The first annual John Halstead Memorial Lecture in memory and in honour of a labour historian who served the Society for the Study of Labour History for six decades took place in the splendid Gothic Revival surroundings of the John Rylands Library on Saturday 29 October. The full video can be viewed below.

More than sixty people were present in person or online to hear the distinguished Irish labour historian Dr Emmet O’Connor, a friend of John Halstead for some forty years, deliver a lecture on the topic, ‘How British was Big Jim Larkin? How International was Larkinism?’ The Society was also delighted to be joined for the lecture by John’s widow, Margaret Halstead, and by his family and friends.

Introducing Dr O’Connor, Dr Mike Mecham, a member of the SSLH executive committee and himself a historian of Irish labour, noted that, ‘Emmet’s 2017 biography of Jim Larkin, in my view not only set a high bar in labour history biographical studies, but was typically Emmet in being erudite, forthright and honest’. Unlike previous biographies he said, Dr O’Connor’s biography dealt at length with Larkin’s later years of conflict and perhaps decline: ‘Hence the book’s question as a title, “Hero or Wrecker?”’

The two videos below can also be viewed on the Society’s YouTube channel. The first, shorter video is of Dr Mike Mecham’s tribute and introduction; the second is Dr Emmet O’Connor’s lecture.

Earlier in the day, at the Society’s annual general meeting, members of the executive committee were delighted to welcome Greg Billam, the winner of the Labour History Review postgraduate essay prize for 2022. Greg, a postgraduate teaching assistant at Edge Hill University, had submitted an article based on his PhD research titled ‘’Breakdown in the Communist Anglosphere? The Communist Party of Great Britain and Communist Party of Australia debate, 1947-1948’. This will now appear in a future issue of Labour History Review.

The Society is now inviting entries to the 2023 essay competition. Essays may be submitted at any time between now and 31 March 2023. Find out more and download an entry form.

Appreciations of John Halstead’s life and work will appear in the next issue of Labour History Review. An obituary can be found here.