3-021-093 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Conflict between workmen and soldiers at the Seraing Ironworks, Belgium, 1869. 'The alarming riots which have broken out in some of the mining and manufacturing districts of Belgium...were mentioned in our foreign news. The scenes of the chief disturbances were the celebrated extensive iron-foundry and machine factory of Mr. John Cockerill, at Seraing, near Liège; and the collieries of the Borinage...The immediate occasion was a dispute between the workmen and their employers concerning the rate of wages. It is to be lamented that the excitable temper of the men, whatever may have been the character of their claims, was allowed to seduce them into acts of violence, which the Government had to restrain by the use of military force. Several of these misguided people fell victims to their own fanaticism, being killed by the volley of musketry with which the soldiers easily dispersed the raging mob who attacked the establishment at Seraing. The sketch we have engraved was taken by M. Eugène Dubois, of Brussels, from the opposite side of the river Meuse; it gives a view of the factory, with the troops, both infantry and cavalry, drawn up in order to defend it, and confronted by the mob, some of whom are running across the bridge'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.