Jarrow is best known as the town that gave its name to the Jarrow March of 1936. In November 1935 Jarrow chose Ellen Wilkinson as its Labour MP. A month later in a speech in parliament she challenged the government to address mass unemployment in the shipyards: `skilled fitters, men who have built destroyers and battleships and the finest passenger ships ... The years go on and nothing is done ... this is a desperately urgent matter… ’The Town That Was Murdered is her well-researched survey of Jarrow: local and labour history, the impact of poverty, the hateful misery of state relief, the history of shipbuilding, and the combined power of city and bank finance and shipbuilding magnates – in the UK and abroad – who drove local firms into bankruptcy and destroyed jobs. The book helped the drive for a Welfare State, and the Labour government of 1945. It is a historical document, but as finance looks to relocate investments, it still resonates today.
