On June 23, the trade union and labour movement in Derby has its most important annual event. Every year, for as long as anyone can remember, the trade union council has organised a march, rally and more recently a festival. 

The focus of the festival is a little remembered but crucially important part of the early history of the trade union and labour movement.

It commemorates a local manifestation of a national movement in 1833-34.  The Derby Lockout was the catalyst for the formation of the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union (GNCTU), the first national trades union with revolutionary intent.

It is a commemoration because instead of the workers taking over the means of production for themselves as was their stated intent, they were forced back to work after five months of national support when the GNCTU switched its focus to the Tolpuddle Martyrs.  

The annual event takes place in the city centre and the march provides a high-profile display of the banners and flags of the movement.  

It is well supported by local and national trade unions and local Labour MPs such as Chris Williamson and Margaret Beckett. There is also a mural in a prominent city centre location.  

So what was going on in Derby in 1833-34 that was so important and why isn’t it more widely known about?

In 1833 politics were in a state of turmoil in Britain. The working class had already begun to organise during the period after the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.  There had been earlier attempts at national general trade union formation but these were along federal lines rather than central organisation.

Derby had been an important part of those and there is strong evidence that local trade unions were well organised and tolerated by employers. In the early 1830s there had been huge demonstrations across the country over the Reform Act negotiations for a more representative electorate for Parliament.  

In Derby these led to shots being fired outside the town prison and several deaths.  When the results of the Reform Act were settled the franchise had been extended to property owners but continued to exclude the majority of the population.  

This led to a great deal of disappointment and anger against the establishment and engendered plans to use non-parliamentary routes to power.  

The method that gained national popularity at the end of 1833 was the use of trades unions to organise workers with the intent of owning the factories and workshops along co-operative lines.  

In Derby, as in many other parts of the country, these ideas led to workers forming local branches of a trades union with the stated intent of taking over production via workers co-operatives.  

When the masters discovered this in November 1833, they were alarmed and on the excuse of breaking a routine strike in support of a sacked worker they demanded that all members of the new trades union sign a document renouncing it and its aims.  

When the members all refused they were locked out. This was the start of a bitter dispute which lasted the winter.  

The national trades union press picked up on the Derby dispute due to the skill of the local organisers and the willingness of masters and trades unionists to state their positions in local newspapers such as the Derby Mercury.  

Both sides made it clear — in newspapers that can be read today in archives at the Derby Local Studies Library — that this was not just an industrial dispute but was an ideological battle between capital and labour.  

As a consequence the trades unionists of Derby received enough donations from trades union branches across the country to keep them going for many months without wages.

Derby was such an important cause that a national meeting was called in February 1834 to decide how best to support it and it was named as the reason for setting up the new GNCTU to better co-ordinate the collection of donations.  

The GNCTU have been claimed to have one million members and this explicitly included and encouraged women members.

Unfortunately, the dispute ended in ignominy. The Derby locked outs never received any of the donations after the formation of the new union in February and the corrupt GNCTU treasurer fled the county with the proceeds.  

The GNCTU was also immediately distracted by the case of the Tolpuddle Martyrs and later the support of a London tailors’ strike.  

These events not only led to the forcing back to work of the Derby Lockouts but by the end of the year the GNCTU, which had reached mass membership so quickly, folded.  

The events attached to the Tolpuddle Martyrs became internationally renowned and overshadowed the importance of the earlier and much larger scale Derby dispute.

The Derby Lockout is now known locally as an early example of an industrial dispute.  It wasn’t the first and there had been trades unions in Derby and across the country for at least 30 years before the Lockout.

The solidarity of the workers from the 19th century is clearly an example to us today.  However, what is often missed is that the intention of the formation of the trades union was to bring about social and political change as well as economic betterment for its members.  

This clearly has relevance for today in a time when national politics is again in turmoil and the gap between rich and poor continues to widen — so why not come and join us to celebrate our Derby working-class history and rededicate ourselves to a better future for generations to come?

The primary historical sources for the above can be found in Defence or Defiance — Derbyshire and The Fight for Democracy by Graham Stevenson and my own The Derby Lock-out and the Origins of the Labour Movement. Both published by Derby Trades Union Council. 

There is also a short film about the Derby Lockout available on Vimeo and YouTube sponsored by the Unite union, which you can watch  above or here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8PQu7oa05s.