Coordinates: 52°29′31″N 1°51′28″W / 52.4919°N 1.8577°W / 52.4919; -1.8577

Saltley
Saltley  Saltley shown within the West Midlands
Metropolitan borough	Birmingham
Metropolitan county	West Midlands
Region	West Midlands
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	BIRMINGHAM
Postcode district	B7
Dialling code	0121
Police	West Midlands
Fire	West Midlands
Ambulance	West Midlands
EU Parliament	West Midlands
UK Parliament	Birmingham Ladywood
List of places: UK • England • West Midlands

Saltley is an inner-city area of Birmingham, east of the city centre. The area is currently part of the Washwood Heath ward, although formerly a feature of the Nechells ward. It also currently falls under the Ladywood constituency in the city.

History[link]

Saltley was originally an unverified parish within the estate of the Adderley family and their descendents, who had built their original residence Saltley Hall on the site of what is now Adderley Park. As water became a key resource, the family moved their residence to Hams Hall for better access to the River Tame. When the English Civil War occurred, the Adderley's like most gentry chose the Royalist side, and paid heavy fines afterwards for choosing the wrong side.

As Birmingham developed as an industrial location, Saltley became an over spill area for workers, although still owned by the Adderley family. Lord Norton in 1855 donated land for the development of Adderley Park, as well as churches. It was Norton who oversaw the then modern layout of the square set streets and well spaced houses of the late 19th century, later seen as slum development post World War II.

St Peter's College was both a teacher training college and school, which was developed from 1852. The school closed in 1941 post destruction by a Luftwaffe bomb, while the college closed in 1978 to become part of Birmingham University. The building today encompasses houses, meeting rooms and council facilities.

Present day[link]

Saltley is a largely business area with a high level of outlets in a densely populated area. Saltley begins at the Saltley Viaduct, marked with the Saltley Gate, a local landmark, at the entrance to Alum Rock Road and Washwood Heath Road. There are many older houses from around the turn of the 20th century still in existence around Saltley. During the 1950s and 1960s, many of these houses were bought by immigrants from the Commonwealth (mostly from Pakistan and Bangladesh) who have formed a strong ethnic community over the last half a century.

The neighbourhood is home to mainly terraced properties and some new housing projects, trade and Christian and Muslim places of worship. Situated in the area are a number of primary schools and St. Peter's College. (St Peters College is no longer used as a college but the site is used for sheltered housing, small business offices, such as CSV Environment, and a small playing field). Recreation includes the Wheel's Adventure Park and smaller domestic parks. The area was host to an annual parade, known as the Saltley Festival.

The future of Wheel's Adventure Park is under threat as a result of a proposed major redevelopment to construct a sports village and City of Birmingham Stadium. The proposal for the City of Birmingham Stadium has fallen through.

Places of interest[link]

Adderley Street was the site of the 1890 discovery of the Saltley Handaxe,^[1] the first paleolithic human artefact to be found in the English Midlands.^[2]

Saltley Gate Coke Depot was the site of the Battle of Saltley Gate, one of the largest mass pickets during the 1970's. On Thursday 10 February 1972 30,000 Birmingham engineers walked out on strike. They struck to deliver solidarity to striking miners. Up to 15,000 then marched to join 2,000 miners who were picketing Saltley Coke Depot. The blockade forced the police, who had kept the depot open all week, to close the gates. The victory at Saltley was the turning point in the miners’ strike. Militant picketing involving tens of thousands of miners had shut down power stations, docks and coke and coal depots. Power cuts forced the Tory government to call a state of emergency. After seven weeks the government was defeated.

Transport[link]

Saltley is served by the Adderley Park railway station on the Birmingham New street to Coventry railway line and just half a mile up the road in Duddeston the Duddeston Station on the cross city line. Bus routes into the area include the 8A/8C, 14, 55, 26, 26A, and 27.

Saltley was served by Saltley railway station between 1854 and 1968.

See also[link]

• Saltley Gate Peace Group

References[link]

v t e Areas of Birmingham, West Midlands Suburbs Acocks Green Alum Rock Ashted Aston Austin Village Balsall Heath Bartley Green Bearwood Beech Lanes Billesley Birches Green Birchfield Bordesley Green Bournbrook Bournville Bromford California Camp Hill Cotteridge Digbeth Druids Heath Edgbaston Erdington Frankley Gosta Green Great Barr Hall Green Handsworth Handsworth Wood Harborne Highgate Kings Heath Kings Norton Kingstanding Kitts Green Ladywood Longbridge Lozells Minworth Moseley New Oscott Northfield Perry Barr Oscott Quinton Rednal Rotton Park Roughley Rubery Saltley Selly Oak Selly Park Shard End Sheldon Small Heath Sparkbrook Sparkhill Stechford Stirchley Sutton Coldfield Tyseley Ward End Washwood Heath Weoley Castle West Heath Witton Woodgate Yardley Yardley Wood Wards Constituencies Governance

Arthur Scargill
Arthur Scargill speaks at a Socialist Labour Party public meeting in Pontypridd in 2010
Born	(1938-01-11) 11 January 1938 (age 74) Worsbrough Dale, Yorkshire
Occupation	Former coal miner Former General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers Leader of the Socialist Labour Party
Spouse	Anne Harper (divorced 2001)

Arthur Scargill (born 11 January 1938)^[1] is a British politician and trade unionist who was president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1982 to 2002, leading the union through the 1984/85 miners' strike, a key event in British labour and political history. A former Labour Party member, he is now the leader of the Socialist Labour Party (SLP), which he founded in 1996.

