When Britain Stood Still: The General Strike at 100

Location: Philip Robinson Library, Level 2 Special Collections & Archives exhibition space

Dates: 8th May - 18th October 2026

Opening times: Please check the Library's website for opening times.

Free. Open to all.

Content guidance: This exhibition contains images and information that some people may consider sensitive.

To mark the 100th anniversary of the British General Strike, this exhibition reveals how workers, politicians and trade unionists faced the challenge of the General Strike and how its opponents organised to resist it.
 
What emerges here from the documents, photographs and oral histories is a narrative of 
solidarity and sacrifice during Britain’s largest industrial dispute, as well as the hostile response from the government.

Between 4 and 12 May 1926, roughly 1.5 to 2 million workers posed a challenge to established order as they responded to a call by the Trade Union Congress (TUC) to strike in support of the miners, whose employers planned to lengthen their working day and cut their pay.

Britain awoke on the morning of Tuesday 4 May to find the General Strike underway: the railways and docks were still and silent, buses and trams had vanished, no newspapers were on sale.

King George V proclaimed a ‘state of emergency’ and the special constabulary, military, and admiralty were deployed. After nine days, the TUC leadership ended the strike on the uncertain promise of negotiations on miners’ wages and working conditions. These promises did not materialise.

This exhibition is part of General Strike 100, which brings together stories, exhibitions and events to remember the strike and its impact on working people.