Red Clydeside: A history of the labour movement in Glasgow 1910-1932

Events

Table of donations to the Clyde Defence Fund, 1919

The Clyde Defence Fund was set up to raise money for the defence of those men arrested in the aftermath of 40 hours strike and the Battle of George Square.

Key members of the Clyde Workers' Committee (CWC), and other trade unionists, socialists and Marxists, were arrested in the immediate aftermath of Bloody Friday. These included William Gallacher, Emanuel Shinwell and David Kirkwood of the CWC, as well as Harry Hopkins, secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers and George Edbury, national organiser of the British Socialist Party.

Significantly, as shown by the list, a large proportion of the money collected was donated by labour organisations outwith the Clydeside region. The events of Bloody Friday were seen by the Labour movement as a state-sponsored attack on the working classes as a whole.

Source: Glasgow Trades Council Collection, Glasgow City Archives