1825 STROUDWATER WEAVERS’ RIOTS BICENTENARY COMMEMORATION
Saturday November 15th. Meet outside The Prince Albert at noon for a commemorative walk of some five or six miles maximum along the River Frome and the canal before climbing up towards Amberley and thence back to The Prince Albert. Readings along the way. A free explanatory leaflet so that walkers can follow the history of 1825 themselves in the future. After the walk, an informal ‘seminar’ in The Prince Albert: a pubinar?
The Stroudwater Weavers’ Riots of 1825 were an important moment in trade union history – and not just locally but nationally too. The strikes were against a lowering of rates for weavers from employers with community punishments for those who broke the strike. The action and history deserve to be remembered and commemorated this year: the bicentenary. Thousands were involved in the action of the summer of 1825 and, in consequence, many were sent to prison.
But there is also evidence of trade union unity in that summer of 1825 that went beyond weavers to other occupational groups. Indeed, four years later in 1829, the government sent a spy down to Stroud to infiltrate a trade union ceremony involving a secret oath … if this event had happened just another few years later then Stroud might well be remembered and conjoined with Tolpuddle in trade union history …
Radical Stroud is grateful for the support of UNITE 007 Gloucester Branch in putting on this and associated events, exhibitions, research, leaflets and more discursive or creative writing. So grateful. Past and Present conjoined.