Labour history societies throughout the UK and beyond have published the year-end editions of their journals for 2025. Here we offer a summary of their contents. The round-up includes the journals of :
North West Labour History Society
North East Labour History Society
Scottish Labour History Society
Irish Labour History Society
Australian Labour History Society
North West History Journal – North West Labour History Society
The front cover of North West History Journal 49 showcases a picture from the Shrewsbury 24 Campaign which fought, ultimately successfully, on behalf of Des Warren and other building trade workers who were prosecuted and in some cases imprisoned for their roles in the national construction industry strike of 1972. It would ultimately take 48 years for the men to get justice, and their story is told here by Eileen Turnbull, researcher for the Shrewsbury 24 Campaign and author of A Very British Conspracy: The Shrewsbury 24 and the Campaign for Justice.
Also in this issue of North West History Journal:
The Labour League of Youth remembered.
We were staying out: ballot or no ballot.
Sylvia Panknurst, the British Left, Black radicalism and Ethiopia.
Fleetwood Museum.
James Hanley: the anarchist outsider.
David Graham: a life of activism and inspiring others.
A weekend with North West CND.
North East History – North East Labour History Society
The cover of North East History, published by the North East Labour History Society, features a snowy street scene illustrating the article ‘The Winter of 47: The End of Childhood’. The journal also includes recollections of Newcastle’s Days of Hope socialist bookshop, which closed in 1986, and an interview with NELHS President and historian Maureen Callcott.
Articles in this issue of North East History:
‘The Pitmen are resolved not to work’: The miner’s strike of 1765 in the Great North Coalfield.
Recollections of Days of Hope Bookshop.
Unemployed Workers’ Centres: Employed and Unemployed Solidarities.
The Irish on Tyneside: A history of the Tyne and Wear Metro.
A Proper Working Look: Naomi Mitchison on Sunderland Housing Conditions in 1934.
The Winter of 47: The End of Childhood.
Harbinger of Change, Dipton and the North East in the The Winter of 62/63.
Maureen Callcott: A Life in History. Interview with Liz O’Donnell, transcribed by Sue Ward
Scottish Labour History – Scottish Labour History Society
The 2024 edition of Scottish Labour History begins with a an appreciation of Ian Andrew Gasse (1948-2024) who until his death in September 2024 had been responsible for the design, typesetting and proof-reading of the journal. Ian was also responsible for the Society’s website and newsletter, and was the author of books on the labour history of Galloway. The issue also records the decision of the journal’s co-editors Gregor Gall and Jim Phillips to step down from their long tenure in the role.
Articles in the issue of Scottish Labour History:
NOTICES AND REPORTS
Scottish Labour History Society John Maclean Centenary Conference, Glasgow, November 2023.
Celtic Connections John Maclean Centenary Concert, Glasgow, January 2024.
‘Everybody to Kenmure Street!’ – Walking Local History in Pollokshields.
Closing The Door On ‘The People’s Story’? – Scottish Labour History Society Statement.
SLH Bibliography and Accessions.
Major accessions of material related to the labour history of Scotland made in 2022.
‘Splits and Fusions’ Archive An interview with Rob Marsden.
IAN MACDOUGALL MEMORIAL LECTURE, 2024
Border Mills: Lives of Peeblesshire Textile Workers – from Voice to Page .
PROFILES IN SCOTTISH LABOUR HISTORY
Archie Crawford: Early Twentieth Century Global Labour Activist.
Capitalism in Shetland: an article from International Socialist Review (1914).
The International Socialist Review and its Publisher.
Socialism in Shetland: Research Note.
Sacked Miners and the 1984-85 Strike in Scotland.
ARTICLES
Leaving the Communist Party: Harry McShane under State and Party Surveillance.
Printers’ Libraries and the Typographical Press System.
Labour History – Australian Society for the Study of Labour History
The second issue for 2024 of Labour History focuses on trade union history, and includes contributions on the causes of union decline in the Global North, and the culture of drinking in convict Australia.
Articles in the November 2024 issue of Labour History:
Explaining Union Decline: Remaking Power Relations in the Pilbara Iron Ore Industry.
Speed-Ups and Related Problems: The UAW and Grassroots Grievances in the Immediate Post-World War II Period.
More Lessons of the Accord: The 1986–87 Plumbers’ Union Dispute.
‘Guiding the Wobbly Hand of Justice’: The Early Years of the Council for Aboriginal Rights, c. 1951–55.
Parching for Principle: Hotel Boycotts in Regional Australia, 1901–20.
So How Did We Get Here? A Historical Case Study of Migrant Employment in the New Zealand Hotel Sector.
Alcohol, Work and Play in Convict Australia.
International Standing for the Rūnanga Miners’ Hall
Saothar – Irish Labour History Society
The 2024 issue of Saothar, the journal of the Irish Labour History Society, looks at the Ulster Workers Council strike of 1974 through the Workers Association Strike Bulletin, examines drink and the police in Victorian and Edwardian Ireland, and reports on the ILHS international conference on Visions of labour and class in Ireland and Europe.
Articles in this issue of Saothar:
‘An Occupational Hazard ?: Drink and the Police in Victorian and Edwardian Ireland, 1836-1914’.
James Larkin, Emmet O’Connor, and Some Painstaking Archaeology.
The Desmond Greaves Online Archive.‘No prospect of settlement’ – IWWU Workers in Dublin During the 1945 Laundry Strike.
Cumannachas ag an Oireachtas, 1919.
‘Who Is Going To Start an Irish 5:75 Company?’ The Cheviot, The Stag and the Black, Black Oil in Ireland, Summer 1974.
Document Study: The Workers Association Strike Bulletin and the Ulster Workers Council strike of 1974.
Document Study: Introduction to Thesis of the Irish Trotskyists.
Conference Report: Report of Irish Labour History Society (ILHS) International Conference ‘Visions of Labour and Class in Ireland and Europe’ (Dublin, Thursday 14 to Sunday 17 September 2023).
First-ever women statues since Queen Victoria’s statue (1903) unveiled in Belfast City Hall grounds – International Women’s Day, 8 March 2024
Labour History Review – Society for the Study of Labour History
Our own journal is published three times a year. Details of the most recent issue can be found here.
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