May I add to John Armitage’s excellent article on the London Dock Strike of 1889 (“Values lived through action”, 6 September). First, there is little doubt that Cardinal Manning deserves the title of “father of Catholic Social Teaching”, as he had been advocating the ideas behind Rerum Novarum for 20 years before its publication in 1891. Indeed, Pope Leo XIII noted Manning’s “influential communications” on the encyclical. Secondly, it is entirely fitting that Cardinal Nichols, Manning’s current successor as Archbishop of Westminster, should attend a Mass in the East End to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the ending of the strike.In 1939, Cardinal Hinsley hosted a dinner to mark the strike’s fiftieth anniversary with strike o