THIS week we look back at the national coal strike of 1912.

It shows a detachment of the Royal Fusiliers on horseback heading down Bradshawgate.

In an attempt to break the resolve of the striking miners, the Government sent a detachment of Royal Fusiliers – 500 soldiers of the Suffolk Regiment and a troop of the 16th Lancers.

The dispute was about miners being given a national minimum wage.

Many of the strikers would have remembered the 1881 dispute in the Lancashire coalfield, when 50,000 men and boys went on strike for improved pay and were confronted by the 18th Royal Hussars and 18th Infantry Regiment, which often ended in violent clashes.

The picture shows the soldiers coming from Leigh station.

The blind of Darwell’s Wines and Spirits shop, on the corner of Union Street, can be seen on the left.

Ironically cartloads of coal are heading up Bradshawgate either to Leigh station for ongoing transport or delivering locally.

Colliery railways were all being shut down.

They were based at the newly-built Leigh Council Secondary School on Windermere Road.

Later that year the Government of the day passed the minimum wage law.

If you have a photograph you would like us to use in Look Back at Leigh, send it to newsdesk@leighjournal.co.uk with your name, address and a daytime telephone number, plus details of when the picture was taken and what it shows.