Professor Paul Salveson is a historian and writer and lives in Bolton. He is visiting professor in ‘Worktown Studies’ at the University of Bolton and author of several books on Lancashire history It was the most significant industrial conflict in Bolton’s history, was immortalised in a novel and led to major changes in the town’s politics. The Great Engineers’ Strike of 1887 was no ordinary trade dispute but was marked by a bitterness and violence seldom seen in British industrial relations. The strike involved the ‘aristocracy’ of the Bolton labour movement – the skilled engineers whose expertise was in demand across the world. By the standards of the day they were well-paid and they enjoyed an orderly system of wage bargaining, between their own unions – mostly the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE) - and the Iron Trades Employers Association.