Skip to main content
The Morning Star Shop
Derby honours silk workers’ bitter lockout battle
The annual Silk Mill Festival celebrates the first-ever industrial workers’ strike in Britain, which, although it ended in defeat, laid the template for today’s union movement, writes BILL GREENSHIELDS
Trade unionists march through Derby city centre

“REMEMBER the past, fight for your future,” is — as it is every year — the rallying cry at Derby’s annual Silk Mill Festival.

Derby’s Silk Mill Festival marks the year-long struggle of Derby and Derwent Valley silk mill workers from 1833-34, against oppressive and ruthless owners and managers who routinely ripped off their already low-paid workers through spurious pay cuts  — and denied them trade union rights with the threat of instant dismissal.

Does this sound familiar 190 years on?

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Jeremy Corbyn (second left) and Zarah Sultana, MP for Coventry South (second right) on the picket line outside London Euston train station, August 18, 2022
Features / 7 August 2025
7 August 2025

The only way to develop and build a party of a new type that in any way threatens capitalism is at the same time to develop and build the mass movement around it, argues BILL GREENSHIELDS

Jeremy Corbyn (second left) and Zarah Sultana, MP for Coventry South (second right) on the picket line outside London Euston train station, August 18, 2022
Politics / 12 July 2025
12 July 2025

It would be great to have a better option to vote for in elections, but a coalition of proven working-class organisations built from decades of real struggle offers stronger foundations than patched-together parliamentarianism, writes BILL GREENSHIELDS

Long-planned and organised annual Derby Silk Mill Lockout March, Rally and People’s Festival /Pic: Author supplied
PREVIEW / 23 April 2025
23 April 2025

BILL GREENSHIELDS invites all and sundry to this years’ Derby Silk Mill Lockout March, Rally and People’s Festival on June 7

UNITED WE STAND: A lantern parade in Liverpool marks the reopening of Spellow Community Hub and Library after it was torched during riots in August 2024
Politics / 16 May 2025
16 May 2025

BILL GREENSHIELDS urges an intensification of the information offensive against the impact of the spurious discourse peddled by Reform UK

Similar stories
Tolpuddle Martyrs tree
Lawman / 19 July 2025
19 July 2025

ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the legal case behind this weekend’s Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival and the lessons for today

Band 2025
Features / 26 June 2025
26 June 2025

MOLLIE BROWN reports on this year’s festival in honour of the ‘seven men of Jarrow’ deported to Australia for union activity 193 years ago

Long-planned and organised annual Derby Silk Mill Lockout March, Rally and People’s Festival /Pic: Author supplied
PREVIEW / 23 April 2025
23 April 2025

BILL GREENSHIELDS invites all and sundry to this years’ Derby Silk Mill Lockout March, Rally and People’s Festival on June 7

Attila the Stockbroker Diary / 19 October 2024
19 October 2024
The Bard, happily press-ganged by Pirates, tunes up for Christmas