By David Walsh
The purpose of this piece is to bring out from what the socialist historian Edward Thompson called 'the condescension of history', a small - but politically significant - set of events around Teesside and the wider North East, and which related to one of the biggest domestic issue of the 1920's - the Irish war of independence.
I was first alerted to this hitherto forgotten element of our common working class history by the Dongate website - a local site managed by Patrick Brennan of County Durham and which concentrates on the history and culture of his home town of Jarrow . His essay concentrates as is natural on aspects of the IRA activities in that area of the region, but also mentioned that a similar campaign was waged elsewhere in the North East - and in particular on Teesside. Hence more research and this essay. I need to add that the first three 'background' paragraphs of this essay are taken in large part from Patrick's site as he wrote it both tersely and beautifully. You can access his site on
http://www.donmouth.co.uk/index.html
The material on the setting up of the Irish Self Determination League came from the oldest Irish republican socialist body active in the UK - the Connolly Association. You can read more about their work and their magazine The Irish Democrat on;
http://www.irishdemocrat.co.uk/about/ca-history/
I used the Northern Echo for all reports of the IRA Teesside campaign of 1921. A full copy of all editions of the Echo are available for further study at Darlington Central Library.
Finally, any more information from readers to supplement this essay would be welcome. Please contact me on
The General Election of December 1918 - the so called 'Khaki Election - was the first to be held in England after the Great War. In Ireland, then still part of the United Kingdom, it was also the first to be held after the abortive Rising of Easter 1916. The outcome in the two countries could hardly have been more different. Although local working class communities like Teesside were still traumatised by a war which had left hardly any families untouched by death or injury, the electorate in England responded to calls for patriotism, and voted in, in an echo of today's dreary world, a coalition of reactionary Liberals and Conservatives.
It would take a world-wide depression, another World War, and 27 more years before voters in England finally came to realise that the "Great and Good" who ruled them were neither great, nor good.
But in Ireland, there was an altogether different political climate. Here, Rulers and Ruled were separated not only by class, but also by religion, culture and in some parts of the nation, language. The execution by army firing squads of many of the leaders of 1916 - including the socialist trade union leader, James Connolly - and the attempt to introduce conscription towards the end of the War, had radicalised the population, and led to a massive growth in support for Sinn Féin, the main nationalist party. Sinn Féin won 73 of the seats contested, and in accordance with their republican manifesto Sinn Féin MPs refused to take their seats in the Commons, and established instead a new assembly, Dáil Eireann, which met for the first time on 21st January 1919 at Dublin's Mansion House.
The only item of business on that first day was the adoption of a Declaration of Independence. Thus the War of Independence begun.
The British Government would not concede full independence and a republic; Sinn Féin would settle for nothing less. Attacks continued and intensified, and towards the end of 1919 we saw the raising of a volunteer force in England to serve in Ireland. The first units of this force, officially the Royal Irish Constabulary Reserve Force, landed at Dublin in March 1920, and were quickly christened the "Black and Tans", on account of the strange mixture of uniforms that were worn owing to a shortage of regular police uniforms. These men, and the parallel Auxiliary Divisions were specifically recruited from ex-officers with good war records, and it acquired a fearsome reputation as a fighting force. It was too, politically committed and was probably the nearest that Great Britain had to the proto-Nazi German 'Freikorps'.
The struggle was vicious and bloody. The IRA operated a hit and run guerilla campaign, with attacks upon individuals and small groups of police and Black and Tans, and the murder of "informers". In urban areas, raids upon economic targets such as banks provided much needed funds. In the rural hinterland there were attacks on the occupying army, large houses and mansions belonging to local landlords, magistrates and the former ruling Anglo Irish 'ascendancy'.
In response, the Black and Tans, hit back in the only manner then known for dealing with guerilla activities - intelligence-based arrests backed up by general reprisals against the civilian population. Most reprisals were of an unofficial nature, and involved gangs of drunken and out of control Tans or Auxiliaries going on orgies of looting and arson.
What were the Irish in Britain to do? The Dáil, as any normal government, had appointed ministers plenipotentiary to various countries. Where, as in Britain, these were not acknowledged, a spokesman for the Irish government was appointed.
The Dáil had appointed as its spokesman in London Art O'Brien, the president of the Sinn Féin Council of Great Britain during 1916-1923. Official Dáil papers showed that Art O'Brien, who as represented of a democratically elected government, made no attempt to hide his role, was under constant harassment from the Metropolitan Police and its Special Branch. Raids on his offices were frequent, office managers were arrested and in two cases they were deported back to Dublin to be dealt with by the 'Castle' authorities.
