Women and the rent strikes
What does radicalisation mean?
• The Great War is said to have made many
Scots more politically aware.
• Another way of saying that is that people
became radicalised.
• The radicalisation of Scottish politics will be
spoken about later but the rent strikes that
started in and around Glasgow are perfect
examples of people taking direct action to
change or protect their way of life.
What was a rent strike?
• Rent strikes were the refusal of people, mainly
women, to pay high rents charged by
landowners.
• In Feb 1915, Helen Crawford, Mary Barbour,
Agnes Dollan and Jessie Stephens helped to
form the Glasgow Women’s Housing
Association to resist rent rises and threatened
evictions.
In May 1915 the first rent strike began and soon
about 25,000 tenants in Glasgow had joined the
strike.
• Rent strikes began to spread to other Scottish
cities such as Aberdeen and Dundee.
• Landlords began to issue court orders and
threaten the protestors with eviction, fine or
prison.
• In response the women made it impossible for
the authorities to evict tenants, by blocking
access to their tenements.
Why did rent strikes start in and
around Glasgow?
• The Glasgow area was vital to the war effort.
• The shipyards and engineering factories were
crucial in producing the weapons, the
munitions and the machines that Britain
needed to fight the war.
• As a result of the demand for workers, the
population of Glasgow area increased as
people arrived to meet the demand for
workers.
These new arrivals all needed
somewhere to stay, and as a result
demand for housing in and around
Glasgow rocketed-and so did the
rents that landlords charged.
Housing conditions were often bad
but landlords did little to improve
their properties.
• They knew that, as more and more people
were looking for somewhere to live near to
the large engineering factories, they could
charge high rents for poor quality housing.
1.Soon ordinary people were being
evicted from their tenement flats
simply because they could not pay
the rent that had increased as
much as 20%.
The women of Glasgow were
furious at this profiteering.
• Profiteering means taking advantage of a
situation to make money while other people
suffer and can do little about the profiteers.
• Landlords bullied and threatened the women
to make them pay higher rents.
• There was a strong feeling that the landlords
were taking advantage of the women,
threatening them with eviction while their
menfolk were away fighting in the war
Faced with rising food prices and
now rising rents, some women
decided to fight back.
Why was the government
concerned about rent strikes?
• On 17 November 1915 a mass demonstration
in Glasgow’s George Square worried the
government.
• The radicalisation of the women had also
inspired some men who now began to strike
in sympathy with the women and to campaign
for wage rises themselves
• The government was under pressure.
The rent strikes had grown to the
extent that they threatened
wartime production of necessary
machines and munitions
The answer was the Rent
Restriction Act
Rents were frozen at 1914 levels
unless improvements had been
made to the property.
• The strikers’ demands had been met, protest
and profiteering now declined and wartime
production was maintained without
disruption.
• However, the strikers had learned an
important lesson: that direct action could lead
to positive results.
The rent strikes of 1915 had a big
impact on the radicalisation of
many Scots...
Did the war really change the
image and status of working
women?
• When the war ended the majority of women
did not keep their new wartime jobs.
• The Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act
meant that returning soldiers were given back
their jobs and with the closure of most
munitions factories women workers were no
longer needed.
Within a few years of the end of
the war over 25% of all working
women were back in domestic
service.
• Child minding.
• Doing housework.
• That total was more than before the war!!