Every year the SSLH-Archives and Resources Committee publishes a guide to new labour history accessions in UK archives for the previous twelve months. The latest guide, for 2023, has now been published and can be freely downloaded below.

Among the largest new additions to the archives this year is a collection of 100 boxes of material on political songs, including songsheets, vinyl records, journals and pamphlets originally begun by the Labour politician Janey Buchan (1926-2012) which can now found in the National Library of Scotland.

Clcik the image right to download the guide (PDF format).

Other major accessions include:

• A 1923-24 petition signed by 390,296 women in Wales, led by Annie Hughes-Griffiths, calling on the United States of America to join and lead the League of Nations, together with a specially built chest for transport to Washington DC, now in the National Library of Wales;
• 92 archive boxes of material collected by the trade unionist and communist Graham Stevenson (1950-2020) including personal papers, Communist party, trade union and miscellaneous papers, audiovisual material, textiles and other objects, now in the Working Class Movement Library;
• The papers of Papers of Pushkar Singh Lail (1935-2021), General Secretary of the Nottingham branch of the Indian Workers’ Association, founder of the Nottingham Indian Community Centre, and member of the TGWU Regional Race Advisory Committee and National Race Committee, now in the University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections; and
• 107 boxes of papers collected by the Scottish labour historian Ian MacDougall (1993-2020), including Research papers and administrative records of the Scottish Society for the Study of Labour History and the Scottish Working People’s History Trust, now in the National Library of Scotland.

Probably the most diverse range of new additions is listed by the Modern Records Centre at Warwick University. This includes editions of  The Busman’s Punch newspaper produced by the London Busmen’s Rank and File Movement in the 1930s, records relating to the GCHQ trade union campaign, a photograph c1913 of the National Union of Vehicle Workers Aldgate branch banner, trade union ties, commemorative plates, pennants and the banner of the Ford Shop Stewards Committee at Langley.

See reports from previous years.

Find out more about the SSLH-ARC and its member organisations.