Provocative Objects: The Wapping Post

Provocative Objects / Spaces

27 May, 2026 -

Between 1986 and 1987 16 issues of a newspaper, The Wapping Post, were produced. The first is dated Sunday, May 18, 1986, forty years ago this month. Five months prior, Rupert Murdoch moved the production of his newspapers—The Sun, The Times and Sunday Times, and The News of the World—to a new printing plant in Wapping. The majority of the workers were part of two print trade unions, the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades (SOGAT) and the National Graphical Association (NGA). Throughout the previous year they had been in discussion with Murdoch about the new plant which he intended to use to print his new title The London Post. In January 1986, unsatisfied with Murdoch’s offer, a ballot was called and the members opted to strike. In response, around 5,000–6,000 people were sacked in accordance with new anti-trade union legislation brought in by Margaret Thatcher’s government. Unknown to the print unions, The London Post had never existed, and the intention had always been to move all titles without the involvement of the trade unions and their members. The reality was a coordinated plan to remove union control and delays caused by industrial action through negotiations, strikes and stoppages. The Sun alone earned Murdoch’s company, News International, £26 million a year and consistently sold over 3 million copies a day. Without the unions and with the new technology, Murdoch could greatly increase production and in turn his profits.

Their dismissal led to the beginning of the Wapping dispute, which lasted for the next 13 months. Sacked workers included compositors, typesetters and printers, some of these roles had become obsolete with the move to digital layout and production technology. Where these roles were still required members of a different union, The Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union (EETPU), had been trained on the new machines, in secret, the year prior. However, secretaries, clerks, cleaners and librarians also lost their jobs, as well as journalists who refused the move in solidarity with their colleagues and in opposition to the lack of union recognition at Wapping. Sacked workers picketed outside the plant, dissuading workers from entering and encouraging them to join the picket, they coordinated a national boycott of Murdoch’s titles, and (understandable given their former profession) began to produce print in support of their aims.

The Wapping Post is one example of print produced during the dispute; it was a reworking of an existing union paper The London SOGAT Post with its title and content changed to focus on the dispute. The front-page headline of the first issue states WAPPING MAFIA LINK, the author byline reads ‘by sacked Sunday Times and News of the World reporting team.’ The content of the article investigates the potential links between a company hired by Murdoch to distribute his newspapers, TNT, and organised crime in the US. It’s an example of how the sacked journalists turned their investigative skills towards the dispute, reflecting the potential wider corruption at the heart of the companies involved but returning to the local implications. The article ends with an account of a woman being attacked by a TNT driver that was part of the Wapping fleet responsible for delivering Murdoch’s titles. 

The design of the paper intentionally mimicked the aesthetics of the British tabloid press and in particular The Sun. The paper used a bright red masthead with a blocky sans-serif typeface. The main headline dominates the top third of front page, the text is succinct and words are chosen for their impact. In the banner on the right side a series of articles are advertised, a page three girl a direct reference to one of The Sun’s most controversial features, and Love on the Picket Line, a human-interest story, emphasised with it’s placement on a traditional star-burst graphic. The Barbed Wire column takes influence from The Sun’s celebrity gossip column, The Bizarre, here instead the idea is subverted and includes rumours and stories from Wapping, the picket line and the newspaper industry more broadly. At the bottom of the front page an article on pages 3–4 is teased, Violence–The Real Story, this is where the necessity of The Wapping Post is made most apparent.

The story on these pages is dominated by photographs of the police brutality inflicted on picketers during one of the most violent nights of the dispute, Saturday 3 May 1986, according to the article, The Charge of the Heavy Brigade:

Two members of an ITN crew were hospitalised, […] a preliminary list the following day with the names of 44 injured people. These included 24 head injuries, one eye injury, one broken jaw, two leg injuries, and two people suffering sever shock. The injuries were made worse by the difficulty that ambulances had in getting through police lines to treat the wounded. The final injury toll among the demonstrators was well over 100.

The article details attacks on protestors but also on the photographers and journalists that were there to document the dispute. The Wapping Post was therefore able to give the alternative perspective from the demonstrators that would be less easily or likely to be covered in the mainstream press. The Wapping Post therefore allowing them to voice their concerns about the police. The photos show injury detail of one photographer that was badly hurt, as well as the quantity of police present, the picketers surrounded, the use of riot gear and truncheons. 

The use of satire in subverting the tabloid style has multiple uses, the page three girl for example attempts to draw attention to the misogyny of the feature and reflects on growing concerns about the content of the tabloid press. The visual sensationalism created in the use of extreme large bold type, the quantity and size of the photographs, the emphasis created by visual graphics are often used in tabloids to attract and engage readers. However, in this instance they are used to highlight the violent tactics that were being used at these demonstrations and the absurdity in their lack of coverage elsewhere. Throughout the dispute The Wapping Post aimed to engage with picketers, journalists, other workers in the industry as well as the general public, encouraging solidarity and using print design, photography and journalism to explore the local and global impacts of Murdoch’s business empire both on media broadly but also trade union organisation. 

 

Further Reading

Peter Chippindale & Chris Horrie, Stick it Up Your Punter! The Rise and Fall of The Sun (Heinemann: London, 1990)

Martin Conboy, ‘Visual Aspects of British Tabloid Newspapers: ‘Image Crowding Out Rational Analysis’’ Visual Communication, ed by David Machin (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2014) p.261-280

John Lang & Graham Dodkins, Bad News: The Wapping Dispute (Nottingham: Spokesman, 2011)

Andrew Gamble, The Free Economy and The Strong State: The Politics of Thatcherism (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988)

Vic Giles & F.W. Hodgson, Creative Newspaper Design (Heinemann Professional Publishing: Oxford, 1990)

Time Gopsill & Greg Neale, Journalists: 100 Years of the NUJ (London: Profile Books, 2007)

Colin Leys, Politics in Britain: From Labourism to Thatcherism, (Verso: London, 1989)

Kelvin MacKenzie, ‘Foreword,’ Gotcha! Classic headlines from The Sun, ed John Essery (London: Penguin, 1993), p.1

Linda Melvern, The End of the Street (Methuen: London, 1986)

Lucy Robinson, Now That’s What I Call a History of the 1980s (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2023)

Deborah Schaffer, ‘SHOCKING SECRETS REVEALED! The Language of Tabloid Headlines’, A Review of General Semantics, Spring 1995, Vol. 52, No. 1, p.27-46

Thatcherism, ed Robert Skidelsky (London: Chatto & Windus, 1988)

 

Image: The Wapping Post, 18 May 1986, image taken by author. The Marx Memorial Library and Workers School, Reference: PC/NIDA/8/3

 

Katherine Easthill is a Design History Society Ambassador, design history researcher and graphic designer. Her MA dissertation, Black, White & Red All Over looked at the introduction of colour to The Sun front page. Katherine is now working on a PhD analysing The Wapping Post, a newspaper set up by sacked printworkers and journalists during the Wapping dispute (1986–7), funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council through the Techne Doctoral Training Partnership.

Started by the DHS Ambassadors in 2022, the Design History Society's Provocative Objects and Places blog looks at spaces and objects that challenge and confront us as design historians. We invite submissions for guest blog posts from students, early career researchers, and established academics to those with a general interest in design history. Posts can be on any object or place from any era, anywhere in the world, which in some way encourages discussion and debate. Posts should be 500-800 words, accompanied by at least one image with associated credits and clearances, and a short bio. Please contact the DHS Senior Administrator, Dr Jenna Allsopp-Douglas for more information.