The big news of 1926 was the general strike in which large parts of the UK workforce walked out for nine days that May to try and force the government to "prevent wage reductions and worsening conditions for 1.2 million locked-out coal miners" due to an uncertain market due to Germany providing "free coal" as part of the reparations for the Great War and mine owners deducting pay in order to keep their companies in profit.
As a result of the strike, newspapers stopped publication for the duration because the printers had walked out and the BBC decided to broadcast five news bulletins a day to keep the public informed, breaking a prior agreement that radio news would only be available in the evening so as not to create unfair competition for the printed word. The then Chancellor, Winston Churchill, attempted to commandeer the broadcasts for propaganda purposes, but Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin (pictured) resisted.
Behind The Scenes
"Rare footage of a silent British film in production, as newsreel cameras capture a BBC on-set radio broadcast."
The programme, A Film in the Making, was broadcast on 5th March 1926 on 2LO London.
[BFI][BBC Programme Index]
"First 'Outside Broadcast' by the BBC. This was one of the first LP recordings at the BBC- aptly named LP1. St.Hilary local prayer/ Christmas play rehearsals by the local vicar recorded in 1926."
This is a documentary about the broadcast with clips.
[Cornish Memory][BBC Programme Index]
Collection of BBC News radio broadcast summaries from during the period of the general strike.
[University of Warwick Digital Collections]
"Letter to Lord Chancellor on the granting of a Royal Charter to the BBC, 19 November, 1926 (Catalogue ref: PC 8/1089)"
[The National Archive]
"The first reports came through just after 7:40 on Saturday evening. Listeners to the BBC's fledgling radio service heard the closing words of a talk on Gray's Elegy, then a plummy announcer's voice breaking in with news that an unemployment demonstration in Trafalgar Square had turned violent. The angry demonstrators were already sacking the National Gallery, he said, and they weren't finished yet."
[radio slade]
"Initially called 'The televisor', Baird first demonstrated his television set in 1926. This programme traces the history of his invention and includes extracts of interviews with William Taynton, the office boy who became the first ever person to be televised and the voice of Logie Baird himself."
[BBC World Service]
"This was another contest about the existence, or otherwise, of what has become the most frequently disputed copyright subject matter – compilations. The plaintiffs, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), claimed an injunction to restrain what they considered an infringement of the copyright in its periodical, the Radio Times."
[University of Cambridge]
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