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Birmingham Police strike 1919

Steve R

master brummie
Hello all
The West Midlands police museum have released their latest book to commemorate 100 years since the police strike. Very few people are aware that the officer went on strike but at the beginning of August 1919, 120 Birmingham policemen went on strike - joined by officers from London and Liverpool as part of the National Union of Police and Prison Officers, otherwise known as NUPPO.

This followed the very successful strike of 1918 whereby 1,000s of Metropolitan and City of London officers had marched to Downing Street to demand better pay and working conditions. The Prime Minister agreed to these demands and the Desborough Committee was created to review the pay, allowances and working conditions of police officers all over the country.

But why, with a significant pay rise only weeks away, did those officers risk everything in 1919 to go on strike again? We try to answer this question, by telling the story of the 1919 police strike, including events leading up to it and the personal stories of the Birmingham officers, through our new book Out of the Blue - Police Strike 1919. This book is available through our site WMPeelers.com We share never seen information from the museum archives and there are many pictures of officers and building shown all part of our rich heritage in Birmingham.

We also detail some of our events on this site. Support us to make the former Lock - Up facility into the new West Midlands police museum and keep the heritage going. We spend 100's of hour researching and writing these books and all of the proceeds go to the heritage project to make the museum a reality. The book is hardback A4 size

Steve R
 

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good luck with the book steve i shall be ordering a copy...and thank you for all the hard work you do towards giving birmingham a new police museum...link below if you want to order the new book folks :)

lyn

 
My grandfather joined the police in 1906 and was promoted, over a number of years, to be a first class constable - earning 35 shillings a week. On the morning of the strike he was on his way to the station when he met several of his colleagues who told him it was a waste of time going into work as they were all on strike. As a result of this - because he hadn't signed on - he was dismissed from the service.
My 3xgreat grandfather was the first policeman in Erdington and lived at the lock up in Bell Lane ( Orphanage Road)
 
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