Catalogue Number
NBS I/D 306
Object Name
banner
Title
NATIONAL UNION OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS & RURAL WORKERS MULBARTON AND DISTRICT
Place
Mulbarton & Norfolk & England & UK
Creator(s)
NBS National Museum of Labour HistoryNBS National Museum of Labour History
Description
The banner dates from after 1910, the year in which the Union adopted the name on the banner. In 1917 a newspaper report of the Burston School Strike records:
"...a goodly procession, some twenty banners and two bands... the National Agricultural Labourer's Union sent their two banners..."
On this banner the agricultural workers symbolised their environment in the artistic style known as art nouveau. The artist is unknown; a connection with the Arts and Crafts Movement seems likely.
The agricultural workers' first national union was formed in 1872. A banner from this time is held by the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading. The founder of the union, Joseph Arch, recalled how, on the seventh anniversary of the Union in 1879, thousands of workers congregated in Wellesbourne, (Warwickshire) as:
"...from the top of a chestnut tree a Union flag floated like a banner in the poem 'Excelsior'..."
This banner has been conserved at the museum with financial assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund.
Materials: oil paint on cotton satteen.
Lots of material in the historic file abour this wonderful A banner. Donated to NMLH c.1980 by Wilf Page (died 2001), along with a huge archive collection of post 1945 NUAW material. I suspect this was just before the NUAW was absorbed by the TGWU. The NUAW had a 'gentleman's' agreement with MERL Reading who have the main NUAW archive, which Wilf ignored. .I gave MERL the missing part which had been brought up to Manchester from London about 1990. I knew Wilf from my time at the Norfolk Rural Life Museum, 1980-86 and I even borrowed this banner from the NMLH for an exhibition on Sir George Edwards, who had founded the NUAW originally in 1906. I've annotated a photograph of the presentation of this banner in the historic file. NM 3.11.15
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