Welsh steel workers in colonial India

In December 1922 the Tata Group and Burmah Oil opened a tinplate factory at Golmuri, a district of the city of Jamshedpur. The city was, and remains, steel city, established by the Tata Group and renamed after its founder, Jamsetji Tata, in 1919.

Tinplate was an important commodity in the production of cans, especially for the storing of kerosene. Disruption of the export trade from South Wales during the First World War led to the need for a homegrown industry to allow Tata to supply the logistical materials of Burmah Oil. Hence the birth of the Tinplate Company of India and the recruitment of approximately 80 South Wales steel workers to establish its Golmuri site.

Targeting Welsh workers

Welsh steel workers were targeted from the start. One of the features of British colonialism in India was the push to secure its vast market for British manufactured goods. To achieve this and eliminate any Indian competition, the British asset-stripped indigenous industries and prevented the establishment of large-scale heavy industry which might undermine British capitalists, in particular the textile mills of Lancashire.

In this context, where Indian skills had not been allowed to develop, Europeans were often sought to provide the industrial skills necessary to establish the nascent industries that did develop. Furthermore, Tata already employed Welsh workers and had previously targeted them to run the coke ovens in their steel mills. The Swansea-based engineer John Mort, who was involved in the design of the factory, described the recruitment:

“We had no difficulty at all in getting the men we wanted; in fact, we could have got hundreds more. They have been drawn from all parts of the Welsh tin-plate district, from Kidwelly to Newport, and are mostly married men, who have left their families behind them. The Welsh mill man has about the hardest work of any industrial employé (sic), and the high wages and better conditions offered made the engagement of the necessary 80 men a very easy task. At present we do not intend to add to the number.”

The attraction of employment in India was clear in Mort’s quote. Welsh steel workers could expect to earn over twice as much at Golmuri as they could in the tinplate districts back home. The English steel worker John L. Keenan, who wrote a memoir of his career with Tata, described how $20 per month could comfortably pay for “room, rent and food”, as well as a personal servant and plenty of “whiskey … at wholesale prices”. On the face of it, Indian employment was a great deal for Welsh steel workers.

Souring Welsh steel work

However, the relationship soon soured. In February 1923, less than two months after the plant opened, local union leader W. Fred Cooke wrote to the General Secretary of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation (ISTU), Arthur Pugh. He reported the men to be “in an impetuous mood and it will be with difficulty they will be restrained from taking drastic action”. The cause of their discontent was a change to the system of bonuses which considerably lowered their expected income, as well as extensions to their working hours.

According to Keenan, this change came about as a result of a wager in which management bet that they could produce a greater tonnage over an eight-hour shift than the Welsh steel workers could. The Welsh won, but their competition output was set as the new base rate, which resulted in a seven-day strike. Keenan claimed the men eventually accepted the new system. Union officials, on the other hand, claimed a partial victory and were apparently able to renegotiate the bonuses. Whatever the truth of the matter, industrial relations continued to decline. By 1925 at least 50% of the original workforce had left their roles.

It is rare to have such detail on Welsh industrial workers in this part of the empire. Not only were they few in number outside of settler colonies such as Australia and South Africa, they were also much less likely to produce surviving records than the middle classes. In the case of Golmuri, the strained industrial relations meant a keen interest was taken by the ISTU, which launched an investigation into events at the mill in 1928. They attempted to track down men who had been employed at Golmuri during the period and sent questionnaires to their South Wales branches.

Details of 52 workers were acquired by this method, and they reveal a rich record of the movement of the industrial working class across borders. Rollerman Arthur Rees for example emigrated to the United States, most likely to the steel-producing regions of Pennsylvania. Many others had returned to work in South Wales, such as rollerman William Lodwick, doubler E. Williams, and furnaceman David Williams, who all found work at New Elba in Gowerton.

Some workers remained in India. Thomas J. Jones, a first helper from Ebbw Vale, and Watkin Thomas of Mardy, who headed up the shearing department at Golmuri, were among these. Others had less happy experiences and returned to unemployment, such as the doubler W. Hobbs and second helper T. Winn, both of whom had been associated with the Melingriffith works in Cardiff.

Debts, disputes, and disappointments

The investigation also revealed much of the strain of working in India. Cooke’s letter explained that many of the men had got into debt and were resentful that they could not afford to bring their wives out with them.

There was also animosity among the men, with another union official R. Gibbs writing to Pugh in June 1923 of the difficulty of forming the men into a union branch. He reported that there were several “non-unionists” among them, including some who had learnt anti-union sentiment while working in the United States. Gibbs singled out seven men from Cwmfelin as being particularly disruptive in the forming of a union. The ISTU were to use Golmuri as a bad example of union organisation abroad. The union leadership went so far as to ban members from taking up employment abroad without permission in light of experience at Golmuri.

Gibbs’s letters also reveal the nature of relations with the Indian workforce, which were not positive and characterised by racism. A major complaint of the men during the dispute was the lack of “skilled” white labour to oversee “inefficient” Indians, and several sources point to the verbal and physical abuse of Indian workers being commonplace.

This was perceived as such a problem that the Welsh workers’s terms of employment even contained a specific clause stating that the beating of Indians was a sackable offence. Keenan’s memoir makes it clear that such abuse was a regular occurrence. The Welsh working class were not immune from the racist norms of British Indian society.

Little is known about life outside the mill, though newspaper reports tell us that the men formed a Welsh Concert Party which toured Bengal, including Calcutta, singing to large audiences. This represented an attempt at cultural maintenance to make life in India that little bit more familiar.

The story of Welsh steel workers in India is a neglected part of Welsh industrial history which places the Welsh working class very firmly within the structures and legacies of the British Empire.