Soon after the establishment of the Dáil, however, O'Brien realised that there was a need for an Irish movement in Britain which would not be linked to any one political party, would encompass the spectrum of politics on the basis of the recognition of the Irish government and the need to support it in the War of Independence that was now inflicted on it by London's policy.
Thus was born the Irish Self Determination League (ISDL). This was to be a body working exclusively in England, Wales and Scotland and which was formed to support for the Irish state and its government. Its membership would be confined to those of Irish birth or descent resident in Britain.
Branches were soon operating and in the North East Tyneside, County Durham and Teesside, all areas with large Irish populations were soon affiliated in a single branch. The key organising area seemed to be Jarrow, but activities were region-wide. Patrick Brennan showed that the first show of strength was on the 8th August 1920 when a demonstration and gala, presided over by Councillor Terry O'Connor of Jarrow, was held in Durham City. It was reported that thousands of members from 25 ISDL branches throughout Northumberland and Durham marched from the Market Square to Wharton Park, led by the Hebburn Brass Band, where they were addressed by two members of Dáil Eireann - Sean Hayes and S. Mahoney, and Sean Milroy, Director of Organisation for the Irish Republic, as well as local speakers.
The ISDL had both a public face - which concentrated on raising support for the Irish Independence movement - but also a hidden face as a recruiting agency for the Irish Volunteers and the IRA, an activity which led to many Irishmen from this region returning to Ireland to join the armed struggle (amongst them, the later Labour Councillor for Eston, Jimmy Finnigan). But by 1921, it also had another covert facet - and this was to bring the struggle to the mainland.
The task was to recruit volunteers among local Irish sympathisers and organise them into IRA mainland companies. Most recruits were skilled/semi-skilled or professional men. Many had also served in the armed forces in France.
By the end of November six companies had been established across the North East, Jarrow (A Company) which with 90 men, was the largest , Hebburn (B Company), Newcastle (C Company), Wallsend (D Company), Bedlington (E Company), and Consett (F Company), with a total strength of around 160 men. Recruitment continued, and a further four companies were set up during the first quarter of 1921, in Stockton, Chester-le-Street, Thornley and Sunderland. This brought the total strength to around 480 men. If the alphabetical order followed in sequence, Stockton (which also covered Middlesbrough and Eston, as we will later see in term of activity) would have been G Company.
The second task was the procurement of arms and other war materials (explosives / inflammable liquids) was also high on the list of priorities. Guns were mostly obtained from foreign sailors, or stolen from Drill Halls. We must also remember that there was also a vast amount of scrap war material left across the country from the previous 4 years of total war - so logistics would not be a great problem. Explosives too would be readily available given their widespread use in mining areas like Durham, East Cleveland and Eston.
The first day of action for Teesside was on Saturday the 26th March 1921 and on that night the first of many farm fires were reported by the regional press. For the purpose of this article, I use the Northern Echo (then, as now, a paper of record). On the following Monday, the Echo reported in a lead story simultaneous hayrick and farm building firings across the North East - stretching from Jarrow, Wallsend and Consett down to Stockton, Middlesbrough and Eston.
The first Teesside report was at 8.00 pm on that Saturday when the police and fire service were told of a large fire at Billingham, with ricks and store buildings at a farm owned by a Mr Emmott on a site adjacent to the new Nitrate plant. When the fire brigade arrived, they found no water, and the fires were left to burn themselves out. Soon after another report was received which spoke of another large fire on a farm belonging to a Mr Bell and which was sited at the rear of the Durham Road cemetery. Again, by the time the brigade arrived, the fire had burnt itself out. It was reported by the Echo that the value of the property torched was £150 at Billingham and £180 at Newham. In both cases the ricks and buildings had been set alight by petrol bombs, with the evidence found on both sites.
Later that night the Middlesbrough fire brigade and police were alerted to burning buildings and hay ricks at Newport Lane, Acklam where a Dutch Barn belonging to a John Smith and Sons was completely burnt out. This fire continued throughout the weekend and was only finally damped down on the Sunday. The alarm bells rang yet another time that night when the authorities were told of fires on farms in South Bank and Normanby. At Lowfields Farm, near what is now the Trunk Road, property owned by one of the long established farming families of the area, the Wilkinson's was totally destroyed. Speaking to an Echo reporter, Mr Len Wilkinson later reported 'seeing two men running from the scene towards the main Normanby Road.' Fire engines from the overworked Middlesbrough and Thornaby brigades attended as did a local fire engine from South Bank. At first it was thought the entire farm would be consumed by the flames and farm workers were evacuated from their cottages for safety. However, the brigade held the line, although not until property 'worth hundreds of pounds' was destroyed.
