strike after refusing to work alongside non-union members. Most of the dockers in Belfast were employees of magnate Thomas Gallaher who owned Gallaher's Tobacco Factory and served as chairman of Belfast Steamship Company. Gallaher and Kelly were forewarned about the strike, and had sent to Dublin for 50 blackleg dockers and coal heavers to fill the strikers' places. Feeling that a strike was premature at this point in time, Larkin sent the dockers and coal heavers back to work. Upon their return, however, the men discovered that they were locked out with the imported blacklegs working in their stead. The locked-out NUDL dockers and coal heavers proceeded to force the blacklegs away from the Belfast Steamship Company's sheds and the coal merchant's quay. Although Kelly gave in and recognised his workers' rights to union membership, when Gallaher sacked seven women for attending a meeting held by Larkin, one thousand female employees of his tobacco factory walked out of their workplace in a display of solidarity on 16 May. They marched to a strike meeting held that afternoon in Corporation Square. The women, however, were compelled to return to work the following day. Although Larkin had called on them to join a trade union, neither the NUDL nor any other trade union could admit such a high number of new members at one time. Additionally, no financial assistance was available to the women, many of whom had families to support. Thomas Gallaher refused to recognise the NUDL and had hundreds of blackleg dockers working on Donegall Quay under the protection of the RIC and troops deployed by Belfast's Lord Mayor Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 9th Earl of Shaftesbury. Larkin denounced Gallaher in speeches as an "obscene scoundrel". Gallaher for his part lamented that "the whole business is, I think, due to the uprising of socialism". In mid-June 500 coal heavers from other firms went out, demanding higher wages. As the end of June approached, more than 3000 dockers were on strike, including 300 from the cross-channel companies, most of which were owned by powerful British railway magnates. As unrest among Belfast's workers grew, the strike soon spread from the docks and quays to the rest of Belfast with shipyard workers, firemen, sailors, iron moulders, and transport workers joining the dockers. Between 5,000 and 10,000 people turned out to attend the strike meetings that were held daily outside the Custom House. The NUDL demanded