“Their Greatest Effort Ever”:  The British General Strike, One Hundred Years On

Tyldesley miners outside the Miners Hall during the 1926 General Strike – Public Domain

The General Strike was “the greatest effort the British workers had ever made,” wrote the historian and economist G.D.H.Cole. One hundred years ago, on May 4, 1926, a million British workers walked off their jobs.

These workers struck in sympathy with miners – the more than a million miners who had been locked out by their employers. The miners had refused to accept cuts in pay; in some places, the employers demanded as much as 25%.