‘Mobbings, Struggles and Strikes’ is the second publication from Dumfries author Ian Gasse,
It covers the food riots (‘mobbings’), a series of significant local strikes, involving bakers, stonemasons and women hosiery workers, Chartism and the local campaigns for the vote.
And it follows on from last year’s history of the nineteenth-century co-operative movement in Dumfries, Something to Build On.
Both books have been produced in association with the Scottish Labour History Society.
Ian will officially launch his latest work at a Scottish Book Week event on November 18-19 at the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre.
At those he will outline the history of Dumfries from the late 18th century, as it expanded from a market town, port and administrative centre to a larger urban centre, with established textile and engineering industries.
He said: “The episodes of working-class history featured in the book can then be seen as collective responses – to food shortages, low pay, poor working conditions and long working hours, the absence of the vote, and various attempts by employers to reduce wages, as British capitalism became subject to greater global competition from the 1870s onwards.”
