Tanks on the Streets? : The Battle of George Square, Glasgow, 1919

At 12.08pm on Friday 31 January 1919, Margaret Buchanan drives her tram into George Square in Glasgow’s city centre.She slows down to avoid the youths and men holding their arms up to stop her; some even jump onto the front of her tram.Swirling around her tram is a sea of heavy-coated men who have been on strike since Monday, demanding a reduction to a forty-hour working week.Crucially, the tram workers have not joined the strike; they are being abused as ‘scabs’.Constables and officers of Glasgow’s police force use their hands to try to part the crowd to allow the tram to proceed, but their efforts fail and batons are drawn. Within minutes, the violence will have spread across and beyond the Square; men will have been injured; the Sheriff will have read the Riot Act; strike leaders will lie stunned and bleeding inside the City Chambers; policemen and protestors will lie beaten in the streets. The violence and destruction in the Square, the streets to the north and south, in Glasgow Gr