Photoprint. Medium. 1913 Great Strike, Auckland.
490 x 340 mm / 19.5 x 13.5 in.
This unique photograph, taken at noon on 13 November 1913, looking down Queen St near the waterfront, captures the moment of striking unionist workers confronting Prime Minister Massey’s horse-mounted constables, called his ‘Special’s. The detail is so good it’s like being there!
These ‘Specials’ were farmers and farm workers specially, and often reluctantly, recruited from outside Auckland by the Farmers’ Union. Soon after this was taken, about 1300 of these Specials moved against the ranks of the strikers. However many workers had served in the Boer War 11 years before, and, unexpectedly, the front rows lay on the ground. The result: the horses refused to go further, often bucking off their riders. The Specials fell back in disarray and confusion. This went unreported in the press of the day.

The 1913 Great (or General) Strike had started in Wellington in late October, spread to Auckland, and was to finish late December. During this time about about 16,000 or 1 in 8 unionists were involved in the strike, one of the most hostile and violent industrial disputes to date. For many strikers the conflict had become an issue of rights to a union, labour, law and order and class conflict.
In Auckland the general strike had began on 8 November involving more than 10,000 workers as it drew in the powerful Federated Seamen’s Union. The strike collapsed on the 22nd, just before Christmas.
The clashes were violent, and the savagery with which Massey and his Specials broke the strike earned them the name ‘Massey’s Cossacks’.
Although the unionist strikers, and their new United Federation of Labour (UFL), were to be defeated, the use of the ‘Special’ constables shown here left a legacy of bitterness and betrayal that helped unite the various labour factions. The strike leaders, Peter Fraser, Sid Holland and Micheal Joseph Savage, probably in the front line here, would go on to form the Labour Party in 1916, with the aim of using a parliamentary party to achieve their dreams of economic and social change. As Peter Fraser said at the time, “the [striking] militants might lose every battle but they won the campaign.”

This dramatic and unique investment print is a traditional Silver (B&W) photo print on super long-lasting archival photographic paper. It is stunning when framed.
THIS IS NOT A DIGITAL PRINT.