Blood in the Wear.
The Sunderland Sailors’ Strike and the North Sands Massacre of August 1825.
Buried in the records of the Durham Assizes for Spring 1826 are the proceedings of a coroner’s inquest on the body of the sailor Thomas Aird. The document reveals details of a dramatic but little-known seamen’s strike that occurred two hundred years ago in 1825 and resulted in Sunderland’s bustling port being brought to a halt by striking seamen demanding higher wages and better working conditions. The strike was brutally suppressed by troops under orders from a Sunderland magistrate.
Drawing on records in The National Archives collection, you can now read a new article that tells the story of this little-known, but historic strike and its bloody outcome.
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