Author: EditorMC

I am a former journalist by trade, turned labour and family historian with a special interest in Chartism. I launched the Chartist Ancestors website since 2003, and am currently a member of the Society for the Study of Labour History executive committee, managing its website and social media in my free time.
Labour History Review

In Defence of Steel: The Expulsion of Alfred Edwards MP and His Campaign against Steel Nationalization, 1948–1951

Author: Christopher MasseyThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2024), 89, (1), 21-46. Read more. Alfred Edwards, MP for Middlesbrough East from 1935 to 1950, has been subject to only cursory academic attention during the lifetime of the 1945–51 Labour governments. Consequently, this article provides the first detailed study of Edwards’s parliamentary career. It is argued that Edwards was a significant national figure … Continue reading In Defence of Steel: The Expulsion of Alfred Edwards MP and His Campaign against Steel Nationalization, 1948–1951

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Labour History Review

2023 Labour History Review Essay Prize Winner

Author: Manuel Herrera CrespoThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2023), 88, (3), 47-72. Read more. ‘Porque no ha cambiado nada’: The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the End of the Cold War The relatively new bundle of scholarship gathered under the notion of a ‘global 1989’ has produced an innovative field of research that highlights the necessity of a global … Continue reading 2023 Labour History Review Essay Prize Winner

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Labour History Review

Book reviews in Labour History Review volume 89 (2024), Issue 1

The books listed below are reviewed in Labour History Review (2024), 89, (1), 73-93. Read more. Mike Mecham reviews John Cunningham, Francis Devine, and Sonja Tiernan (eds), Labour History in Irish History: Essays Celebrating Fifty Years of the Irish Labour History Society, Dublin: Umiskin Press, 2023, pp. 451, p/b, £25, ISBN 978 18381 11212 Martin Spence reviews Michael Tichelar, Labour in the Suburbs: Political Change in Croydon during the Twentieth … Continue reading Book reviews in Labour History Review volume 89 (2024), Issue 1

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Events

Marking the Great Preston Lockout 170 years on

The Great Preston Strike and Lockout was a momentous national event. It began as a series of isolated strikes at a small number of mills in August/September 1853, and became a general lockout involving most textile operatives that October. It once again became a strike in February 1854, though this time on a much larger scale, and continued until May 1854. The dispute was immortalized … Continue reading Marking the Great Preston Lockout 170 years on

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Events, Grants

Conference report: Essex and the 1984-85 miners’ strike

Paul Topley reports on a one-day event that brought together Essex trade unionists and others involved in supporting the 1984-85 miners’ strike. A one-day conference on the role of the Essex labour movement in supporting striking miners during the strike of 1984-85 took place on Saturday 9 March. Organised by Essex Association of Trades Councils, with financial support from the Society for the Study of … Continue reading Conference report: Essex and the 1984-85 miners’ strike

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Commentary, Labour history news

‘The most fruitful period in the history of the British left’?: Communists and the Popular Front in the 1930s

In ‘“The most fruitful period in the history of the British left”[1]?: Communists and the Popular Front in the 1930s’, John McIlroy and Alan Campbell introduce a brace of recent articles examining the Comintern, the British Communist Party (CPGB) and the Popular Front in Britain, France and Spain between 1935 and 1939. The Popular Front policy which was put together through 1934 and formally adopted … Continue reading ‘The most fruitful period in the history of the British left’?: Communists and the Popular Front in the 1930s

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Labour history news

WCML gets £100k Big Flame grant

The Working Class Movement Library has been awarded £99,847 to fund a project opening up access to its records of the Big Flame revolutionary group. Started in Liverpool in 1970, Big Flame was a revolutionary socialist group with a feminist, anti-racist, internationalist vision that emphasized mass class engagement and prioritized non-sectarian, non-authoritarian community organizing and political methods. It spread to Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Nottingham and … Continue reading WCML gets £100k Big Flame grant

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Events

Online classes in labour history at MML

The Marx Memorial Library is offering a course of six consecutive online classes in labour movement history spanning two centuries and with a focus on race and empire. Run by Professor Mary Davis, professor of labour history and secretary of the Marx Memorial Library, the first lecture is on 19 March, at a cost of £30 (£15 concessions) for all six classes. The series covers: … Continue reading Online classes in labour history at MML

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