Rent Strikes

• Causes

  • Demand for housing grew dramatically during the war
  • Landlords raised rents by 20%
• Tactics

  • Glasgow Women's Housing Association (GWHA), set up in Feb 1915, to protest about the rent rises and evictions
  • Women tried to prevent evictions by crowding on the stairs
  • With them "bombing" sheriff officers with bags of flour to prevent officers from evicting them
• Escalation

  • Landlords threatened:
  • Evictions,
  • Fines, and
  • Imprisonment
  • Women began a rent strike in May 1915
  • 25,000 tenants in Glasgow joined
  • These strikes spread to Aberdeen, and Dundee
  • November 17th 1915 - Mass demonstration took place in George Square
  • Thousands of men, and women marched to Glasgow's Sheriff Court
• Government Actions

  • Introduced Rent Restriction Act
  • Freezing rents at the 1914 levels, unless improvements were made
  • Resolving the rent strikes, and prevented any disruption to wartime production