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29-525: During the late 19th century to the start of the Unrest, there were a series of economic booms, busts and worries. Throughout some of them, prices for consumer goods rose, but wages fell, especially with respect to the share of national income going to labour. French anarchist and syndicalist thought had taken root in Britain over the past three decades and had inspired radicals such as Tom Mann with ideas about

58-602: A clerk who worked at a colliery . He attended school from the ages of six to nine, then began work doing odd jobs on the colliery farm. A year later he became a trapper, a labour-intensive job that involved clearing blockages from the narrow airways in the mining shafts . In 1870, the colliery was forced to close and the family moved to Birmingham . Mann soon found work as an engineering apprentice . He attended public meetings addressed by Annie Besant and John Bright , and this began his political awareness. He completed his apprenticeship in 1877 and moved to London, however he

87-614: A communist. He now believed the main purpose of the labour movement should be to overthrow capitalism, rather than just to ameliorate the condition of workers under it. He moved to Newcastle in 1887 and organised the SDF in the north of England. He managed Keir Hardie 's electoral campaign in Lanark before returning to London in 1888 , where he worked in support of the Bryant and May match factory strike . With Burns and Champion, he began producing

116-615: A journal, the Labour Elector , in 1888. Along with Burns and Ben Tillett , Mann was one of the leading figures in the London dock strike of 1889 . He was responsible for organising relief for the strikers and their families. With the support of other unions and various organisations, the strike was successful. Following the strike, Mann was elected President of the newly formed Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers' Union , with Tillett as General Secretary. Tillett and Mann wrote

145-709: A pamphlet called New Unionism , which advanced the utopian ideal of a co-operative commonwealth . Mann was also elected to the London Trades and Labour Council and as secretary of the National Reform Union , and was a member of the Royal Commission on Labour from 1891 to 1893. In 1894, he was a founding member of the Independent Labour Party and became the party Secretary in 1894. He was an unsuccessful candidate for

174-545: A significant role in the militant industrial organizing which was the hallmark of the Unrest. From the mid-to-late 19th century, anarchist groups in France and Britain had exchanged ideas, and syndicalist ideology owed a significant debt to anarchist thinkers. Thinkers like Errico Malatesta and Peter Kropotkin were influenced by syndicalism, which found an important supporter in Tom Mann. Inspired by syndicalist ideology, Mann,

203-621: A socialist and trade union activist, founded the International Syndicalist Education League (ISEL), which brought those ideas to British workers. The British unions took these ideas and applied them to their massive strikes, an example that crossed the English Channel in reverse and inspired French syndicalists, who looked to industrial unions (unions of entire sectors) in Britain as an example. One difference between French and British syndicalists

232-548: A tenuous relationship and often were at odds, but there were instances of collaboration between them. The main issue where they differed was the type of suffrage being fought for. Between 1884 and 1918, approximately two thirds of men met the property requirements for voting. The Women's Suffrage movement, at least initially, tended to argue for instituting equal suffrage but retaining existing property qualifications although militant labour activists wanted full adult suffrage without such barriers. However, some groups of women found that

261-838: The Great Black Country Trades Dispute , which lasted for two months and threatened government preparations for World War I . Mann returned to the area again on 3 July. In 1917, he joined the successor to the Social Democratic Federation , the British Socialist Party , which had affiliated to the Labour Party the previous year. In 1919, he again ran for election as Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, this time successfully. He held

290-555: The National Minority Movement , from their formation in 1921 until 1929. Tom Mann continued to actively champion socialism, communism, and co-operation, until his death in 1941. He published further pamphlets and regularly addressed public meetings, in Britain and abroad. He was arrested for sedition, on several occasions. He continued to be a popular figure in the labour movement, attracting large audiences to rallies and benefits. Mann advocated animal rights and

319-670: The Salvation Army during a number of strikes. In 1893 there were rumours that he intended to become a church minister. He advocated the co-operative model of economic organisation, but resisted alliance between the ILP and other socialist organisations in Britain, like the Fabians . In 1895, the Fabian Beatrice Webb criticised Mann's absolutism and described his goal derogatorily as, "a body of men all professing exactly

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348-628: The Social Democratic Federation (SDF) in Battersea . Here he met John Burns and Henry Hyde Champion , who encouraged him to publish a pamphlet calling for the working day to be limited to eight hours. Mann formed an organisation, the Eight Hour League , which successfully pressured the Trades Union Congress to adopt the eight-hour day as a key goal. After reading The Communist Manifesto in 1886, Mann became

377-550: The Trade Union Act 1913 . Additionally, by 1911, a Liberal government had been in power for years and was generally supported by the small Labour Party but had not accomplished enough to satisfy trade unions. Discontent with seeking action through Parliament fuelled extraparliamentary actions such as strikes by syndicalists, socialists and other activist groups. From 1911 to 1914, there were more than 3,000 strikes, with over 1,200 in 1913 alone. The number of working days lost

406-662: The ALP and founded the Victorian Socialist Party . Returning to Britain in 1910, Mann wrote The Way to Win , a pamphlet that argued that socialism could be achieved only through trade unionism and co-operation, and that parliamentary democracy was inherently corrupt. He founded the Industrial Syndicalist Education League , and worked as an organiser for Ben Tillett. He led the 1911 Liverpool General Transport Strike . In 1912 he

