In fact, there is a carefully thought out structure here as the flattened pyramid shape is actually the ziggurat or crepidoma, an ancient temple structure for the shrines of the gods. The church is not represented here but the trio sitting in judgement on a son of toil are like an unholy trinity and they occupy a god like place on the raised platform. We have a full view of their contemptuous faces, the officer, the teacher in his academic robes, the bloated industrialist, they are probably all serving in the house of Commons or the House of Lords and they block the way to books and betterment and education. On the other hand he is far lower than the three establishment figures on the rostrum and seems to be pleading with them. If we put ourselves in the place of this upright worker and read the words he is uttering ‘we seek knowledge that we may wield power’ then I think we should be quite stirred by his dignity and determination. Originally the colours would have been much brighter and like many banners, it is an accomplished painting (many emblems were commissioned by Trades Unions from Royal Academy artists and produced in the large George Tutill workshops). The TGWU banner does not look so confrontational, so let’s zoom in and see what story it is telling, what message it is sending. Or so the words on the ribbon around the medallion about sweeping away destitution and prostitution proclaim. The semi naked heroic worker was depicted wrestling with the serpent of capitalism. The leaders of the union at that time were taught to read by Eleanor Marx, daughter of Karl Marx and they bucked the trend of elaborate designs on banners and membership certificates for the unions by producing a big banner with a Hercules muscle man at the centre of a circular picture, the roundel or medallion.
It’s a dockside branch banner and the Dockers have quite a history of protest from a mass strike of unskilled and skilled workers in the late 1880s (the struggle against casualization and for a daily living wage, the Dockers’s tanner). I am Paula James, research fellow in the faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and I want to share my excitement with you over this 1920s Transport and General Workers Union banner.
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