“A Broad Hint for a Broad-Head” from “Fun” (1873)

A Broad Hint for a Broad-Head

WW, artist

The Dalziels, engravers

Fun (13 July 1867): 189

British Workman (crushing the viper): — “We don’t want murdering vermin like you crawling among us!”

The poster in the background at top right, which bears the words “Diabolical Outrage — Reward,” refers to the so-called Sheffield “Outrages,” which, as Arthur Downing explains, “were perpetrated by the Saw Grinders Union under the orchestration of its secretary, William Broadhead.” [Continued below]

Courtesy of the Suzy Covey Comic Book Collection in the George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida.

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the University of Florida library and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Arthur Downing on Broadhead and the ‘Sheffield Outrages’

The ‘Sheffield Outrages’ were a series of high-profile violent attacks by workmen in the Sheffield light metal trades on fellow workers and employers in the 1850s and 1860s. The ‘Outrages’ that received the most public attention were those resulting in serious bodily harm or even death. Yet these ‘Outrages’ were only the most extreme manifestations of what were known as ‘rattenings’. ‘Rattenings’ were an assortment of acts of petty violence, theft, threatening behaviour and vandalism, used by workers to regulate the industry from the eighteenth century. From the mid-Victorian period ‘rattenings’ became increasingly violent and were used by trade union leaders to influence industrial relations. . . . Unions used ‘rattenings’ as a morally acceptable form of punishment for recalcitrant members of ‘the trade’. Workmen who refused to pay contribution (‘natty’ money), took on too many apprentices, or worked for less than the union price would find that ‘the rats had been’. They would receive threatening letters from ‘Mary Ann’, their grinding bands would be removed, tools taken, or they themselves might be subjected to physical intimidation. Rattenings were used to signal discontent. The goal was to maintain a high level of workforce solidarity around a model of unionization deeply rooted in older local guild structures. [163-64]

Related material

Bibliography

Downing, Arthur. “The ‘Sheffield Outrages’: violence, class and trade unionism, 1850–70.” Social History. 38 (2013): 162-82.

Last modified 24 May 2018