![]() |
An arrest of looters, August 1919 |
During the aftermath of the first
world war, labour unrest and disaffection
in Britain were pronounced and widespread. The end of hostilities had immediately brought to the
fore all those industrial problems which had been either set aside or dealt with on only a
temporary basis during the war. Nowhere
was this more apparent than in the police service. Here
mounting discontent culminated in strike action in certain parts of the
country both in 1918 and 1919 - the only period in which independent trades
unionism has been openly practised in the entire history of the force. The
successful strike in London in 1918 and
the attempted, national police
strike in the following year which failed are
notable examples of the
taking of 'direct action' within a hierarchically structured and disciplined organization. Up to 10% of the
police forces in London and Birmingham
came out on strike in August 1919 with more than a thousand policemen out in the Metropolitan area alone, never the less it was Merseyside which proportionate to the size of its
force was really the key centre of the strike.
More than half the Liverpool and Birkenhead forces as well as three quarters of
the police in nearby Bootle answered the
strike call. It was also Liverpool and the adjacent boroughs which were the most seriously affected by the consequences of the strike, in terms
of public disorder, looting, damage to
property and retaliation
by the military
with fixed bayonets and rifle
butts. The significance of Liverpool in the strike was later emphasized by
Prime Minister Lloyd George. He claimed that had Liverpool been wrongly handled
and had the strikers there scored a success, the whole country might very soon have been on fire. As he saw it, the possible
symbolic repercussions of the strike in Liverpool were far-reaching the actual outcome was, perhaps, even the
turning-point for the entire labour movement, deflecting it from Bolshevist and direct actionist courses back to legitimate trades unionism once again Sporadic outbreaks of discontent, usually over pay, had occurred in
the Liverpool force during the nineteenth century. At this period the police
service was a collection of separate
forces rather than an integrated system, such that in the city and borough
forces pay and conditions were at
the discretion of
individual watch committees
acting as the controlling
police authority. After
widespread complaints from the lower ranks at the time of the 'new
unionism' upsurge of 1889-90,
revised pay scales were
introduced, constables starting at
twenty-five shillings a week, rising to thirty-one shillings after twelve
years of service. As a result the police in
Liverpool were then better
paid than in any other provincial
city except Newcastle and Leeds.
By 1912, during a
period of keen competition for labour,
the Liverpool watch committee had agreed to increase the weekly pay of constables by one to three shillings according to length of service, as a means of reducing wastage
and boosting still further a rising, though inadequate, trend of recruitment." A larger, net increase in the strength
of the force was required to meet the
needs of policing newly extended city boundaries and to comply with the compulsory Police Forces (Weekly Rest Day) Act
passed by parliament two years
earlier. Also, it was found necessary to make good the
deficiency in numbers caused by the decision taken in 1900 to reduce the
strength of the force as an economy measure which would save £8,000 a
year on the rates.Yet difficulties were being experienced in obtaining the required level of recruitment and retention. A particular cause of the manpower problem
related to conditions of the police
pension scheme, the terms of which were
more onerous in Liverpool than in other
forces. In 1903, as a further economy to reduce expenditure on pensions in the
second largest force in the country, the watch committee had increased the
required length of service for securing
maximum pension of two-thirds pay, from the usual twenty-six years to
thirty years for all who joined the force after that
date. This measure was said
to have 'frightened off' many potential recruits who preferred to join another force in which maximum
pension could be earned with four years less service. Concurrently with the 1912 pay increase to constables for recruiting purposes it had also been
intended to grant the sergeants a rise of one shilling a week, but that proposed increase was doubled after a deputation of sergeants
had approached the head constable and their grievances concerning
inadequate differentials had received extensive publicity in a local newspaper. Because of the active
recruitment policy being pursued,
the force included an unusually high
proportion of new men - 700 from a total of 1,800 constables having been appointed in the previous three years who were all at the lower end of the pay
scale. After being refused any
further pay adjustment the constables then sought permission to form a trade
union, a request which the head
constable strongly opposed and the watch
committee rejected outright. With tightening labour market conditions in the period
of high employment after 1910 the criteria for granting pay increases
in the Liverpool force came to reflect
explicitly not only local factors but also the terms of service prevailing in
other large, neighbouring towns. As a
result of police pay
claims in the provinces in 1912 a conference was called by the Sheffield
