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Why Did The General Strike Take Place in Britain in 1926?

their own paper, the British Worker. During the strike they were often reports of clashes with the police and volunteer workers. The government or mine owners didn’t want to give in and they both stood their ground and after nine days of strikes the TUC felt that the unions had gone as far as they could in supporting the miners. They decided they were going to call the strike off. On the 11th May, at a meeting of the Trade Union Congress General Committee, it was decided to accept the terms proposed by Herbert Samuel and to call off the General Strike. The following day, the TUC General Council visited 10 Downing Street to tell to the British Government that the General Strike was over. At the same meeting the TUC tried to convince the Government to support the terms of the Samuel commissions and to offer a guarantee that there would be no unfair treatment of strikers, however the Government refused to do so. The strike was called off and overall it involved over 2 million workers, and caused the loss of about 160 million working days. The miners however, stayed out for another six months. Although they were eventually driven back to work by starvation. They returned on the owners' terms, to longer hours, lower wages, and the owners did nothing to improve conditions.

In the next few years after the strike everyone was still talking about it. It shook the British establishment heavily and was look on as an influential event. However the General Strike of 1926 did not lead to anything bigger like a revolution or major constitutional change and despite the strike nothing really changed.

I think the actions of the mine owners are the main reason the strike occurred, as they never agreed to the commission’s recommendations. However the trigger cause was down to the government when the tried to publish their anti union article in The Daily Mail which was refused print by the print workers as this lead to the breakdown of talks and the start of the strike.