The local brigades must have thought that this might have been the end of an exhausting night, but then followed two more reports. The first was of 'severe fires' at farm buildings lying within the boundaries of the Eston Mines owned by Bolckow Vaughan & Co. The Eston Brigade was ordered to attend, as a simultaneus call had come through to the Middlesbrough Brigade HQ of another fire at Mill Hill Farm, Linthorpe, owned by Messrs W Dale & Sons. Again, as at Acklam, a Dutch Barn was the target. There, valuable threshing machines were destroyed. Both the Eston and Linthorpe fires were extingushed, but the financial loss was seen as considerable. The final fire was a small one reported in the early hours of Sunday at a farm in the Grove Hill area of Middlesbrough, but which was extinguished before the birgade were able to reach it.
It had to be said that such a widespread set of action must have indicated a sizeable number of people being involved and of good pre planning. Despite police inquiries in the Irish districts of Teesside, no arrest were made - a contrast to Tyneside, where five men were later arrested and charged.
The next big attack occurred some weeks later on Saturday the 21st May. The activity that night was aimed this time, not at farms but industrial premises and water works.
The Echo and the other regional papers made this their major splash story on the Monday, with the Newcastle Chronicle reporting that 'much incediary activity occurred on both Tyneside and Teesside and much damage done'. The Echo led with a three decker banner headline 'Fire Gangs raid North East coast..... Widespread incendiary havoc, expolsives used..... attacks on farms, railway stations, factores, gas and water mains."
The main brunt of the activity was on Tyneside and North East and North West Durham, but on Teesside two significant attacks were on Stockton factories and the Long Newton waterworks. "The Stockton outrages" the Echo said, "began with fires at farms at Saltholme, Port Clarence and Portrack" occurrances which were to be eclipsed by later attacks at around 10.00 p.m. on a large sawmill belongng to Foster, Brotherton and Co at Bowesfield Lane, where a fire which completely destroyed the mill spread to a neighbouring engineering factory owned by Harkers Engineering.
The Echo reported that it was an absolutely clear moonlight night, and the 'seething mass of flames' visible across the whole district was somewhat oddly described as a 'magnificant spectacle'. The Fire Brigade tried to tackle the flames whilst the police were kept busy trying to disperse the crowd of spectators who had gathered around the area to see the night's activities. The Echo said "fully 30,000 people watched the fire till well after midnight, many of these clustered along the nearby North East Railway coal stands". Indeed when the roof of the sawmill finally collapsed in just after midnight there was panic in the crowd and the paper reported that two people, stated as a Mr Arthur Fields of Bowesfield and a Mrs Sarah O'Hara of Portrack were severely injured and taken to a local hospital.
The extent of the blaze was such that the nearby Boathouse Lane tram and bus depot and an associated power house belonging to Stockton Corporation were seen as being 'at severe risk' and, roused by the Tramways superintendent, a Mr A Forster, local drivers were roused from their beds to evacuate the vheicles, with the result that in the words of the Echo " a continuous line of trams and motor buses stretched from the main Bowesfield Road to outside Thornaby Town Hall".
The blaze was not fully extinguished until later in the weekend, with the almost total damage to Brotherton's sawmills and boathouses estimated at £30,000 and at Harkers, estimated at £5,000.
This should have been enough for the night for the authorities, but it was not to be. Whilst these fires were being tackled, a large distinct explosion at 10.40 p.m. was heard 'for miles around' - from Darlington to Stockton - and a subsequent call from a landowner, Mr Stanley Appleby of Elton Hall, to local police and the notification to the fire brigade of an abrupt drop in water pressure throughout the area from Water Board officials, it was clear the explosion was probably linked to Long Newton waterworks, reservoir and the nearby pumping station.
