In June 1771 there was widespread industrial unrest across the north east, mainly on account of the high price of corn and other provisions. On 10 June the keelmen assembled and refused to work. Some pitmen soon followed their example and proceeded to recruit the men of every colliery in the region. The Wearside keelmen also stopped work. By 22 June the Wearside men together with most of the pitmen had resumed their labours, but the keelmen on the Tyne continued their strike and, as usual, forcibly obstructed any working keels and beat and abused their crews. As the strike continued, many of the strikers found work in loading ships at Sunderland. The fitters considered proceeding against their men under the recent Act for better regulating Apprentices and Persons working under Contract (6 George III cap. 25). As in a similar Act of 1747, keelmen were among groups specifically included in its provisions whereby a worker who quitted his employment before the expiration of his contract could be committed to the House of Correction for a term of between one and three months. The Mayor met some of the men on 28 June and, after publishing a resolution of the Privy Council to facilitate the importation of rye, had strong hopes that they would soon resume work, but a week later he had to report that ‘such as are these people that tho’ several attempts have been made, and such means used as were judged the most prudent to effect it, ’till now they coud not be brought to a sense of their duty’. The strike lasted four weeks and was ended largely through the efforts of Edward Mosley, who, perhaps recalling William Scott's success in 1738, escorted keels manned by those willing to work until all joined them.

The keelmen had prolonged their strike because their employment below Newcastle Bridge was being curtailed. Staithes had been erected from which the coal was loaded directly into the ships by means of spouts. Spouts had long been used to load keels, but not ships, and, although only small vessels able to reach the staithes could be loaded in this way, the keelmen's employment was being increasingly threatened as more coal owners began to adopt this method.