On 1st February 1919, tanks and soldiers patrolled the streets of Glasgow after Bloody Friday when 20,000 strikers gathered in George Square.
60,000 striking workers fought with police, but, as the strikers included many former servicemen, they drove the police off. In the aftermath some 10,000 English Soldiers were sent to Glasgow, nearby a Scottish Regiment at Maryhill, was locked down as the Government feared full revolution.
The demo in George Square was in support of the 40-hours strike and to hear the Lord Provost’s reply to the workers’ request for a 40-hour week. Whilst the deputation was in the building the police mounted a vicious and unprovoked attack on the demonstrators, felling unarmed men and women with their batons. The demonstrators, with the ex-servicemen to the fore, quickly retaliated with fists, iron railings and broken bottles, and forced the police into a retreat.
On hearing the noise from the square the strike leaders, who were meeting with the Lord Provost, rushed outside to restore order. One of the leaders, David Kirkwood, was felled to the ground by a police baton, and along with William Gallacher was arrested by the police.
After the initial confrontation between the demonstrators and the police in George Square, further fighting continued in and around the city centre streets for many hours afterwards. The Townhead area of the city and Glasgow Green, where many of the demonstrators had regrouped after the initial police charge, were the scenes of running battles between police and demonstrators.
In the immediate aftermath of ‘Bloody Friday’, as it became known, other leaders of the Clyde Workers’ Committee were also arrested, including Emanuel Shinwell, Harry Hopkins and George Edbury. Government concerns about industrial militancy and revolutionary political activity in Glasgow reached new heights after the events of 31st January 1919. Fears within government of a workers’ revolution in Glasgow led to the deployment of troops and tanks in the city
An estimated 10000 English troops in total were sent to Glasgow in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of George Square. This was in spite of a full battalion of Scottish soldiers being stationed at Maryhill barracks in Glasgow at the time. No Scottish troops were deployed, with the government fearing that fellow Scots, soldiers or otherwise, would go over to the workers side if a revolutionary situation developed in Glasgow.
There are many propaganda stories from both sides fo thus event, but despite the English troops neing deployed in Glasgow, by the time they patrolled ordered had been restored.
On 10th February 1919 the 40-hours strike was called off by the Joint Strike Committee. Whilst not achieving their stated aim of a 40-hour working week, the striking workers from the engineering and shipbuilding industries did return to work having at least negotiated an agreement that guaranteed them a 47-hour working week; 10 hours less than they were working prior to the strike.
You might see other pics of a tank around online linked to this story with crowds of people and trams in the background, that picture was taken a year before, it was on some sort of publicity tour. While tanks were deployed, there is a picture on Wiki showing the tanks at the Glasgow Cattle Market in the Gallowgate, there is no evidence of the tanks being used on the streets, that doesn’t take away from the fact they were there and that there were no Scottish troops used to restore order, a shameful.
