In the weeks before Europe descended into war, the case of a Staffordshire trade unionist named Vale Rawlings became a political cause célèbre. Elaine Pritchard explains current efforts to tell his story.

In June 1914, Vale Rawlings, a trade union activist from Burton upon Trent, made newspaper headlines across the country after he was allegedly framed for assaulting a police inspector on a picket line and jailed.

His case was raised in the House of Commons several times as Keir Hardie campaigned for a retrial. Novelty postcards were produced to commemorate the incident and an estimated 10,000 – 15,000 people gathered in Burton to welcome him home.

I’m a writer and local history enthusiast living in the East Staffordshire town, and I stumbled across Vale’s story for the first time at the start of 2023.

Vale was a founder member of the Burton branch of the Workers’ Union in 1911. He worked tirelessly to recruit workers from Burton’s many breweries to join and is said to have been instrumental in securing them a minimum wage of 23 shillings a week. This put an extra £30,000 a year into the pockets of the working class in Burton.

In 1914, Vale was 26 and working as an insurance agent. A slightly-built man, just 4ft 11ins tall, he was never afraid to speak his mind and had publicly denounced police brutality against strikers in Dublin and Cornwall at a major union rally the previous year.

The summer of 1914 was a hot one and a Derby firm called F W Hampshire decided to open a new factory in Mosley Street, Burton, to meet the demand for fly papers. Within a couple of weeks, 40 of the first 60 female workers employed, many aged 13-15, had walked out on strike.

They had been engaged on piece work rates and said it was impossible to earn the sums they had been ‘promised’. Some said they were earning as little as 2/6 for a 55-hour week. They also reported that the powerful glue they used gave many of them headaches and nausea and they believed that women doing the same jobs in Derby were getting far better pay.

On Friday June 12, Vale went to Mosley Street to support and advise the striking girls. He was talking to a group of them when a well-built, six feet tall police inspector came down the street with two constables. Within a few moments, Vale was arrested. The inspector would later claim it was because Vale had punched him in the chest.

The difference in their height prompted laughter from the public gallery when Vale’s case came to trial a week later. No witnesses could be found who had seen the punch happen, but plenty of people (some of whom were passers-by with no axe to grind in the dispute) swore in court that Vale never hit the Inspector.

The two constables backed up their boss’s story of the assault, but neither they nor the inspector could remember in court which hand Vale used to deliver the blow. Vale protested his innocence for the rest of his life. His union colleagues were adamant that his years of experience on picket lines and at public rallies meant he would never be so reckless or undisciplined as to strike a police inspector.

Magistrates fined Vale 10 shillings plus costs of 14 shillings and sixpence or 14 days in prison. Vale chose the 14 days. He also denied a second charge of common assault against non-striking factory girl Alice Horton. She said Vale grabbed her wrist and asked her not to go into work earlier the same day. When he let her go, she bumped into a wall. She admitted in court that she hadn’t wanted to bring the summons, but her manager had taken her to the police station and insisted. Alice also said the Inspector and one of the constables helped her write her statement and practice what to say in court.

Vale was fined a further five shillings plus costs of £1 and 6d for the second assault charge or a further 7 days in prison. He replied: ‘21 days for me, liberty forever’.

The Independent Labour Party, the Workers’ Union and Vale’s family asked Labour MPs to raise the case in the House of Commons. Keir Hardie, called it a ‘gross miscarriage of justice’. He travelled to Burton to give a passionate speech in defence of Vale Rawlings and presented a petition of 10,000 signatures, calling for a retrial, to Home Secretary Reginald McKenna.

The Home Secretary eventually allowed the two sentences to run concurrently instead of consecutively, meaning that Vale was released a week early. One justification he gave was that Alice Horton was among the petition signatories calling for a retrial.

When the First World War broke out, Vale was a conscientious objector. Despite a congenital heart condition, severe rheumatism, and his frailty – which the family doctor said made him ‘No use to the Army at all’ – he was conscripted. When he refused non-combatant service, which he said was still supporting the war machine, he was sentenced to two years in Dartmoor Prison with hard labour.

His deteriorating health led to an early release, but his family said he never fully recovered. He spent the post-war years as a local councillor successfully campaigning for new council housing, improved sewage systems and help for local businesses. He ran his own market garden company but gave much of the produce away to those in need. He died aged 52 in 1940.

William Walker, secretary of East Staffordshire Trades Council and Burton and Uttoxeter CLP member, and I have now launched the Vale Rawlings Project CIC. We plan to stage a play I have written and publish a book about Vale’s life and times. All profits will be split between Burton YMCA and SARAC (the Burton-based Sexual Abuse and Rape Advice Centre).

We are looking for sponsorship and donations as well as help with raising awareness. More details are available at www.forgottenburtonstories.co.uk or by emailing valerawlingsprojectcic@gmail.com