A Time of Tyrants

by Trevor Royle

  Although Scotland’s main military and naval contribution to the war effort was measured largely in terms of its isolated land mass, and the Orkney and Shetland islands to the north, the country also provided a more traditional response through its heavy industries, most of which were situated in the central belt. In the First World War the Clyde had deserved its appellation of the workshop of the nation’s war effort: it was there that 90 per cent of Scotland’s shipbuilding capacity was concentrated, producing the bulk of Britain’s biggest commercial and naval warships. Glasgow and the west of Scotland also expanded their heavy industries to meet the need for the construction of weapons and ammunition, with peacetime firms diversifying their efforts into building new weapons of war such as warplanes, tanks and field guns. As a result the workforce prospered. The same was true in the other industrial centres on the east coast where Edinburgh (engineering and light manufacturing), Dundee (jute and shipbuilding) and Aberdeen (engineering and shipbuilding) all made contributions to the industrial war effort and once again the war came as a lifeline to the working communities. And just as the pattern of industrial specialisation mirrored what had happened in the First World War, so too was the major part of Scotland’s industrial infrastructure still situated in the traditional areas of the central belt.

  Shipbuilding and its associated trades remained pre-eminent, with the Clyde taking the lion’s share of the Admiralty’s warship orders. By 1938 the total tonnage under construction, 164,911, was not dissimilar to the figure in 1913, 167,286.23 Fairfield had orders for one battleship, one aircraft carrier, two cruisers and four destroyers, while John Brown at Clydebank had received orders for one battleship, one cruiser, three depot ships and four destroyers. Four other firms – Scott, Stephen, Denny and Yarrow – were equally busy with orders for more than 10,000 tons of naval and merchant shipping.24 In Dundee the Caledon yard constructed ‘Empire’ merchant ships to the specification of the Ministry of War Transport, as well as a number of warships including the convoy escort aircraft carrier HMS Activity which was based on an Empire merchant ship. On the outbreak of war one of the main preoccupations had been the presence of major ships under construction which were thought to represent tempting targets for German bombers, especially on the Clyde. These included the Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth, the battleship HMS Duke of York and the aircraft carrier HMS Indefatigable, but it was not until 12 July 1940 that the area was raided by German bombers. By then, in grey livery and under conditions of great secrecy, Queen Elizabeth had sailed to New York without benefit of trials or even an escort, a remarkable achievement.

  Almost immediately, though, Clydebank was hit by a number of labour problems, and while these were never as serious as those that had flared up during the First World War when strikes on ‘Red Clydeside’ were commonplace, they did cause problems to the management. Despite the introduction of legislation – the Emergency Powers Act and the relevant Defence Regulations (Order 1305) – which banned strikes in wartime, there were over 900 stoppages across the UK during the first months of the war. Most of them were short-lived and settled by conciliation, but they gave notice that the labour force was still determined to protect workers’ interests.

  By far the most serious outbreak of trouble on the Clyde came in February 1941 when apprentices in the shipbuilding and related industries went on strike over a pay dispute which had first emerged in 1937. Although there had been a settlement, there was still resentment over the low wages paid to apprentices. The 1941 dispute broke out originally at the Glenfield & Kennedy engineering works and then spread to the Clyde. With the coming of war the passing of the Essential Work (General Provisions) Order in 1941 permitted the introduction of dilution, which allowed less skilled workers known as dilutees to be employed in jobs previously reserved for time-served men. While this made sense from a war production point of view, it created anomalies in pay scales with the result that a senior apprentice could find himself being paid under one pound a week while a dilutee would be paid four times that amount after a basic training programme which lasted only six weeks.

  As it turned out, the government acted with reasonable haste to resolve the issue – by fixing the apprentice’s pay at a percentage of the journeyman’s wage according to his age – and the apprentices went back to work following the Clydebank blitz, but there was an unpleasant incident when the leader of the apprentices, John Moore of John Brown’s, had his reserved status removed and was called up for National Service.25 Only the threat of further industrial action put a stop to this unnecessary aggravation, and following an inquiry, Moore’s status was restored, allowing him to return to his reserved occupation.

  Following Hitler’s invasion of Russia and the subsequent Allied alliance with the Soviet Union, there was a temporary cessation of serious incidents of striking – the exceptions being major incidents in Kent in 1942 and Liverpool the following year – but by 1944 there were over 2,000 stoppages across the UK involving the loss of 3,714,000 days’ production. With a war still to be won, this led to the imposition of Defence Regulation 1AA, supported by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), which made incitement to strike unlawful. For the most part, and compared to what happened during the First World War, relationships between workers and management remained mainly quiescent on Scotland’s industrial front for the rest of the conflict. All shipbuilding work was counted as a reserved occupation, and for most of the war the Clydebank yards worked round the clock, including Sundays, and ended up producing 994 warships and 503 merchant vessels. To put this in perspective, in the five years before the war the total tonnage launched on Clydeside was 322,000 tons, but the average annual tonnage launched from 1940 to 1944 was 493,000 tons.26

