#chainmakers
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rebeccabryn.bsky.social
'Hauntingly vivid portrayal of life in England in the 1900s' https://buff.ly/4jjfM69 The white slaves of England and women's suffrage. Hunger strikes, the rise of Hitler, and the rescue of Jewish children. Strong independent women. #authors #bookstodon #womensrights
The Chainmakers
Visit Amazon's The Chainmakers Page and shop for all The Chainmakers books. Check out pictures, author information, and reviews of The Chainmakers
buff.ly
January 22, 2025 at 10:58 AM
jemma.bsky.social
Unfortunately, despite it being Pride month, there is definitely no kink at the women chainmakers' festival.
Reads: Women Chainmakers' Festival tomorrow (Saturday) It's the annual Women Chainmakers' Festival in Cradley Heath
June 27, 2025 at 10:38 PM
mrcwarwick.bsky.social
This is a great photo!

Cradley Heath women did a range of heavy industrial work in the early 20th century. Digitised sources about the Cradley Heath chainmakers and their fight for better conditions is at warwick.ac.uk/services/lib... ⛓️
March 4, 2026 at 2:00 PM
rebeccabryn.bsky.social
'Incredible. What a magnificently rich tapestry of historical fiction. Superbly written!' Read them all at https://buff.ly/4jjfM69 The white slaves of England, the women who fought for our rights, the rise of Hitler. #Historicalfiction #Kristallnacht
The Chainmakers
Visit Amazon's The Chainmakers Page and shop for all The Chainmakers books. Check out pictures, author information, and reviews of The Chainmakers
buff.ly
February 13, 2025 at 8:04 PM
petethefree.bsky.social
Friends of Mary Macarthur. Led a strike in 1910 to raise the minimum wage of female chainmakers. #England #phorography
December 27, 2025 at 11:58 PM
dudleyunison.bsky.social
To understand our future, we have to understand the struggles of the past.

Join us in remembering the chainmakers of 1910, whose fight for fair pay helped shape workers' rights across the UK
@unisonwestmids.bsky.social @unison.org.uk @tuc.org.uk @wolvestuc.bsky.social @birminghamtuc.bsky.social
Poster for the Women Chainmakers Festival on 28th June
April 14, 2025 at 5:36 PM
illdoitanyway.bsky.social
Looking forward to speaking at this on 28th June. Come along and celebrate the women chainmakers of Cradley Heath and women trade unionists everywhere!

🪧 ⛓️‍💥🪧⛓️‍💥🪧

@ucuequality.bsky.social
@bcu-ucu.bsky.social
@ucu.org.uk
@birminghamtuc.bsky.social
THE WOMEN CHAINMAKERS' FESTIVAL 2025 TUC Midlands Come and celebrate our local history at this year's Chainmakers' Festival-right here in the heart of Cradley Heath! This special day brings our community together to remember the incredible women chainmakers' of 1910, whose fight for fair pay helped shape workers' rights across the UK. What's on: Live Music & Entertainment Street Theatre & Re-enactments Traditional Chainmaking Demonstrations Guest Speakers Stalls, Food & Fun for the Whole Family It's FREE - and everyone's welcome! SATURDAY 28 JUNE 2025 11AM - 4PM MARY MACARTHUR GARDENS B64 5AP Bring your friends, your family, and your community spirit. Let's celebrate Cradley Heath's proud place in history!
May 16, 2025 at 5:52 PM
carvehername.bsky.social
Talking to someone in a village pub yesterday, I learnt about the Cradley Heath Chain Makers’ Strike of 1910. So that’s going on the research stack.

warwick.ac.uk/services/lib...
"Rouse, Ye Women": The Cradley Heath Chain Makers' Strike, 1910
Online exhibition of archives from the Trades Union Congress collection on the Cradley Heath chainmakers' strike on 1910
warwick.ac.uk
December 4, 2024 at 7:36 AM
heatherwastie.bsky.social
I’m so pleased that my poem ‘And Eliza’ is published by @atriumpoetry.bsky.social today. The #BlackCountry theme is close to my heart. #chainmakers #chainwomen
October 28, 2025 at 7:16 AM
cateccles.bsky.social
Rouse ye women! Today is the Women Chainmakers' Festival commemorating the 1910 Cradley Chainmakers strike for fair wages led by Mary McArthur. The strike lasted 10 weeks and led to the establishment of a national minimum wage.
Head down to Mary McArthur Gardens in Cradley Heath 11am-4pm!
June 28, 2025 at 8:05 AM
chris-downs.bsky.social
www.womenchainmakers.org.uk/events/
EVENTS | Women Chainmakers
www.womenchainmakers.org.uk
September 9, 2024 at 2:19 PM
bluefiretheatre.bsky.social
Great Q&A with Jennie & Gigi from the Friends of the Women Chainmakers Festival.

Massive thanks to everyone at the Courtyard in Hereford for a brilliant end to our 2025 tour.
October 10, 2025 at 9:05 AM
stuart-richards.bsky.social
The Women Chainmakers’ Festival is the only annual Trade Union run festival inspired by the successes of working-class women
Follow the link to donate and support the festival
support-the-women-chainmakers-festival.raiselysite.com
Support The Women Chainmakers Festival
Can you support The Women Chainmakers Festival? Your donation, no matter the size, will play a crucial role in ensuring the festival thrives
support-the-women-chainmakers-festival.raiselysite.com
June 24, 2025 at 2:35 PM
mrcwarwick.bsky.social
Have a bostin’ #BlackCountryDay !

