Black Sailors on Red Clydeside: Rioting, Reactionary Trade Unionism and Conflicting Notions of 'Britishness' Following the First World War

Abstract

The riot at Glasgow harbour in January 1919 was the first in a wave of rioting around Britain's ports in 1919. Violence was triggered by increased job competition in the merchant navy at the end of the war. Seamen's unions fuelled animosity between competing groups as they sought to protect white British access to jobs by imposing a ‘colour’ bar on sailors from racialized ethnic minorities. Many of the seamen targeted in this way were British colonial subjects from Africa and the Caribbean. Black colonial sailors in Glasgow resisted attacks by white rioters and asserted their rights to employment as British subjects. The riot was connected to wider industrial unrest on Clydeside as leaders of the union campaign for a reduced working week (to maintain full employment following demobilization) brought unskilled labour, including merchant seamen, into a general strike alongside skilled workers. Strike leaders, including Shinwell and Gallacher, linked the 40-hours movement to the seamen's unions’ protests against overseas labour by stressing the common interests of both in preserving the job prospects of (white) labour. The campaigns proved unsuccessful in the face of government fears over the revolutionary potential of the general strike and as the merchant shipping industry slid in to depression.

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