Documents-based questions

DOCUMENTS-BASED QUESTION 1

(Higher and Ordinary Levels)

Study the two sources and answer the questions that follow.

Document A In this edited extract Ellen Wilkinson, MP for Jarrow, who took part in the Jarrow March, October 1936, writes of a typical day on the march. One day’s tramp was much like another. The one thing that mattered was the weather. The men were up at 6.30 a.m., the cooks having got up earlier to prepare the breakfast. They had all slept together on the bare boards of a school or drill hall or, if lucky, on straw-filled mattresses. When men sleep in their clothes, it is difficult to keep spruce; but they manage it. Daily shaves were the order. Parade was at 8.45 a.m., with everything packed for the road. I joined them then, having taken whatever hospitality was offered the night before, usually in the home of the secretary of the local Labour party. Source: Ellen Wilkinson, The Town That Was Murdered: the Life Story of Jarrow (London: Victor Gollancz, 1939). Document B This edited extract discusses conditions leading to the Jarrow March in October 1936, together with the government response. Since the mid-nineteenth century shipbuilding in Jarrow had provided work for about 10,000 men. As a result of the depression, orders for ships came to an end and in 1934 the National Shipbuilding Security Ltd closed down the shipyard. This left 67.8% of the workforce unemployed. In October 1936, the Labour MP for Jarrow, Ellen Wilkinson, with some others, organised the Jarrow March. Two hundred of the town’s unemployed walked to London, a distance of 291 miles, to present a petition to parliament, hoping that the government would do something to improve the situation in Jarrow. As the marchers neared London, they noticed the prosperity of the area compared with the town of Jarrow. The march was widely reported, particularly in the Daily Herald newspaper, and gained a good deal of public sympathy. However, the marchers drew a very poor response from the government. They were informed that they should return to Jarrow and seek work for themselves. Source: David Taylor, Mastering Economic and Social History (London: Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1988). Leaving Certificate OL 2016 Study the documents below and answer the questions opposite. ©The Educational Company of Ireland

QUESTIONS

1 (a) From document A, where did the men sleep if they were lucky? (b) According to document A, what took place at 8.45 a.m.? (c) From document B, what was the level of unemployment in Jarrow in 1934? (d) From document B, what did the marchers notice as they came near to London?

(e) According to document B, how did the government respond to the Jarrow marchers? (40) 2 (a) Do both documents agree that Ellen Wilkinson took part in the march to London? Refer to both documents in your answer. (b) Which document, A or B, deals with the reasons for the Jarrow march? Explain your answer, referring to both documents. (20) 3 (a) From document A, did Ellen Wilkinson share the workers’ accommodation? Give a reason for your answer. (b) Why is document B a secondary source? (20) 4 Why were there many social and economic problems in Britain during the 1930s? (20) ©The Educational Company of Ireland CASE STUDY: THE JARROW MARCH, OCTOBER 1936 ❘ 101

DOCUMENTS-BASED QUESTION 2

(Higher and Ordinary Levels)

Study the two sources below and answer the questions that follow.

Leaving Certificate HL 2017

Study the documents below and answer the questions opposite. Document A J.B. Priestley was an English writer who travelled around England in 1933. The following is an edited extract from his book, English Journey (London, 1934). Jarrow is dead. As a real town, it can never have been alive. Even at its best, when everybody was working, it must obviously have been a mean little conglomeration of narrow monotonous streets of stunted and ugly houses, a barracks cynically put together so that shipbuilding workers could get some food and sleep between shifts. Now Jarrow is a derelict town. There is no escape from its prevailing misery, for it is entirely a working-class town. Why has nothing been done about decaying towns and their workless people? I know that doles have been given out, means tests applied, training places opened, socks and shirts and old books distributed by the Personal Service League and the like; but I am not thinking of feeble gestures of that kind. I mean something constructive and creative. Why has there been no plan for these areas, these people? The dole is part of no plan. The Labour Exchanges stink of defeated humanity. The whole thing is unworthy of a great country that has given the world some nobly creative ideas. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves. Document B Ellen Wilkinson, MP for Jarrow, helped lead the Jarrow March in 1936. The following is an edited extract from her book, The Town That Was Murdered (London, 1939). The poverty of Jarrow is not an accident, a temporary difficulty, a personal fault. It is the permanent state in which the vast majority of the citizens of any capitalist country have to live. This is the basic fact of the class struggle which not all the well-meant efforts of the Personal Service League can gloss over. Class antagonism cuts as deeply to the roots of capitalist society as it ever did. Men are regarded as mere instruments of production, their labour a commodity to be bought and sold. In capitalist society, vast changes can be made which sweep away the livelihood of a whole town overnight, in the interest of some powerful group, who need take no account of the social consequences of their decisions. Jarrow’s plight is not a local problem. It is the symptom of a national evil. It is time that the workers took control of this country. It is time that they planned it, organised it, and developed it so that all might enjoy the wealth which we can produce. In the interest of this©The Educational Company of Ireland land we love, that is the next job which must be done.

QUESTIONS

1 (a) What workers are mentioned in document A? (b) How is the misery of life in Jarrow shown in document A? (c) According to document B, what is the permanent state of the majority of citizens in a capitalist country?

