Researchers and labour historians can now get access to The Bradford Socialist Vanguard via The British Newspaper Archive. Launched in 1908 by its editor Charles Glyde, the paper was to ‘be run in the interest of the wage-earners’ as an alternative to ‘chaotic capitalism’. Originaly costing just one halfpenny as a monthly edition, it is available in two runs from 1908-10 and 1912-1920.

The Bradford Socialist Vanguard was a mouthpiece to extol Glyde’s variety of internationalist Christian socialism. As its opening masthead put it: ‘The World is Our Country, Mankind are our Brethren, To Do Good is our Religion’.

Charles Glyde was born in Leeds in 1869 and, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was one of the key figures of the Bradford socialist movement. After witnessing the Manningham Mills strike (1890-91), he later joined the Bradford Labour Union and the Fabian Society. Glyde was an articulate and passionate communicator and was elected councillor for the Bradford, Tong Ward in 1904, becoming one of the key leaders of the Bradford unemployed and a powerful advocate for the feeding of school children.

The Bradford Socialist Vanguard strongly opposed the First World War and argued that ‘justice, freedom and eternal peace cannot be secured by shot and shell, by bloodshed and massacre.’ Glyde was prosecuted under the Defence of the Realm Act in 1916. The paper also printed notes from the Clarion Club, the socialist cycling club, as well as a socialist themed ‘Stories for the People’.

The Bradford Socialist Vanguard was crafted in Glyde’s image and had no future after him. In late 1920, the paper printed its final edition when Glyde retired due to poor health. Charles Glyde, Bradford councillor, newspaper editor, and a key figure of the Bradford labour movement, passed away three years later in 1923. The paper is now available online to subscribers of the British Newspaper Archive.

Written by Gregory Billam.