435-543: The Irish Nationalist struggle, the Unionist backlash and the women's suffrage movement. The events led later historians to argue (scholars now tend to agree their conclusions were overstated) that without the outbreak of World War I in 1914, there may have been a massive revolt in Britain. Contemporary reactions ranged from supportive to extremely negative, with papers of record like The Times often arguing for

464-754: The Tom Mann Centuria , was named in his honour. Tom Mann died at age 84, on 13 March 1941 in Grassington , Northern Yorkshire. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium . A memorial stands in front of the cottage where he died. There is also a memorial on his birthplace in Coventry . As mentioned, in 1936 a unit of the International Brigade was named the Tom Mann Centuria in his honour. The Tom Mann Theatre in Sydney, Australia,

493-456: The early labour movement in Britain. Largely self-educated , Mann became a successful organiser and a popular public speaker in the British labour movement . Mann was born on 15 April 1856, on Grange Road, Foleshill . His birth house was previously maintained by Coventry City Council, but is now privately owned after being sold in 2004. The property still stands today. Mann was the son of

522-573: The government to be harder on the strikers, whereas more niche publications like the New Age and New Witness gave some modicum of support to the movement. The last two however tended to couch their support in elitist language and looked down upon the working people, rather than viewing them as equals. Various activist groups and radical movements also published their own papers in which they argued for or against strategic decisions or policies being undertaken. The labour and women's suffrage movements had

551-533: The party in the 1895 general election . In 1896 he was beaten in the election for Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. He helped create the International Transport Workers' Federation , and was its first President. He was deported from a number of European countries for organising trade unions. Mann's religious belief was as strong as his politics. He was an Anglican and organised support from Christian organisations like

580-986: The post until 1921, when he retired at the age of sixty-five. He welcomed the Russian October Revolution in 1917 and the Communist government, and called for soviets to be formed in the United Kingdom. In 1920, he was one of many members of the British Socialist Party, inspired by the Revolution, who formed the Communist Party of Great Britain . Mann was chairman of the British Bureau of the Red International of Labor Unions and its successor,

609-546: The proper course of action for workers. The period leading up to the unrest also was one in which labour laws in Britain were significantly altered by court cases that were not well received by union members. In both cases, they were later either repealed or partially amended by Parliament. The Taff Vale judgement which made unions liable for damage caused by striking until the Trade Disputes Act 1906 . The Osborne judgement banned unions from political spending until

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638-462: The same creed and all working in exact uniformity to exactly the same end". Philip Snowden , a member of the ILP, liked Mann but was critical of his inability to stay with any one party or organisation for more than a few years. In 1902, Mann emigrated to Australia, to see if that country's broader electoral franchise would allow more "drastic modification of capitalism". Settling in Melbourne , he

667-472: The suffrage movement encouraged their workplace activism. Women strikers were emboldened by the example of militant suffragettes, the latter engaging in actions as extreme as mass window-smashing campaigns and serial arson. The National Federation of Women Workers, although it advocated for adult suffrage, in addition to many other reforms, rather than being a single-cause group, grew by more than 10 times from 1906 to 1914. Anarchism, socialism and syndicalism had

696-567: Was active in Australian trade unions and became an organiser for the Australian Labor Party . However, he grew disillusioned with the party, believing it was being corrupted by the nature of government and concerned only with winning elections. He felt that the federal Labor MPs were unable and unwilling to change society, and their prominence within the movement was stifling and over-shadowing organised labour. He resigned from

725-672: Was convicted under the Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797 of publishing an article in The Syndicalist , as an "Open Letter to British Soldiers", urging them to refuse to shoot at strikers (later reprinted as a leaflet, Don't Shoot ); his prison sentence was quashed after public pressure. He was opposed to Britain's involvement in World War I on socialist and religious grounds and addressed pacifist rallies. On 10 June 1913 he spoke at Wednesbury Market Place in support of strikers in

754-460: Was in the tens of millions, and the percentage of the working population involved in strikes increased more than three times between the first decade of the 20th century and the year 1911. The strikes involved male and female workers, but they were not necessarily in the same unions, and the latter were also influenced by the contemporary women's suffrage movement. The period of the unrest coincided with other social upheavals reshaping Britain, including

783-833: Was supportive of the Humanitarian League . On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, Mann became a member of the Spanish Medical Aid Committee, an organization that had been set-up by the Socialist Medical Association and other progressive groups. During the Spanish Civil War , he wanted to fight on the Republican side , but was by that time far too old. A unit of the International Brigade ,

812-428: Was that the latter were more accommodating towards state power and saw value in the political process. The Social Democratic Federation (SDF) was a mixed supporter of the strikers, but some of its members were more unequivocally for active in the labour struggle. Tom Mann Thomas Mann (15 April 1856 – 13 March 1941), was an English trade unionist and is widely recognised as a leading, pioneering figure for

841-498: Was unable to find work as an engineer and took a series of unskilled jobs. In 1879, Mann found work in an engineering shop. Here he was introduced to socialism by the foreman , and decided to improve his own education. His reading included the works of William Morris , Henry George , and John Ruskin . In 1881 he joined the Amalgamated Society of Engineers , and took part in his first strike . In 1884, he joined

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