(d) What is the next job to be done, according to document B? (20) 2 (a) Do both documents mention social and economic problems of the inter‐war years? Give reasons for your answer, referring to both documents. (b) Do the documents agree that efforts to resolve the problems have been ineffective? Give reasons for your answer, referring to both documents. (20) 3 (a) Does the writer of document A propose a solution to the problems to which he refers? Give reasons for your answer, referring to the document. (b) What are the strengths of document B as a historical source? Support your answer by reference to the document. (20) 4 What were the aims of the Jarrow March and to what extent were they achieved? (40) ©The Educational Company of Ireland CASE STUDY: THE JARROW MARCH, OCTOBER 1936 ❘ 103

DOCUMENTS-BASED QUESTION 3

(Higher and Ordinary Levels)

Study the two sources below and answer the questions that follow.

Document A This is an extract from a Guardian newspaper article about the Jarrow march, dated 13 October 1936. This is not a hunger march but a protest march. The unanimity of the protest that Jarrow is making to the rest of the country is indicated in the fact that the political parties represented on the Jarrow Town Council have agreed to bury the political hatchet to the extent of holding no elections this November. There is no political aspect to this march. It is simply the town of Jarrow saying ‘Send us work’. In the ranks of the marchers are Labour men, Liberals, Tories, and one or two Communists, but you cannot tell who’s who. It has the Church’s blessing; in fact, it took the blessing of the Bishop of Ripon (Dr. Lunt) and a subscription of £5 from him when it set out today. It also had the blessing of the Bishop of Jarrow (Dr. Gordon). With the marchers goes, prominently carried, the Jarrow petition for work, a huge book with about 12,000 signatures, which Miss Ellen Wilkinson, MP for Jarrow, is to present at the bar of the House of Commons on November 4. Source: http://century.guardian.co.uk/ Document B This an edited extract from the records of a cabinet meeting about the Jarrow march and other unemployment protests in October 1936. The Cabinet had before them a Memorandum [report] by the Home Secretary calling attention to the arrangements made ... for contingents of unemployed persons to march on London, the marchers being due to arrive on the 8th November. Two other demonstration marches had been organised, both of which were timed to reach London on the 31st October, one consisting of 200 unemployed men from Jarrow, and the other comprising about 250 blind persons, accompanied by some 50 attendants. The existing law contained no provisions by which orderly bands of demonstrators could be prevented from marching to London or elsewhere. The only course open, therefore, was to take every precaution to minimise the risk of disorder on the routes of the contingents and in London... The Home Secretary thought that the best method of informing the public on the present occasion, in order to discourage them from furnishing [giving] assistance to the marchers would be to arrange, ... for selected journalists to be interviewed and given material for exposing the origin, motive and uselessness of the hunger march. Source: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk©The Educational Company of Ireland

QUESTIONS

1 Comprehension

(a) From document A, what evidence is there to show that the march had widespread support in the town of Jarrow? (b) According to document A, what was ‘prominently carried’? (c) From document B, what groups of marchers were due to arrive in London? (d) According to document B, how did the government hope to discourage public support for the marches?

2 Comparision (a) How do the documents differ in their interpretations of the marches? (b) Which of the two sources do you think is more accurate? Explain your answer, with reference to both sources.

3 Criticism (a) Comment on the strengths and weaknesses of document A as a source for historians. (b) How useful are the records of a government cabinet meeting for historians?

4 Contextualisation Ordinary Level (1 A4 page): Why was the Jarrow march an important event in Britain in the 1930s?

Higher Level (1.5 A4 pages): What were the causes and consequences of the Jarrow march, October 1936. ©The Educational Company of Ireland CASE STUDY: THE JARROW MARCH, OCTOBER 1936 ❘ 105

DOCUMENTS-BASED QUESTION 4

Document A

Photograph of Jarrow marchers, 26 October 1936

©The Educational Company of Ireland

Document B

In its edition of 13 October 1936, the Guardian newspaper described the reception the marchers received along the route of the march.

Harrogate welcomed the Jarrow marches today as cheerfully as if they were a relief column raising a siege... The police were in attendance and there was a big banner raised saying, ‘Harrogate workers welcome the Jarrow marchers’... It was the same today all along the road from Ripon. The villagers of Ripley and Killinghall rushed to their doors to see the marchers pass; motorists waved as they went by; one shouted, ‘How are you sticking it?’... There can be no doubt that as a gesture the march is a bounding success. I fell in with it this morning on the Ripon road. Under its two banners (‘Jarrow Crusade’), with its harmonicas, its kettledrum, and its four hundred feet, it was going strong. The marchers have with them two doctors, a barber, a group of pressmen, a Labrador dog mascot, and for a great deal of the time so far the Mayor of Jarrow (Alderman J. W. Thompson), who keeps travelling back to Jarrow to maintain touch with his civic duties and then south again to maintain touch with the marchers. Source: Reprinted by permission of The Guardian. http://centuryguardian.co.uk QUESTIONS 1 Comprehension (a) From document A, how would you describe the conditions in which the men are marching? (b) According to document B, how did the town of Harrogate welcome the march? (c) From document B, what evidence is there that the march is a success? (d) From document B, who is accompanying the march? 2 Comparision (a) Would you agree with the view that document A strongly supports the evidence presented in document B? Refer to both documents in your answer. (b) Which document is a more effective source for historians? Use evidence from both sources in your answer. 3 Criticism (a) How does document A illustrate strengths and weaknesses of photographs as sources for historical evidence? (b) Do you think document B presents an objective view of the march? Explain your answer, using evidence from the document. 4 Contextualisation Ordinary Level (1 A4 page): Why did men from Jarrow march to London in 1936? Higher Level (1.5 A4 pages): Were conditions in Jarrow reflective of the whole of the UK in the mid-1930s?©The Educational Company of Ireland CASE STUDY: THE JARROW MARCH, OCTOBER 1936 ❘ 107