My dissertation project aims to understand how peace activists at the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in Berkshire, interacted and worked with fellow political activists at local and national levels, but also across national borders during the Cold War of the 1980s. An important aspect of this concerns the link between the peace women of Greenham Common and female activists in the National Union of Mineworkers and Women Against Pit Closures during the miners’ strike of 1984-1985.

A Society for the Study of Labour History bursary allowed me to undertake a research trip to the Women’s Library at the London School of Economics, which holds a great deal of useful and relevant material pertinent to my dissertation research. Thanks to the bursary, I was able to have three days in the archives. I was particularly interested in reviewing correspondence between the peace women and politicians, political organisations, peace groups, and the trade union movement. I also wanted to look at pamphlets and similar material published at the peace camp.

On my first day in the archive, I consulted a postcard collection, which included postcards produced by the Greenham Women and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament for fundraising purposes. One unexpected and interesting discovery I made was of a postcard collection published jointly by the Hackney Greenham Women group and Sheffield Women Against Pit Closures. Included in the collection was a label describing the collaboration between the groups, and the reason for their production (the anniversary of the NUM’s strike against pit closures). This label did not have an individual reference in the archive, and I wanted to include it in my dissertation, and so after a conversation with the archivist, the catalogue was updated to include this item.

On my second day in the archive I looked at correspondence between various organisations, politicians, and activists with the peace camp. I found evidence of financial support given by the Transport and General Workers’ Union to the peace women in a series of letters congratulating them on their good work. Also interesting were letters to Labour MPs, including Tony Benn and Harry Cohen, who advocated for the women in Parliament, especially when they had been mistreated by the police. Tony Benn, in another letter, had invited the women to a meeting at Conway Hall, which coincidentally, was just around the corner from my hotel.

On my last day in the archives I looked at pamphlets and chain letters published at the peace camp, some press cuttings, and the typewritten diary notes of a Greenham peace woman. A pamphlet entitled Women for Peace Support the Miners, likens the violence experienced by striking miners on the picket lines at the hands the police with that experienced by the women at Greenham Common. This pamphlet calls for a women’s march from a coal pit to a nuclear power station in protest at government policy. Another, entitled Greenham Women for a Miners’ Victory, characterises these different struggles against the government as one and the same.

These examples of useful material gathered at the archive are representative of a wealth of knowledge I can now use in my dissertation project. The link between the Greenham women and the labour movement was one I was very interested in exploring, despite not having a great deal of material before visiting the archive. I am deeply grateful to the Society for the Study of Labour History for affording me this opportunity through the bursary.

Will Graham is studying for an MA in History at Northumbria University. He received a BA/MA Dissertation Bursary for his research titled ‘How did activists at the Greenham Common women’s peace camp interact with other activists locally, nationally and transnationally?’

Find out more about the BA/Taught Masters Dissertation Bursary Scheme.