Mary Macarthur and the Cradley Heath Women Chainmakers’ Strike of 1910
Teaching Resource Pack: In 1910, the women chainmakers of Cradley Heath focussed the world’s attention on the plight of Britain’s low paid women workers.
These issues are not new ones, the women standing up today to assert their rights are standing on the shoulders of those women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who began the struggle towards equality.
One of those women was Mary Macarthur. In 1910 she led the Women Chainmakers of Cradley Heath in the West Midlands in a strike to demand that the minimum rate of pay, set by the Chain Trade Board, was implemented fairly. This was all the more remarkable because the women worked at home, or in small factories and had no history of working together to achieve a common goal.
The NEU and Friends of the Women Chainmakers are pleased to share with you our new resources about the Women Chainmakers Strike of 1910. They can be downloaded as a full pack or accessed separately as class resource sheets.
We hope that you will be able to find time in the very busy school schedule to integrate this resource into your school’s curriculum. Resources are suggested for each activity but you may choose to use them creatively in other ways in your school/classroom.
To let us know how you have used the resources email [email protected].