watch committee to consider adopting more uniform scales of pay and conditions
by all forces in the north of England and the Midlands, as a means of
preventing pay rivalry and
possible discontent arising from
pay variations. Thus, in 1914 the
Liverpool police were granted their claim for a further
pay increase, the new range for
constables being thirty shillings, rising to forty shillings, in
line with the 'very generous' increases which had been awarded to the
police in Manchester and Stockport. But,
at the same time, the innovation of the special rent allowance which had been
paid since 1900 in Liverpool to help meet the expense of living in an
'approved' house in a respectable area was terminated for all grades except
inspectors and superintendents. This supplementary allowance had been regarded by the lower ranks as a 'subterfuge
to escape pension liability', as well as being unpopular with unmarried men
who did not receive the benefit.' In comparison with these revised pay scales,
dock labourers and carters in Liverpool received the same weekly wage rate as
the starting pay of constables, and
cotton porters somewhat less at twenty seven shillings and six pence. The
major consequence, however, of wartime wage stringency for
the police service was that the pre-war equality in starting pay of the
Liverpool constable in
comparison with the
labourer had come to be eroded and any advantage in relativities was now
completely reversed. Despite an increase of seven to
eight shillings in pensionable pay secured as a result of the 1918
police strike in London, whose terms
of settlement were
extended to certain
other police forces, the pay of the Liverpool force had fallen below
that of many unskilled workers.
![]() |
Police have
been banned from striking since 1919
when almost every constable and sergeant
refused to go on duty, causing havoc in London and Liverpool
|
Not only were police
pay levels considered to be totally inadequate in Liverpool before the
summer of 1919, but the extent and
intensity of job duties
were also regarded as excessive.
Wartime conditions had meant that in addition to their normal functions
the police had also to enforce lighting restrictions, undertake enquiries
regarding army and
navy pensions and enforce the National Registration Act, in Liverpool registering many thousands of
aliens in the largest scheduled 'prohibited' area in the country relative to
the size of its population. A further
source of complaint related to the
weekly rest day. In common with other forces,
the Liverpool men had their legal entitlement to a weekly rest day suspended under
the emergency regulations for the
duration of the war and were given one day off per fortnight. But the
particular problem in Liverpool was that the watch committee refused to pay anything at all
for lost rest days until 1916, after which
they then remunerated them at time and a half. The police felt that they had
lost out since nearby forces such as Manchester had been paid for all the rest day worked up to 1916, as well as after that date. To make matters worse, the one fortnightly day
which was allowed off in Liverpool was allocated in such a way that a constable
always had the same weekday without variation.
After the 1918 strike in London the authorities
took the view that it was essential to
get the police services going again, the country then being at a critical point
in the European war. The strikers were therefore not dismissed on this occasion and one
of the terms of settlement was that,
although the union could not be
officially recognized during wartime,
there would no longer be any objection to London policemen joining the union so long as it did
not interfere with discipline or induce
members to withhold their services. In Liverpool it was also tacitly understood
that the watch committee would not oppose union membership on the same terms as
in London. As a result, with the men now
able to declare their allegiance to the
union openly, both membership and confidence expanded rapidly.
By early 1919 a
Liverpool district canvass
of union members showed that 98 per cent were prepared to take any action
which the executive in London deemed necessary, including strike action.
![]() |
A soldier stands guard to prevent looting during the 1919 strike |
Given that the union now sought participation in the
internal decision-making processes of the force, it was
felt that recognition
would undermine discipline, threatening
hierarchy and control by
superiors in an organization
founded upon authority. As the police
were essential in helping to maintain the stability of the social order and
existing class relations, it would not
be possible to rely on the loyalty of a
force which could disobey orders at the union's
behest. There was also the related
fear that the union would become further integrated within the
labour movement, thereby preventing the police from maintaining
order in future industrial
disputes. Indeed, it was claimed that if
the force were controlled by a union it would become a 'seething
centre of Bolshevism'. In consequence, the 1919 strike was treated by
the authorities not so much as a labour dispute but rather as an abdication by
the police of their allegiance to the state and a challenge to publicly
constituted authority. The strike of August
1919 was called against the Police Bill that would give
effect to the
central recommendations of the
Desborough Committee which had just reported.
