In 1936, two hundred unemployed men began a 300-mile walk to save their town
When the closure of a shipyard plunged a northern English town into desperate poverty, two hundred residents took their grievances directly to the steps of Parliament in an iconic 300-mile protest.
On October 5, 1936, two hundred men from the town of Jarrow began a grueling 300-mile trek to London. Carrying a petition signed by 11,000 people, they marched to protest the chronic unemployment and extreme poverty caused by the closure of Palmer's shipyard. This shipyard had been the town's lifeblood, and its shuttering left eighty percent of the workforce without income.
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