The 1911 Liverpool General Transport Strike Centenary Conference

The 1911 Liverpool General Transport Strike Centenary Conference


SATURDAY 8TH OCTOBER, 10am-5pm
LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORES UNIVERSITY, 68 HOPE ST, L1 9BZ

**Tickets £5 waged / £3 unwaged from News From Nowhere bookshop, Bold St, L1 4HY**

This history is your history...

Mass Strike, syndicalist firebrands, running battles with police and troops, middle class citizens militias, a gunboat sent up the Mersey and two strikers shot dead...

This was Liverpool in 1911. On the brink of revolution? A mythical or pivotal moment in the rise of a radical city? What 'lessons' are to be drawn from 1911 as we face the current crisis in 2011? This is history meant for you!

Speakers include... Bob Crow (RMT), John McDonnell MP, Eric Taplin (author of 'Near to Revolution'), Richard Hyman (LSE), Sam Davies (LJMU), Charlie Kimber (SWP)... and more below.

The 1911 Liverpool General Transport Strike was the most significant episode in the stormy period of the 1910-14 Great Unrest when Edwardian Britain was shaken by mass strikes and open working class revolt. This revolt prepared the ground for mass trade unionism among workers. The history of 1911 is still relevant today as working people and their families face the greatest assault on living standards and public services since the 1930s.

The conference will provide meetings of popular history with discussion and debate on different aspects of 1911 including:

Opening plenary by Eric Taplin, author of 'Near to Revolution: The Liverpool General Transport Strike of 1911'

'Liverpool's Bloody Tuesday: 1911 and the State Response', Sam Davies (Professor of History, LJMU)

'1911 and its legacy: Foundational Myth or Authentic Tradition?' Mark O'Brien (Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of Liverpool, UCU)

'Syndicalism and Trade Union Officialdom', Ralph Darlington (author 'Syndicalism and the Transition to Communism')

'Reflections on 1911: Fred Bower and teaching working class history in the New Casaversity', Ron Noon (former senior lecturer in History at LJMU)

'The Changing Working Class: 1911 and today', Julian Alford (socialist activist)

'The 1913 Dublin Lockout and Jim Larkin', Francis Devine (SIPTU college, Dublin)

'Tom Mann: a Syndicalist in Liverpool', Richard Hyman (LSE, leading authority on industrial relations)

'The Labour Identity and the Strange Death of Liberal England', John Callaghan (Professor of Politics and Contemporary History at the University of Salford)

Workshop on 'Organising the Unorganised', Liverpool Solidarity Federation and others.

Closing panel discussion, 1911 and the Labour Movement Today: Lessons for the Present Crisis? Bob Crow (general secretary RMT), John McDonnell MP, Charlie Kimber (national secretary Socialist Workers Party) (an updated flyer with full details will be available soon)

We hope you can take part in the conference and help bring the spirit of 1911 into the present!


The team, 1911 @ 68 Hope St

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