The pay of the force was, for
the first time, to be
standardized throughout the country and
substantially increased, with a range for constables of £3.10s. to £4.10s. per week - a rise of about one
third for the Liverpool force.
![]() |
Military tents occupying the gardens during the Liverpool Police Strike 12th August 1919 |
A new representative body, the Police Federation, was to be established as a channel for the airing
of grievances, independent of any body
or person outside the police service. However, questions of discipline and promotion affecting individuals,
a major sources of grievance in the Liverpool force, were to be
completely excluded from its jurisdiction. The final blow was that
membership of a
trade union was
now to be
made unlawful for members of the force. Thus, the strike was one for the
very survival of the police union itself. On Merseyside, in contrast to much of
the rest of the country where the response rate was a
total fiasco, the strike call was well
supported by the lower
ranks, especially by those
who had been recruited in the
years immediately prior to the war. Of the 907 striking Liverpool constables
almost half were those with between five and
twelve years of service, and of the
remaining forty-eight sergeants
who came out all had more than twelve years of service in that rank. No plain clothes or CID staff, however, refused
duty. The watch committee adopted a firm
line, as it had previously intimated,
and all the strikers were dismissed with
loss of pension rights. It had no difficulty in finding suitable,
permanent replacements at the enhanced rates of pay and, as additional
strike-breakers, more than 2,000 temporary special constables were recruited
for the protection of property, mainly
from bank staffs, business houses and the cotton exchange. The police union had recognized
that it was not strong enough by itself to withstand the onslaught of the
authorities and it now looked to organized labour for the support which had
been pledged in the preceding months. In Liverpool, local officials later
claimed to have been misled in that they had been assured that in the event of
a police strike 90% of organized workers
would down tools in support. Yet the
reaction of the local labour movement to the strike was ambivalent and
sentiment was divided. Meetings were called in support of the police, direct
sympathetic action threatened and a strike-committee set up to negotiate for
reinstatement. In contrast, much of the rank-and-file was more cautious of the
newly professed affinity of the police for the labour movement and far less
certain of the merits of extending the dispute by direct action. Some questioned whether the police
organization could be looked upon as an ordinary trade union at all, whilst
others were said to view the police
strikers 'with contempt'.
Despite their working-class origins, it
was recognized that
the police occupied
a position of special
responsibility to the governing
authorities and were called upon to
break up labour
demonstrations. There were
particular references to police brutality during the 1911 transport strike in
the city. As a letter to the Police
Review put it, the police service was not like
an ordinary industrial occupation
and the policeman, although of the workers, was not a worker - he was
a 'class apart’. Certainly, most Liverpool workers were not prepared to
strike without orders from their own national executives in London, which were not forthcoming. Once it became
clear that not only had the strike failed nationally but also
that the local labour movement would not come out in order
to secure their reinstatement, the
morale of the Liverpool strikers collapsed completely after the third
week. They publicly announced that they now regretted
their action, would abandon the
union and 'respectfully
begged' the watch
committee to take them back. In effect, they had
resumed a deferential attitude
towards authority, but to no avail. They were told not to 'cringe' and 'whine'
but 'to take a licking like men'. As
regards representative organization,
the remaining police were now left with the internal Police
Federation through which to raise
grievances for the authorities' consideration. But, in the case
of the Liverpool force, it appears that the local
branch had very little success in pressing its claims and obtaining
concessions. It was, for instance, unable to secure reimbursement of local
travelling expenses, improvements in other existing allowances or get back-pay
for lost rest days since 1914. The head
constable admitted that at the branch
boards 'no undue time had been wasted by prolonged meetings and discussions'.

Source: Journal of Contemporary History Ron Bean
Desborough Report
Liverpool Daily Post,
23 January 1919.
Police Review, 9
May 1919
Pin It