Labour History Review Volume 90 (2025), Issue 2 has now been published. The journal appears both in hard copy and online formats.

In this issue…

Keith Laybourn and Neil Pye investigate the early political involvement of Eric Heffer in the Communist Party of Great Britain and Socialist Workers’ Federation, and reveal how his experiences and reading shaped his later politics as a leading figure on the Left of the Labour Party. Read more

Michael Bailey writes about Wortley Hall, dubbed ‘the workers’ stately home’ in the post-war era. Drawing on previously unpublished archival and oral-history materials, the author documents Wortley’s founding ethos as a working-class venue and the pioneering efforts by local rank-and-file leaders to raise finances to secure the hall’s future as a little ‘oasis of socialism’. Read more

Diego Latorre on the struggle of domestic workers in Franco-era Spain. Excluded from the protection of labour laws under the Franco regime and with little support from the emerging trade union movement, domestic workers turned instead to a Catholic workers’ organization that began to take a stand in Spain from the 1960s onwards against the dictatorship and in favour of democracy and socialism. Read more

Plus book reviews by Steve Poole, Edward Royle, Andrew Thorpe, Quentin Outram, and Jamie Woodcock. Read more

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