TAWNEY RICHARD HENRY 1880-1962 PROFESSOR OF ECONOMIC HISTORY

Diary of negotiations between the government and the Miners' Federation of Great Britain concerning wages and working hours, 10th March to 3rd May 1926.

Richard Tawney 1880 - 1962

Richard Tawney was educated at Rugby and Balliol College, Oxford. He was a fellow at Balliol, 1918-21, and an honorary fellow, 1938. Tawney was a member of the executive committee of the Workers' Educational Association (WEA) 1905, and held WEA tutorial classes in Rochdale and Manchester, 1908-14. From 1906 - 1908 he taught political economy at Glasgow University.

Tawney joined the Fabian Society in 1906. He was a member of the Society's executive 1921 - 1933. In 1909 he joined the Independent Labour Party. He was wounded during World War I. After the war he stood unsuccessfully as a Labour candidate in 1918, 1922 and 1919. Tawney was a member of the consultative committee of the Board of Education 1912 - 1931. In 1919 he became a member of the Coal Industry Commission. Tawney was a lecturer in economic history at London School of Economics 1917 and 1920 - 1949, becoming a professor in 1931. From 1927 - 1934 he co-edited the Economic History Review.

His publications include:

• The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century (1912)
• The Acquisitive Society (1921)
• Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)
• Equality (1931)
• Business and politics under James I: Lionel Cranfield as merchant and minister (1958)

The General Strike

In 1926 the government set up a Royal Commission to look into the problems of the Mining Industry. The Commission published its report in March 1926. It recognised that the industry needed to be reorganised but rejected the suggestion of nationalization. The report also recommended that the Government subsidy should be withdrawn and the miners' wages should be reduced. The month in which the report was issued also saw the mine-owners publishing new terms of employment. These new procedures included an extension of the seven-hour working day, district wage-agreements, and a reduction in the wages of all miners. The mine-owners announced that if the miners did not accept their new terms of employment they would be locked out of the pits from the first of May. A Conference of Trade Union Congress met on 1st May 1926, and afterwards announced that a General Strike CHquot;in defence of miners' wages and hours' was to begin two days later. During the next two days efforts were made to reach an agreement with the Conservative Government and the mine-owners. For several months the miners held out, but by October 1926 hardship forced men to return to the mines. In 1927 the British Government passed the Trade Disputes and Trade Union Act. This act made all sympathetic strikes illegal, ensured the trade union members had to voluntarily 'contract in' to pay the political levy, forbade Civil Service unions to affiliate to the TUC, and made mass picketing illegal.

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Tawney, R H

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