Winston Churchill, with his wife, Clementine, reviews army exercises in June 1910. Later that year he ordered troops to Tonypandy

Winston Churchill’s role as home secretary in the Tonypandy riots of 1910 affected his reputation for the rest of his life. In Wales the resentment lingers today.

But was it really true, as many believe, that Churchill sent in the military to crush a strike by Welsh miners? Or is the truth more complicated?

Allen Packwood, director of the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge, said that the politician had only done what any home secretary would have. The troops did not play a significant part in quelling the riots, he said, “and they didn’t kill anyone”.

In the autumn of 1910 there was a strike by miners working across the Cambrian Combine network of pits, a cartel formed to regulate prices and wages in south