The first witness statement (as the plant was unmanned at night) came from a local man, called by the Echo 'Morris' who was camping in the vicnity of the reservoir. Hearing the explosion from close quarters, he jumped on his pushbike to see what was up. In the words of the Echo, 'at the junction of the Coatham Stob Lane Ends between Elton and Long Newton he was pitched off his bike when he ran into a heavy piece of metal which also damaged his front wheel and frame. On further investigation he found that a large water main which ran alongside the road had been blown up and water at the rate of many tons a minute were flowing into the fields."
The explosion was at a pipe junction and it was said that 'many pieces of metal were thrown a considerable distance'. The water board later confirmed this leakage, and the fact that nearby becks, flowing into the main Coatham Beck, some two miles away 'were in flood'.
These events parallelled other attacks throughout the North East with bombs damaging gas pipelines, hualage depots, a cinema, shipyards and plant at the Consett Streel Works where a railway engine on the internal rail network was fired up and left as a runaway projectile crashing into machinery and plant.
It was clear that these were IRA attacks and on Tyneside a number of arrests and charges were made. A Wallsend boatyard attack led to the arrest of two volunteers - James Conroy, a schoolteacher from Dee Street in Jarrow, and John McAlinden of Wallsend. Both men were found to be armed. Conroy received a sentence of 7 years, and McAlinden 5 years, but they did not serve their full sentences, and were released early in February 1922.
At Stockton, despite initial reports of two arrests of 'men believed to be Irish' no subsequent report of any court hearings appear, and I can only speculate that after fruitless questioning these men were released. Descriptions were taken of men seen to be in the vicinity of the Sawmills were given to police, but again these appeared to have led to a dead end, with the local Irish Community, which must have been by that time under constant surveillance, protecting their own.
There were further mysterious fire attacks on Teesside in the following week, again the next Saturday night, including one large fire at Middlesbrough Council's Tramways and Bus Depot on Linthorpe Road near to Linthorpe Village. There, the building was gutted as drums of petrol and benzole caught light and several new buses, the pride of the Council fleet, were lost. Other fires occurred at timber yards on Cargo Fleet Road and Horsfield Street, with the latter gutted with the loss of a pony who was burnt to death. The final fire, later that night, was a return to rick burning with a severe arson attack at Scott's Farm, Grangetown, where five ricks, estimated to have been worth some £200 were completely lost. All these attacks bore the mark of IRA activity, although no conclusive proof of this was ever finally established.
So ended the military campaign on Teesside, the North East and across the British mainland. On 9th July 1921 a truce was agreed between the British Government and the IRA. An t-Oglach, the official organ of the IRA, carried details of the truce terms in its issue of July 16th. This included an order by Richard Mulcahy, Chief of Staff, to cease military operations, but to continue planning further operations in the event that the Truce might break down.
No further news of IRA or volunteer activity was reported from Teesside although it is known that on Tyneside the procurement of arms for shipment to Ireland continued with local divisional and company records showing that, on the 14th December 1921, a shipment taken to Liverpool by car included 4 Lewis guns with spare magazines and accessories and 2 German machine guns "in very good condition"
The signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 5th December 1921 effectively ended the prospect of a resumption of military operations in Great Britain. In Ireland it split the Republican movement down the middle. Those who opposed it, led by Eamon de Valera, believed that its compromise of accepting Dominion status and partition of the island betrayed the ideal of 1916 - an independent Republic for the whole of Ireland. The pro-Treaty side was led by Michael Collins, the man who had been, more than anyone else, the driving force behind the War on the Irish side. After much acrimonious debate the Treaty was ratified by Dáil Eireann by 7 votes on 7th January 1922 The IRA remained opposed to it however, and an uneasy stand-off continued for some time between the Provisional Government, led by Collins, and IRA commanders, notably Rory O'Connor, who considered the IRA to be the legitimate army of the Irish State - but not a partitioned state. Thus ended the war of independence, but also thus began the the Irish Civil War which lasted until 24th April 1923 when the anti-Treaty forces, known collectively as "Irregulars" were finally defeated and laid down their arms.
On Teesside, the identity of the irregulars will never be known, as unlike on Tyneside, no written records are knwon to remain. One name however could be cited with reasonable confidence. In 1922 the British Government swooped on a large number of Irishmen and women who they suspected of subversive activity, arrested them and deported them to prison in Ireland. On the lists of prisoners held in the Art O'Brian papers held in the National Library of Ireland, and shown as coming from the North East is a Daniel Brennan from Stockton. I can guess that Daniel, if he had wanted to speak could have said much - but true to the discipline of the volunteers, his secrets and those of his colleages, went with him to his grave.
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