Unrest Gallery

Luddites smash weaving machinery

Luddites smash weaving machinery in a Nottingham textile factory. The Luddites were a movement of radical group of English textile workers and weavers in the early 19th century who destroyed weaving machinery as a form of protest. The group was protesting the use of machinery in a "fraudulent and deceitful manner" to get around standard labour practices. The group feared time spent learning the skills of their craft would go to waste as machines would replace their role in the industry. in more recent times, the term Neo-Luddism has emerged to describe opposition to many forms of technology. Date: circa 1812

© Mary Evans Picture Library/Tom Gillmor

LSO musicians supporting BBC musicians, London

London Symphony Orchestra musicians supporting BBC musicians outside Broadcasting House, London, 27 June 1980. The strike by BBC musicians began when the BBC put forward plans to discontinue five orchestras. Here a member of the LSO presents John Morton, General Secretary of the Musicians Union, with a cheque for 4600 for the union's hardship fund. LSO members had donated their fees from a concert at the Royal Festival Hall, and the conductor Andre Previn had also made a contribution. Date: 1980

© Mary Evans / Marx Memorial Library

Explosions at Houses of Parliament 1885

The front cover of The Graphic, 31 January, 1885, reporting on dynamite explosions at the Houses of Parliament, part of a bombing campaign by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, nicknamed the 'Fenians'. Three bombs exploded on 24 January 1885. The lower picture shows the explosion in Westminster Hall, from a sketch and description by an eyewitness, Miss Davies. The upper right picture shows the scene of the explosion in the House of Commons chamber, and the upper left the effect of that explosion on the stonework of the doorway. The third explosion that day was at the Tower of London. Date: January 1885

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans