Trouble in the dark satanic mills

Glasgow’s first ever industrial strike broke out in 1787, two years before the French Revolution. For four months, from June to October, the Clyde Valley Weavers Association had organised a shutdown of the weaving factories in the Calton area of Glasgow against proposed wage cuts. 

It reached its violent climax on 3 September, when several hundred strikers gathered in Wellhouse, near the Tennent Caledonian brewery, just east of the city centre. 

When a delegation of magistrates, headed by the Lord Provost, arrived at the assembly and tried to arrest the leaders, the weavers turned on them, with sticks, stones and other missiles. When the dignitaries later re-turned accompanied by the 39th Regiment of Foot, the crowd, including women and children, stood its ground. Then the troops opened fire. 

When it was all over, three weavers lay dead and scores more were wounded. In the days that followed, another three weavers died of their injuries. It was the first ever incidence in Britain of trade unionists being mown down by the forces of the state. Over 6,000 people attended the burial of the six ‘Calton Martyrs’ in the local cemetery. 

None of those who carried out this indiscriminate murder were ever pros-ecuted. But six weavers were arrested and charged with rioting. Five failed to appear at the High Court, so were declared fugitives. The other, James Granger, did face trial, and in July 1788 was found guilty of ‘having taken an active part in the combination among the operative weavers, and the riots which afterwards took place in Glasgow in September last’. This was before the first Combination Act was passed by Westminster in 1799, which means that James Granger may well have been the first man in Britain to be con-victed for belonging to a trade union.

He was sentenced to be publicly whipped through the streets of the Edin-burgh by the public executioner and then banished from Scotland for seven years. But 38-year-old Granger, who had six children, returned home illicitly. He was re-arrested and ordered by the High Court to be whipped once again through the streets of the capital for ‘returning from banishment’. 

This wasn’t to be his last brush with the law. Twenty-five years later, at the age of 63, the irrepressible activist was jailed for four months at the High Court, along with a group of others, for ‘illegal combination or conspiracy’.the French Revolution. For four months, from June to October, the Clyde Valley Weavers Association had organised a shutdown of the weaving factories in the Calton area of Glasgow against proposed wage cuts.

It reached its violent climax on 3 September, when several hundred strikers gathered in Wellhouse, near the Tennent Caledonian brewery, just east of the city centre. When a delegation of magistrates, headed by the Lord Provost, arrived at the assembly and tried to arrest the leaders, the weavers turned on them, with sticks, stones and other missiles. When the dignitaries later re-turned accompanied by the 39th Regiment of Foot, the crowd, including women and children, stood its ground. Then the troops opened fire.

When it was all over, three weavers lay dead and scores more were wounded. In the days that followed, another three weavers died of their injuries. It was the first ever incidence in Britain of trade unionists being mown down by the forces of the state. Over 6,000 people attended the burial of the six ‘Calton Martyrs’ in the local cemetery.

None of those who carried out this indiscriminate murder were ever pros-ecuted. But six weavers were arrested and charged with rioting. Five failed to appear at the High Court, so were declared fugitives. The other, James Granger, did face trial, and in July 1788 was found guilty of ‘having taken an active part in the combination among the operative weavers, and the riots which afterwards took place in Glasgow in September last’. This was before the first Combination Act was passed by Westminster in 1799, which means that James Granger may well have been the first man in Britain to be con-victed for belonging to a trade union.

He was sentenced to be publicly whipped through the streets of the Edin-burgh by the public executioner and then banished from Scotland for seven years. But 38-year-old Granger, who had six children, returned home illicitly. He was re-arrested and ordered by the High Court to be whipped once again through the streets of the capital for ‘returning from banishment’.

This wasn’t to be his last brush with the law. Twenty-five years later, at the age of 63, the irrepressible activist was jailed for four months at the High Court, along with a group of others, for ‘illegal combination or conspiracy’.