Class Struggle on the Riverbank: walking tour with Laura Schwartz

In celebration of our exhibition, Combining Efforts: 200 Years of Trade Unions, join the LSE Library on the banks of Bermondsey to learn more about the class struggle on the riverbank.

About the tour:

In the blistering heat of August 1911, women working in jam, biscuit and sweet factories went on wild cat strike in protest against poverty wages and appalling conditions. This history walk follows in the footsteps of the Bermondsey Uprising women and takes in other sites of class struggle on the riverbank.

Find out about the strike by miners who dug Brunel’s Rotherhithe foot tunnel; a barmaids’ trade union; the socialist feminist Mayor of Bermondsey Ada Salter; and the multicultural working-class who lived and worked in these riverside neighbourhoods.

The walk takes about 2.5 to 3 hours and will finish at Hartley’s Jam Factory, Green Walk SE1. The walk does not cover a great distance but we will be on our feet most of the time. Children are welcome to attend but the walk is aimed at an adult audience and contains adult content. There will be a toilet break. Come prepared, as the walk will go ahead whatever the weather.

Laura Schwartz is Professor of Modern British History at the University of Warwick. She is the author of three books and many articles on feminist and working-class history, including Feminism and the Servant Problem: Class and Domestic Labour in the Women’s Suffrage Movement (Cambridge University Press, 2019). She is currently working on a history of the ‘untraditional’ working-class, with a focus on women workers, migrant workers and queer and cosmopolitan working-class cultures.

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