Glasgow Rent Strikes 1915: The Struggle for Decent Housing

Abstract

From the 1850s Glasgow was a major industrial, commercial and mercantile city, with notoriously poor working-class housing. During the 1915 Rent Strike many women physically resisted rent increases and prevented evictions from the tenements. The strikes ended when the Government passed the Rent Restrictions Act 1915, which returned rents to pre-war levels. This was in response to a political and working-class struggle that challenged the rule of law. Rather than focussing narrowly on the role of the women alone, or on the strike as inspiration for anti-capitalist resistance, the 2015 Centenary seemed opportune to examine why the Rent Strike was successful, its place in the longer struggle for decent housing, the role of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and its leaders, and their collaborations with labour and women’s organisations. From the 1890s the ILP was central to labour’s campaign in elections and in fostering political collaboration with many groups representing labour. John Wheatley and Patrick Dollan, former miners, were leaders in strengthening the ILP organisation and its community relations. This collaborative structure supported the women leading the rent resistance in the tenements. It was also the platform for Wheatley and Dollan, nationally and municipally, to continue their life-long work to improve the housing and living standards of working people. Wheatley became Minister of Health in 1924 in Britain’s first Labour Government, and Dollan was Lord Provost in Glasgow’s first majority Labour Council in 1938. Glasgow’s systemic anti-Irish and anti-Catholic prejudice has, surprisingly, remained unexamined in relation to the Rent Strike. Two historians claimed, without presenting evidence, that bigotry was overcome or briefly transcended. The evidence reviewed here indicated that it did not go away, but that it had no impact on the Rent Strike as it simply offered no stimulus or opportunity to express the existing racist or religious prejudice.