Victorian Class War -- Bloody Sunday at Trafalgar Square

http://patrickmurfin.blogspot.ca/2016/11/victorian-class-warbloody-sunday-at.html
Date Written:  2016-11-13
Publisher:  Heretic, Rebel, a Thing to Flout - Patrick Murfin's Blog
Year Published:  2016
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX20141

Patrick Murfin recalls a part of UK history, Bloody Sunday at Trafalgar Square.

Abstract: 
Excerpt:

The events in London's famed Trafalgar Square on November 13, 1887 are virtually unknown to Americans, but this particular Bloody Sunday was pivotal in British political, class, and labour history and helped shape a generation of struggle.

Times were hard in Britain in the 1880's. Had been since a crash in 1873 and would continue to be until the turn of the 20th Century. The period is remembered as the Long Depression. There were many contributing causes but among the most significant was a collapse in agricultural commodity prices that combined with the introduction of modern farming equipment displaced rural agricultural laborers and tenant farmers who with nowhere else to go flooded the cities. The infusion of so many unskilled laborers into the cities led to a collapse of wages. Unemployment skyrocketed and depressed wages led to wide spread want.