We're celebrating through a deep dive into the region's history - explore the Cradley Heath chainmakers’ strike of 1910, where women fought successfully for a minimum wage

Find out more in our online exhibition “Rouse, Ye Women” - warwick.ac.uk/services/lib...
Printed black and white photograph of a young woman with her back to the camera, working at a forge with a small child facing the camera looking on.
July 14, 2025 at 1:10 PM
alexballingermp.bsky.social
Today we celebrate the women chainmakers of Cradley Heath—remarkable working-class women who fought for fair pay and justice 💪⛓️ Their stand in 1910 changed history and shaped workers’ rights for generations.

Proud of our Black Country roots. #Chainmakers #Solidarity
June 28, 2025 at 2:00 PM
radicalposters.bsky.social
While we were at Derby yesterday we heard about two more events:

The Women Chainmakers' Festival - 27 June, Mary Macarthur Gardens, Cradley Heath

Potteries Chartist Festival - 16 Aug, Market Place Burslem

If you're nearby, get yourselves along to celebrate our history.
June 21, 2026 at 7:14 AM
illdoitanyway.bsky.social
Great to join the celebration of the Chainmakers and speak for @bcu-ucu.bsky.social about the fight for education including our branch dispute today, with great company! 🩷
pjcrowther.bsky.social Peter Crowther @pjcrowther.bsky.social · Jun 28
A beautiful day in the Black Country today for the Women Chainmakers’ Festival. Privildged to carry the @bcu-ucu.bsky.social with our wonderful Branch Chair @illdoitanyway.bsky.social in the march remembering the courage of the Cradley Heath Chainmakers.
The march which is the culmination of the festival. On the left of the picture is a banner for the Birmingham District of the National Education Union. In the centre is a red banner for Birmingham City University UCU. It reads “Knowledge is Power. Unity is Strength”. A photograph of me holding the BCU UCU banner in the march along Cradley Heath High Street. BCU UCU Chair, Rhiannon Lockley, sat behind a table with a microphone in front of her. She is part of a panel of women discussing women’s rights.
June 28, 2025 at 10:23 PM
valerawlings.bsky.social
A joyful celebration today of history and the lessons we can learn from the 1910 women Chainmakers strike and the inspirational Mary Macarthur. #chainmakersFestival2026
#CradleyHeath #WestMidlands #TradeUnions #WomensHistory
Community theatre performers re-enact issues and arguments from the 1910 Women Chainmakers Strike of 1910. A group of three women and two men in Edwardian costume are pictured in a park on a sunny day. A man in middle-class Edwardian clothing argues and strikes out at a man in working-class Edwardian clothing watched by two more costumed re-enactors in a park on a sunny day. A brightly-coloured contemporary version of a traditional trade union banner bears the words “West Midlands” and “women unite”. Three women wearing clothing from different historical eras are depicted. A black and white poster in the style of an early 20th century poster with vintage typefaces advertises the 2026 Women Chainmakers Festival as if it were a general meeting being addressed by Mary Macarthur
June 27, 2026 at 8:55 PM
roughmagic.bsky.social
The 1910 Cradley Heath chainmakers' strike was a landmark 10-week industrial action in the West Midlands, Over 800 women fought for a minimum wage of 11s a week against "sweated" labor conditions. The strike, which secured the first government-backed minimum wage, is commemorated at the BCLM
.
February 18, 2026 at 11:07 AM
illdoitanyway.bsky.social
On IWWD I am thinking of the NUWT, including my great great Aunt, Emily Thomas. The NUT repeatedly did not implement democratically agreed policy on equal pay, which led to decades of women fighting for this themselves in their own union.

Also to the women Chainmakers of Cradley Heath.
National Federation of Women Teachers - the an NUT body - with signs relating to women’s pay
March 9, 2025 at 12:03 AM
illdoitanyway.bsky.social
Really glad West Mids UCU banner was there, showing Malcolm X’s visit to Smethwick & the Chainmakers in our regional history. To tackle the threats we face now, we need to understand racism and sexism are not new, middle class concerns, they’re fundamental, historical components of class division
West Midlands ucu banner
March 31, 2026 at 10:13 AM
usdawunion.bsky.social
Women Chainmakers’ Festival 2026: Usdaw celebrates the role of women in history and in the future of trade unions www.usdaw.org.uk/latest-news/...
USDAW - Women Chainmakers’ Festival 2026
www.usdaw.org.uk
June 26, 2026 at 2:15 PM
warinderjussmp.bsky.social
Glad that I was also able to make it to the #WomenChainMakers Festival 2025 last week, to celebrate the successful struggle of women chainmakers in 1910 establishing their right to a minimum wage.
July 5, 2025 at 10:00 AM
mrcwarwick.bsky.social
No - and this is the sort of landscape that they would have been living in.
Cradley Heath around 1906. The photograph shows a row of mostly single storey workshops and houses with a rough, rubble strewn road in front. Several women, working as chainmakers, are looking out of the doors of the buildings.
March 4, 2026 at 4:08 PM
mrcwarwick.bsky.social
Thank you! The song has definitely been performed in recent years and there may be recordings online...

@townsendprod.bsky.social toured a musical about Mary Macarthur and the women chainmakers a few years ago - there's a bit more info about this at www.townsendproductions.org.uk/shows/rouse-...
July 16, 2025 at 8:34 AM