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Sculpture commemorating the Jarrow March

The Jarrow March (5–31 October 1936) was a protest against the unemployment and poverty suffered in the Tyneside town of Jarrow, in the north-east of England, during the 1930s. Around 200 men marched from Jarrow to London to petition the government to restore industry in the town after the closure in 1934 of Palmer's shipyard. Palmer's had launched more than 1,000 ships since 1852. In the 1920s, a combination of mismanagement and changed world trade conditions caused a decline which led to the yard's closure. When plans for its replacement by a steelworks were thwarted, the lack of any large-scale employment in the town led the borough council to organise the march. The House of Commons received the petition but took no action, and the march produced few immediate results. The Jarrovians went home believing that they had failed. In subsequent years the Jarrow March became recognised as a defining event of the 1930s and helped to prepare the way for wide social reform after the Second World War. (Full article...)

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Today's featured picture

The shy hamlet (Hypoplectrus guttavarius) is a small Western Atlantic species of fish in the family Serranidae. It is found predominantly around rocks and corals in Caribbean inshore areas at low depths, in temperatures of about 22 to 27 °C (72 to 80 °F). The shy hamlet has a yellow head and fins followed by a brown-black body, with bright blue stripes around the eye and on the snout. The species is carnivorous, feeding on crustaceans as well as other bony fish. This shy hamlet was photographed in an aquarium at Wilhelma, a zoological-botanical garden in Stuttgart, Germany.

Photograph credit: H. Zell

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