Strike news

This guide was last updated in 2010

Many strikes were reported extensively in local and national newspapers, and these are often the best source if you want to piece together a narrative account of events – even when the strike was of little real significance.

For example, the newspapers went to town when singer Marie Lloyd led a strike by music hall performers in 1907, when London barbers downed scissors in 1918 and when 'tea girls' at Lyons tea shops walked out in 1920 after a kitchen worker was sacked for wearing a union badge.