The General Strike at 100: spreading the news in May 1926

Blog series Newsroom

Author Claire O’Halloran, Curator Newspaper Collections with contributions from Hannah Graves, Curator Printed Heritage Collections

Introduction

2026 marks the centenary of the only general national strike in British history. It took place over nine days, from one minute to midnight on 3 May until 12 May 1926. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in support of coal miners, who were facing wage cuts and worsening conditions. More than 1.7 million workers nationwide walked out in solidarity, including transport workers, dockers, and newspaper printers. The strike was called off by the TUC on 12 May, despite securing no guarantees or concessions for the coal miners. Miners continued to strike for months afterwards, before economic hardship forced them to return to work.

Posters

The disruption to the printing and distribution of newspapers created practical difficulties about how to share information. Within the British Library collections, we hold examples of some of the ephemera produced by the government. A collection of posters produced by the City of Westminster, preserved at shelfmark 74/1851.d.30, covers the introduction of coal rationing, explains new procedures around household waste, and circulates calls for volunteers. Posters were a means of getting information out quickly and directing public responses.

It was immediately clear that controlling and spreading news was vitally important to both sides of the strike. Two short-lived newspapers established in this period competed fiercely for the attention of the public: the government’s official paper, the British Gazette, and the TUC’s strike publication, the British Worker.

British Gazette

The British Gazette was a four-page newspaper edited by Winston Churchill (then Chancellor of the Exchequer), published daily from 5 to 13 May. In its own words, it was set up to combat the ‘danger of rumours’ caused by the disruption to the newspaper industry.

In its function as a government propaganda tool, it simultaneously condemned the TUC for attacking the constitution and jeopardising law and order whilst also reassuring the public at the ineffectiveness of the strike:

The British Gazette purported to be the only reliable source of news other than BBC wireless broadcasts. Its below mantra was repeated across multiple issues and was reprinted in many other news bulletins:

In its final issue, it boasted of reaching a circulation of over 2 million. Having frequently denounced the TUC for attempting to supress the freedom of the press through striking, it hailed the Gazette’s run as a triumph against this threat (The British Gazette, 13 May 1926, p.2. BL shelfmark: NEWS8028)

British Worker

The TUC decided to print their own strike newspaper, the British Worker, in response to the setting up of the British Gazette. Hamilton Fyfe acted as editor and it was printed on the premises of the Daily Herald, the TUC’s official newspaper. It claimed to have reached a circulation of 1 million by the time the strike was called off.

The British Worker faced numerous obstacles during its run. Printing of its first issue was delayed several hours due to a police raid on its premises. It was further hampered by the government confiscating its supply of paper, forcing it to halve its size from eight to four pages. It warned that suppressing the British Worker would result in the proliferation of “dangerous rumours” (The British Worker, 7 May 1926, p.1. BL shelfmark: NEWS7470).

The British Worker published details of strike action across the country as well as encouraging messages from the TUC:

It was reiterated time and again in the British Worker that the TUC had no intention of forcing constitutional change, accusing Churchill and the British Gazette of propagating this false narrative:

Like the British Gazette, the British Worker used its final issue to look back on the success of its short run. It recognised its future historical significance as an integral element of the general strike: “The British Worker not only recorded the making of history, but has helped to make it.” (17 May 1926, p.4. BL shelfmark: NEWS7470)

National newspapers

With only a skeleton staff remaining, most daily national newspapers only managed to print one- or two-page basic news sheets in the initial days of the strike. On 5 May, the Daily Mirror published a one-page bulletin with short paragraphs on strike news, transport updates, and sports results. It also declared its support for the government.

However, like many of the other established newspapers, the Mirror was able to increase its page count and print photographs before the strike had ended.

Special news bulletins

The fast-changing situation and upheaval in the newspaper industry led to the emergence of several short-lived news bulletins, containing news items transcribed from wireless broadcasts or taken from the British Gazette.  Some businesses seized an advertising opportunity by publishing their own news bulletins. One such organisation was Samuels Ltd, a photo printing company which published The Strand Gazette (BL shelfmark: NEWS7470). This bulletin contained strike news and photographs of the day’s events, reproductions of which were available to purchase at Samuels Ltd for twopence.

A more bizarre foray into the newspaper publishing field came from April Shower Ltd, a producer of women’s ‘toilet preparations’ which pivoted to producing The Mayfair Bulletin during the strike.  The publisher’s stated aims were to provide news updates to the surrounding area while their erstwhile skincare business was curtailed due to the strike. The Mayfair Bulletin also functioned as an advertising tool for April Shower Ltd. The below banner message appeared in some form in most of its issues:

There was concern that the proliferation of news bulletins produced outside the established press would result in the spread of fake news. The Hackney Gazette warned its readers not to trust claims made by unregistered news bulletins:

There were reports of newspaper publishers and sellers being prosecuted for spreading false information, for example the rumour that the Liverpool police force had gone on strike.

Legacy of the strike

A publication held in the British Library’s Printed Heritage collections offers a curious coda to this story of competing narratives and fake news. In 1930, Father Ronald Knox, a writer and Catholic priest, produced a piece of speculative fiction about the general strike: If the General Strike Had Succeeded: Being Extracts from an Imaginary Newspaper of June 1930 (BL shelfmark Cup.400.c.10).

A few months before the strike, Knox was at the center of a radio scandal which foreshadowed Orson Welles’s infamous War of the Worlds broadcast. His radio show seemingly interrupted regular scheduling to announce a riot in London. However, it was just a carefully scripted spoof. When broadcast on the BBC many listeners mistook it for a genuine emergency. In the aftermath of the strike, Knox resumed his interest in counterfactual journalism in a piece of writing that voiced lingering establishment anxieties about the strike.

If the general strike had succeeded is presented – both in content and typography - as if it’s an issue of The Times newspaper. Knox offers a clearly hostile portrait of his imagined proletarianization of the country, depicting a future of mandatory employment to the eradication of profit. Complete with headlines and a column structure, Knox uses the aesthetics of the establishment press to lend credibility to his dystopic vision. He illustrates imagined censorship, including a section where a section on finance and commerce news has been ‘deleted by censors’. Knox’s fake newspaper was designed to serve as a political warning, framing the defeat of the strike as a narrow escape from the supposed destruction of British culture and prosperity, with even the stalwart Times losing its freedom of expression. Ultimately, Knox’s fake newspaper offers an expression of the kinds of fears seen on the pages of the British Gazette. In fact, Knox’s piece was later collected alongside other counterfactual histories in If It Had Happened Otherwise; Lapses Into Imaginary History, which included a contribution from Churchill.

While Knox used his speculative newspaper to look with fear towards an imagined future, other writers, activists and historians looked back to the strike itself, returning to the strike newspaper to help make sense of this unique point in British history. Although the strike was ultimately unsuccessful in its immediate goals, it did shape a generation of political thinkers. For instance, one can find Tom Brown’s influential The British General Strike (London: Freedom Press, 1943), which references the strike newspapers and their coverage, among the British Library’s collection of pamphlets that belonged to George Orwell (BL shelfmark: 1899.ss.3). Registered readers can come and consult the rich paper trail left by the general strike in our Reading Rooms.