Keeping the Peace?

This book focuses on the role of the police in regulating and controlling strikes in Great Britain during the first major strike wave of the this century. This series of strikes, between 1910-1926, was one of the most sustained and direct confrontations between capital and labour and between trade unions and goverment ever experienced in Britain. In this confrontation the police played a considerable part, but one which has so far received little attention from historians. The present study is an attempt to extend the understanding of the contribution made by the civil power to these events, to complement the large literature on industrial unrest and the political response to it in the period. Such an analysis serves a double purpose. Large strikes often became trials of strength between all the interests involved, in which the police were called on to play a central role. In charting changes in that role, changes in the influences that helped to shape the police response can also be charted.