Silvertown: The Lost Story of a Strike that Shook London and Helped Launch the Modern Labor Movement

Tully is a committed author with a fine ear for the apt and evocative phrase, whether it be from Bertolt Brecht, Jack London, or Karl Marx … Tully does a fine job of making the issues accessible to non-experts on both sides of the Atlantic, and situating the strike within the context of the political struggles of the day. Highly recommended.

—CHOICE

The workers of London’s infamous Victorian East End have been the subject of much scrutiny, a good deal of it condescending. John Tully shows us how meticulous research and empathy for the dispossessed can recreate a past that is either forgotten or reduced to the forlorn. By taking us into the class struggle soul of a little-remembered 1889 strike at the Silvertown rubber works, Tully adds immeasurably to our understanding of the ‘new unionism’ of the Victorian era. Through writing as impassioned as it is reasoned, Tully brings to life ‘the people of the abyss’ at one of their finest hours, in which the solidarity of the ‘outcasts’ proclaims the possibility of ‘a better world in birth.’ This is history at its best: rigorous in its use of sources and capacities to broaden our ways of seeing experience; analytically demanding in the ways it pushes us to rethink conventional wisdoms of all kinds; and imaginative in the range of its argumentation.

—Bryan D. Palmer, Canada Research Chair, Trent University; author of James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left and Revolutionary Teamsters: The Minneapolis Truckers’ Strikes of 1934

A major contribution to labor history and to the history of East London. Its detailed examination of a single, lengthy, and unsuccessful strike in 1889 in a large Silvertown rubber and gutta percha factory throws important new light on the development of the New Unionism in Britain and its relationship with the ‘aristocracy of labour.’ It is a serious and scholarly work written not with the usual academic detachment, but with a profound and moving feeling of empathy for the dispossessed and the exploited. It is recommended reading not only to historians and those concerned with East London, but as an inspiration to all those participating in today’s urgent struggle against increasing social and economic injustice.

—Alvaro de Miranda, London East Research Institute, University of East London

John Tully’s excellent Silvertown book has again prised wide open a window onto an important but almost forgotten episode of working class history. Tully depicts vividly how men and women, many coming from rural parts of Britain and Ireland, suffered and united together in the new industrial expansion. Mud, community, fumes and struggle. His descriptions and analysis will be useful and enjoyable for activists and academics alike.

—Oliver New, Tube Driver and senior representative, National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT)

In his preface the author expresses the hope that he has been able to tell adequately the story of the Silvertown strikers. Few reading this passionate and lively account can doubt that he has succeeded.

—John Marriott, Emeritus Professor of History, University of East London and author, Beyond the Tower

Marvelous … John Tully tells the story with passion and purpose, which is how labour history ought to be written. He tells it at a cracking pace when events move fast, but also with seductive changes of ‘voice’, sometimes imagining the mood of the people, sometimes describing the setting and explaining ideas, and sometimes justifying his partisan position and choice of method.

—The Recorder