Dumfries author Ian Gasse will launch his latest book on the town’s working class history at a film event and talk on Saturday at 7.30pm in the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre.
‘A Hard Nut to Crack?’ recounts the development of the L abour movement in Dumfries during the 30 years from 1884 to 1914, after painstaking research.
The illustrated hardback edition of 372 pages has reproductions of newspaper adverts and other images, and is a joint publication by the author and the Scottish Labour History Society.
Ian said: “It takes its title from a conversation between picketing railway workers from Glasgow and the secretary of the Dumfries branch of the Scottish Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants during the 1890 Scottish Railway Strike.
“The pickets said they had been told Dumfries would be ‘a hard nut to crack’ in terms of getting local railwaymen to join the strike, and it seemed to me to be a phrase which might also reflect the development of Labour politics in the town. The book attempts to answer this question.”
Ian has already published a history of the 19th century co-operative movement in Dumfries, Something to Build On, and his second book was Mobbings, Struggles and Strikes which, in articles ranging from food riots through to the increased industrial disputes on the threshold of the First World War, traces various working class attempts to secure the vote, establish trade unions and win better pay and working conditions – all through different kinds of collective action. Both have been produced in association with the Scottish Labour History Society.
During the pandemic in 2020, Ian also produced a free booklet, Uncovering Working Lives, which provides a history trail around Dumfries and Maxwelltown, highlighting significant locations connected with the working-class history of the then two towns.
It this third book he reveals the history of the organised working class in Dumfries during the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and traces the emergence and development in Dumfries of ‘Labour’ both politically and through an expanding trade union movement, from 1884 to the outbreak of the First World War.
He said: “It seemed sensible to try and complete the story of the struggles of the local organised working class of Dumfries and Maxwelltown down to the First World War, by researching the emergence of Labour as a separate political entity, in a period dominated by the Conservative and Liberal parties.
“The book, unusually, shows the spread of socialism in a town well away from the large industrial conurbations of central
Scotland and northern England.
“Once again, for source material I have had to rely heavily on the newspapers of the time – the Dumfries and Galloway Standard and Advertiser and the Dumfries and Galloway Courier and Herald – as extant minutes from the local organisations involved in this history simply haven’t survived.”
The book covers the development of trade unionism in Dumfries over the same period, including the formation of Dumfries and Maxwelltown Trades and Labour Council in 1911 – which campaigned for both fair wages and better housing for the local working class, as parts of the town “were notorious for their slums”. Ian added: “The book launch will feature contemporary early 20th century film footage of Dumfries and other Scottish and northern English towns and cities, showing the working people of the time at work and play.
“A series of short films made by the Mitchell and Kenyon company of Blackburn will show aspects of the reality of life during the period and will include ‘Doonhamers’ crossing the suspension bridge and leaving church, plus children leaving local schools.”
Tickets – to cover the cost of screening the films – are available, priced £5, from the RBCFT and the Midsteeple Box Office. The new book, which will retail at £22, will be on sale at a discounted price at the launch.