Early life[link]

Scargill was born in Worsbrough Dale, Barnsley, Yorkshire. His father, Harold, was a miner and a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. His mother Alice (née Pickering) was a professional cook. Arthur was doted on by his parents as he was an only child, and his mother had previously been told that she was unable to have children^{[citation needed]}. He did not take the Eleven Plus exam and went to Worsbrough Dale School (now called the Elmhirst School), leaving at 15 to become a coal miner at Woolley Colliery from 1953, where he became the pit delegate ten years later.^[2] Scargill was a member of the Young Communist League from 1955 to 1962, when he joined the Labour Party.

National Union of Mineworkers[link]

Scargill became involved in the Yorkshire Left, a group of left-wing activists involved in the Yorkshire region of the NUM, its largest region. While still a working miner, he played an important role in the miners' strike of 1972 and was involved in the mass picket at Saltley Gate in Birmingham. Shortly afterwards he was elected to the full-time post of compensation agent in the Yorkshire NUM, starting in 1973 and continuing until 1981. During his tenure he became popular with sections of the left and with his members, who saw him as honest, hard-working and genuinely concerned with their welfare.^[3] In 1973, he was instrumental in organising the miners' strike that brought down Edward Heath's Government in March 1974.

In the 1981 election for NUM President, Scargill secured around 70% of the vote. One of the main planks of his platform was to give more power to union conferences than to executive meetings, on the grounds that the former were more democratic. This had great implications for regional relations in the NUM; the executive was described as dominated by "Gormley's rotten boroughs", since every region - even quite small ones - had one delegate, and the larger regions had only a few more (Scotland and South Wales had two delegates each, Yorkshire had three).

Scargill was a very vocal opponent of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government. He frequently appeared on television attacking the government and eventually led the union in the 1984–1985 miners' strike. This saw a split in the union (see Union of Democratic Mineworkers).

Scargill, along with Labour MP Tony Benn, was actively involved in the campaign to free Russel Shankland and Dean Hancock from prison. The pair had been convicted of the murder of David Wilkie, a taxi driver, by throwing a block of concrete from a bridge onto his car. ^[4] The first round of their victory was achieved in October 1985, when their life sentences for murder were reduced to eight years for manslaughter on appeal. They were released from prison in November 1989.^[5]

After the miners' strike, he was elected to lifetime presidency of the NUM by an overwhelming national majority, in a controversial election where some of the other candidates claimed that they were given very little time to prepare.

The media characterised the strike as "Scargill's strike" and most people believed that he had been looking for an excuse for industrial action since becoming union president. This portrayal may not be wholly accurate, as the strike began when miners walked out in Yorkshire rather than when Scargill called for action. Scargill's decision to not hold a ballot of members was seen as an erosion of democracy within the union, but the role of ballots in decision-making had been made very unclear after previous leader, Joe Gormley, had ignored two ballots over wage reforms, and his decisions had been upheld after appeals to court were made.^{[citation needed]}

On the appointment of Ian MacGregor as head of the NCB in 1983, Scargill stated, "The policies of this government are clear - to destroy the coal industry and the NUM".^[6] During the strike itself, Scargill continued to claim that the government had a long-term strategy to destroy the industry by closing unprofitable pits, and that it listed pits it wanted to close each year. This was denied by the government. He stepped down from leadership of the NUM at the end of July 2002, to become the honorary president. He was succeeded by Ian Lavery.

On 25 August 2010, it was reported that Scargill had been told that he no longer qualified for membership of the NUM. Scargill started legal action using solicitor Mark Stephens.^[7]

Socialist Labour Party[link]

Scargill founded the Socialist Labour Party on 13 January 1996, although the party was launched officially on 4 May 1996, after the Labour Party abandoned the original wording of Clause IV - the nationalisation of key industries and utilities - in its constitution.

His breakaway party has had little success in the polls. He has contested two parliamentary elections. In the 1997 general election, he ran against Alan Howarth, a defector from the Conservative Party to Labour, who had been given the safe seat of Newport East to contest. In the 2001 general election, he ran against Peter Mandelson in Hartlepool. He lost on both occasions, winning just 2.4% of the vote in the Hartlepool election. In May 2009, he was the number one candidate for the Socialist Labour Party for one of London's seats in the European Parliament.^[8]

Scargill has become more politically outspoken since stepping down from the NUM presidency, he is a Communist sympathesiser^[9] and has gone on record as a supporter of Joseph Stalin, saying that the "ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin" explain the "real world".^[10] Scargill had long criticised Poland's Solidarity trade union movement for its attacks upon the communist system in Poland, which Scargill saw as deformed but reformable.

Television[link]

Scargill was portrayed by Peter Richardson in the 1988 comedy film The Strike. In Citizen Smith he was to have been in the cabinet had Wolfie Smith taken power.

Music[link]

Scargill is referred to in the 1984 song "Too Hot", from the album Word of Mouth by The Kinks: "Arthur's on the warpath/ Here he goes again!"

Elections[link]

UK Parliament elections

London Assembly elections (Entire London city)

Welsh Assembly elections

European Parliament elections

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Arthur Scargill

• National Union of Mineworkers
• Socialist Labour Party website
• History of the Scargill family name
• Barnsley Hall of Fame
• Review of BBC Radio Play: "The Duel", by Michael Samuels - the struggle for control of the UK coal industry in 1984