Armed troops escorting a tank on the Trongate, January 1919.
Alarmed by the Forty Hours Strike called on the 27th January, the Government sent English troops to Glasgow to keep the peace and make sure that essential services were not disrupted. Six tanks and 100 motor lorries accompanied the troops, and they were sent to strategic points across the city on 1 February in a calculated show of force.
The strikers began to drift back to work from 4 February and six days later the Strike Committee issued a statement recommending that men should return to work on the 12th. The tanks had been withdrawn from the city several days earlier.
Reproduced with the permission of The Herald and Evening Times, (c) SMG
Keywords:
crowds, Forty Hours Strike, police officers, policemen, Red Clydeside, soldiers, streetscenes, strikes, tanks, trams, Tron Steeple