The General Strike

The General Strike

The General Strike started May 3rd 1926 and lasted nine days ending on the 12th May 1926. Mine owners wanted to normalise profits even during times of economic instability – which meant that miners’ wages would be reduced and working hours would be extended. The miners were not happy with the changes that were about to happen so they decided to go on strike.

This documentary exercise is going to evaluate two primary sources from the General Strike. It will consider form, authorship, historical context, content and value as well as assess the reliability, limitations, language and style used in both sources.

The two primary sources are articles taken from different newspapers, printed on the same day Thursday 13th May. The first article is from The Times and the second is from The Daily Mirror. As the two articles were printed the day after the General Strike ended, they both have value in terms of reliability and first hand knowledge of the event, even though they are both limited by only offering the editors view at the time. From reading both articles the reader can obtain a general idea of the strike, people involved and the after effects.

Both articles are aimed at different audiences telling them what they want to hear. The Daily Mirror is aimed at the miners and people of the working class that is why they back the people and praise them. The Times on the other hand is aimed at the upper class, for example people who work for the Government, which is why they back and praise them.

Both articles have similar titles The Times �THE NATIONS VICTORY’ and The Daily Mirror �PEACE AT LAST’ the writer has used war language suggesting; the strike was a war between the Government and the nation. The Times uses complex sentence structure and complex vocabulary throughout its article; it uses more words, some of which are unnecessary, compared to The Daily Mirrors article that has shorter sentences which are straight to the point. An example of this is �In a conflict such as that which has been fought out’ taken from The Times. This type of complex language is aimed at the upper class as they were more