The strike had spread like a forest fire and had taken the authorities almost completely unawares. So much so, in fact, that some thought it was the beginning of something far more ominous.
Rochdale businessman John Bright for instance, writing to a relative, asked: "Has the revolution commenced? It looks very probable. The authorities are powerless."
His alarm was shared by the Government who, as it happened, were not powerless. For the first time, they used the railways to move 2,000 troops and six artillery pieces into Manchester and Salford. Railway workers did nothing - their jobs were new and they had not yet organised into unions.
Control of the strike was taken over by two trades conferences, the metal workers meeting at Carpenters' Hall and the rest at the Sherwood Inn in Tibb Street, Manchester, but the following week they joined forces and shifted their headquarters to the Hall of Science in Campfield, Manchester.
Encouraged by their early success, the strikers broadened their pay demands to include acceptance of the Charter. However, it was the original cause of the strike that contained the seeds of its failure. It had been an unconsidered, spur-of-the-moment affair and little or no planning had gone into it.
RIOTING in Preston at the height of the Plug Plot strike in August.
Had they paused to think, the strikers would have realised that, by withdrawing their labour, they were playing into the hands of the employers, many of whom were happy to close their doors and avoid paying wages at a time when trade was so depressed.
By August 20th, overcome by hunger, and with many of their leaders under arrest, the strikers were forced to slink back to work without having gained a single concession from their employers.
But at least some good came out of it, if only for a few. For instance Ben Brierley, later to become renowned as a dialect poet, noted with some satisfaction that demand for the velvet he wove had increased substantially because of strike shortages.