  As ever, shipbuilding depended on its ancillary and related industries, and, above all, on the production of steel. Once again the war came as a lifeline to the latter industry, and production in the west of Scotland averaged 1.9 million tons throughout the conflict. The main producers were Bairds (Gartsherrie); Frederick Braby (Glasgow); Clyde Alloy Steel (Motherwell); Colville’s (Bellshill, Glasgow, Glengarnock and Motherwell); Dixon’s (Glasgow); Lanarkshire Steel (Motherwell); Smith & McLean (Gartcosh and Glasgow); Steel Company of Scotland (Cambuslang); Stewarts & Lloyds (Mossend); and John Williams (Wishaw). In addition, the industry also supported a variety of heavy metal works such as ferrous tubes, forgings and stampings; iron and steel casting; wire and wire ropes; and sheet-metal work. Iron production also rallied and managed to produce an average of 500,000 tons throughout the war years. Considering that the immediate pre-war output had been 409,000 tons, this was a significant improvement.27

  Mention should also be made of Scotland’s role in the development and production of aluminium which was helped greatly by the rapid strides made in hydro-electric power in the Highlands. Following the formation of the British Aluminium Company in 1894, initial production from bauxite was based at Larne in Northern Ireland. However in 1913 it was switched to Burntisland in Fife where demand quickly outstripped the plant’s ability to supply alumina, so much so that a second factory had to be built at Newport in Monmouthshire. At the same time production from alumina by reduction was started in the Great Glen at Foyers, Fort William and Kinlochleven, which all benefited from the provision of hydro-electric power. Before the war all fabrication was completed in England and Wales, but in June 1944 the Ministry of Aircraft Production opened a new rolling mill for aluminium alloy sheet at Falkirk, and by the end of the war it had become one of the largest installations of its kind in the world.28

  The other great staple of Scotland’s heavy industries was coal, but it enjoyed mixed fortunes during the war. Although there was a critical national need for coal, both for industrial and domestic use, production was a problem, and in the first twelve months the impact of war soon became obvious. Production across the UK’s coalfields fell from 4,485,000 tons in September 1939 to 4,095,000 tons in August 1940. By the following year, 1941, the situation had deteriorated further when annua
l production fell from 231,337,900 tons in 1939 to 206,344,300 tons in 1941. It was to be the beginning of a worrying downward trend.29 In Scotland matters were even worse. In 1939 the output had been 30.5 million tons, but by the end of the war this had slumped to 21.4 million tons; in the first half of 1942 productivity in Scotland had fallen to 12.99 per cent, the lowest in the UK, whereas in Yorkshire during the same period it was 20.58 per cent. Even more worryingly, the Scottish workforce had declined by 10 per cent from its pre-war high of 88,000 men.30 When the figures were published the public was reported to be ‘profoundly shocked’, and because the drop in production threatened Britain’s war effort, the Ministry of Fuel and Power began an investigation into what was described by the Official History as ‘one of the remarkable features of the economic history of the war.’31

  The main problem was diagnosed as a drastic fall in the output per miner employed in the industry; in Scotland this was found to be particularly severe – from 345 tons per man per year in 1939 to 266 tons in 1945. At first absenteeism was thought to be the main reason, as it had been a perennial problem since the strikes of the 1920s, but this was balanced by the fact that there had been no appreciable reduction in the number of shifts being worked. The hard winter of 1941–2 was probably another factor, as was industrial unrest, especially in Lanarkshire, which resulted in only three weeks in the whole of 1941 being free of industrial disputes. However, further investigation revealed that the principal factor in the declining output was the fact that the mining population had been denuded by men being called up into the armed forces. Miners who were reservists or served in the TA put on uniform in 1939, and between then and July 1941, 80,000 coal-related workers in the vital twenty-one-to-forty age group had been called up into the armed forces. After that date, in an attempt to staunch the flow, their occupation was given reserved status. An appeal was made to miners in the services to return to their former occupation through a radio broadcast by Ernest Bevin in June 1941, but only 500 responded, mainly in England and Wales. A year later came the Mining Optants Scheme which allowed men aged under twenty-five to remain in mining as an alternative to military service, but this only produced 2,750 applicants.32 By the end of 1943 only 50,000 miners had returned to the industry.

  The outcome of the shortages in personnel led to the conscription of the ‘Bevin Boys’ which partially solved the problem (see Chapter 8), but it is not difficult to understand why coalmining had become such an unpopular industry. From being a relatively well-paid and influential job before the First World War – especially after the introduction of the minimum wage in 1912 – it had been emasculated by the strikes and lock-outs of the 1920s, and in consequence the miners felt that they had been humiliated. Wages had slumped compared to many other occupations, there was more mobility and choice in the workplace, industrial relations were poor, and working conditions were often dangerous; as a result, fathers did not want their sons to follow them down the pit. To exacerbate the situation the industry was still mainly in private hands and little had been done to attract new entrants.

