to ignite it and that spark came on Tuesday, August 9th, when the spinners at Bayley's Mill in Stalybridge were told their wages were to be cut.

They came out on strike, and were quickly followed by thousands more. Weavers, miners, labourers from Ashton and neighbouring towns descended on other Stalybridge mills demanding that work stopped.

And to ensure compliance, the strikers removed the plugs from the steam engine boilers, rendering the engines useless. So the rolling strike became known as the"Plug Plot."

Thousands of angry men marched from Stalybridge and Ashton to Manchester, calling out millworkers as they went. At dawn the following morning, a mass meeting of workers was held on Granby Row Fields in Manchester, and afterwards they marched through the city, ignoring magistrates who read the Riot Act at the Town Hall and moving on to Blackfriars Bridge over the Irwell, where they forced the gate and moved into Salford.

The strikers were generally peaceful but where manufacturers tried to impede their actions, there were clashes with police and troops. By Wednesday evening, virtually all Manchester and Salford were at a standstill and within a day or so, the strike had spread to many neighbouring towns.

Stockport, Hyde, Rochdale, Bury and Bolton succumbed, even Preston in the North and Stoke in the South were affected by what had been nicknamed the "Plug Dragoons." Yet despite their success and their parlous plight, strikers resisted the temptation to loot, as a contempory report in the Manchester Guardian illustrates.

Two boys stepped out of a striking crowd in Broughton Road, Salford, and went into James Faulkner's provision shop to ask for bread. He handed them a 4lb loaf which was "instantly torn to pieces by the crowd."

"There seemed at first an inclination among some of the younger portion of the crowd to enter the shop and see if they could not get some more bread, but the main body of the rioters forced them away, exclaiming that it would ruin their cause should they begin to plunder."

The strike had spread like a forest fire and had taken the authorities almost completely unawares. So much so, in fact, that some thought it was the beginning of something far more ominous.

Rochdale businessman John Bright for instance, writing to a relative, asked: "Has the revolution commenced? It looks very probable. The authorities are powerless."

His alarm was shared by the Government who, as it happened, were not powerless. For the first time, they used the railways to move 2,000 troops and six artillery pieces into Manchester and Salford. Railway workers did nothing - their jobs were new and they had not yet organised into unions.

Control of the strike was taken over by two trades conferences, the metal workers meeting at Carpenters' Hall and the rest at the Sherwood Inn in Tibb Street, Manchester, but the following week they joined forces and shifted their headquarters to the Hall of Science in Campfield, Manchester.

Encouraged by their early success, the strikers broadened their pay demands to include acceptance of the Charter. However, it was the original cause of the strike that contained the seeds of its failure. It had been an unconsidered, spur-of-the-moment affair and little or no planning had gone into it.

Had they paused to think, the strikers would have realised that, by withdrawing their labour, they were playing into the hands of the employers, many of whom were happy to close their doors and avoid paying wages at a time when trade was so depressed.

By August 20th, overcome by hunger, and with many of their leaders under arrest, the strikers were forced to slink back to work without having gained a single concession from their employers.

But at least some good came out of it, if only for a few. For instance Ben Brierley, later to become renowned as a dialect poet, noted with some satisfaction that demand for the velvet he wove had increased substantially because of strike shortages.