  It took time for the wartime government to intervene in any meaningful way. To begin with the industry was put under the control of the Mines Department within the Board of Trade, but in 1942 the department was abolished and all functions relating to coal production were transferred to a new Ministry of Fuel and Power. The wartime work of the ministry was mainly of an executive nature; it included responsibility for overseeing coal production, controlling the price of coal and regulating the health, safety and training of all mine workers. However despite that intervention, the Official History concluded that ‘the war finished with gloomy prospects [for the industry].’33

  It was not all pessimism on the Scottish industrial front. War, the great bringer of technological change, created opportunities for diversification in Scotland, and to a limited extent these were accepted. With war production coming under government control there was greater scope for smaller firms to participate in major construction programmes. This was especially true of aircraft production, which was the responsibility of the Air Ministry. On 7 February 1940, during a House of Commons debate on the granting of building contracts, Sir Kingsley Wood confirmed that of his ministry’s list of 100 new contracts, 45 had been given to Scottish firms.34

  The largest contribution was made by the Rolls-Royce factory at Hillington where Merlin engines were manufactured for Hurricane and Spitfire aircraft, the RAF’s frontline fighters. Initially developed in the 1930s, the Merlin was to become the mainstay of RAF operations during the war, and all told around 150,000 examples were built in several variations for use by a wide variety of aircraft. To meet the expected demand Rolls-Royce had to expand its operations from its main base at Derby, and moved the bulk of production first to Crewe and then to Hillington in June 1939. With its pre-war industrial development site, a workforce in waiting and access to local steel and forgings, the site proved to be an ideal choice, and it was fully operational by the summer of 1940, eventually employing 160,000 workers. Most had little previous experience of engineering work and had been recruited to meet the needs of war production, with the result that it took Rolls-Royce until the following year to get into full production. In the early stages of the operation only 4 per cent of the male workforce were said to be skilled, and training was made an immediate priority.35 Other centres of aircraft construction were at Dumbarton, Greenock and Prestwick.

  Following the Munich crisis in 1938 there had been a concerted drive to increase the production of warplanes, and by September 1939 the monthly average had increased from 200 a month in the first six months of 1938 to 780 a month.36 Priority was given to five existing main types: Wellington, Whitley and Blenheim bombers, and Spitfire and Hurricane fighters. At the same time work continued in the development of Halifax, Manchester (later redesigned as the Lancaster with four, instead of two, engines) and Stirling heavy bombers which were due to come into service in 1941. More powerful Merlin engines were also required to boost the performance of improved Hurricane, Beaufighter and Defiant aircraft for service in the night-fighter and ground-attack roles.37 Work was directed by the Ministry of Air Production and Ministry of Supply through individual manufacturers such as Hawker, Avro and Supermarine, with companies such as Rolls-Royce supplying the main components, of which the most vital was the Merlin, in all its many variants.

  As a result of this wartime expansion, Hillington became a vital cog in the British war machine and one of the largest industrial operations in Scotland, with an output of 400 Merlins a month by March 1942. However, the creation of the Rolls-Royce complex was not without problems. In the early days there were difficulties with accommodation for the workforce as the surrounding area had little in the way of available housing. This was addressed early on by the construction of 1,500 houses at Penilee by Glasgow Corporation and the Scottish Special Housing Association, a Treasury-funded organisation which had been formed in 1938 under the Housing (Scotland) Act. Under the terms of the arrangement the houses would revert to council ownership for letting once the war was over.38 There were also problems with the engineering innovations within the factory, and the pace of the work led to outbreaks of absenteeism. Not only were workers, including women, expected to work an 82-hour week with only one Sunday half-day per month as holiday, but in the early days there was continuous interruption from air raids and air-raid warnings which created a tense atmosphere. Eventually the pattern of work was cut back to 54 hours a week, but as Ken Milne, one of the workforce remembered in 2010, although Hillington was a modern factory it was hard and enervating work: ‘There was the constant noise of machinery. It was pretty much working 24 hours a day. The only time they were silent was during lunch and the short tea breaks which you had to take standing by your machine.’39

  There was also an issue with rates of pay. Amongst the Hillington workforce were 20,000 women who were expected to work under the same conditions as male workers. From the outset of the operation the Am
algamated Engineering Union (AEU) reached an agreement with management that women would receive equal pay with men after thirty-two weeks in post, but this was evaded by management which claimed that the machines had been simplified for use by women. Because this did not apply to men who received a larger wage, the AEU mounted a challenge at the beginning of 1943. During the subsequent inquiry which was headed by Lord Wark, a new grading system came into being, and this was accepted by the AEU. However, when it was introduced it was found that it applied to only 80 per cent of the female workforce, leaving large numbers of women on the lowest grades. As a result, 16,000 workers went on strike for a week in October 1943. This led to a new agreement which listed every machine in the factory, the work done on it, and the rate for the job, regardless of who was operating the equipment. On average it was calculated that the mean weekly wage for a 47-hour week would be £4 3s, a result that satisfied the bulk of the workforce.40