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

Bristol Sailors in the Nineteenth Century: A Breed Apart?

Author: Joe DaveyThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2023), 88, (2), 125-158. Read more. There is a stereotypical perception of the sailor as being a drunken, promiscuous, violent nuisance on the streets of a port town. In offering a partial corrective to this, this article portrays sailors in ways not normally associated with the stereotypical image and identity politics … Continue reading Bristol Sailors in the Nineteenth Century: A Breed Apart?

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Labour History Review

A Scholarly Life: Richard Croucher (1949-2022)

Richard Croucher, who died aged seventy-three on 16 December 2022, was a versatile scholar and talented labour historian who became well known as a teacher and researcher of employment relations, international trade unionism, and management studies. He played a prominent part in the field of labour history from the mid-1970s into the 1990s. His books Engineers at War and We Refuse to Starve in Silence constituted a significant contribution … Continue reading A Scholarly Life: Richard Croucher (1949-2022)

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Labour History Review

Book reviews in Labour History Review Volume 88 (2023), Issue 2

The books listed below are reviewed in Labour History Review (2023), 88, (2), 185-198. Read more. Joe Stanley reviews Peter Hounsell, Bricks of Victorian London: A Social and Economic History, Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2022, pp. xiv + 283 + 15 plates, p/b, £18.99, ISBN 978 19122 60577 Quentin Outram reviews M.M. Borodin (trans. and ed. Pete Dickenson), The Great Betrayal: Black Friday and the 1921 Miners’ Lockout, London: … Continue reading Book reviews in Labour History Review Volume 88 (2023), Issue 2

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Obituaries

Willie Thompson (1939-2023)

The death of Willie Thompson will be mourned across the labour history community. He was a visible presence for some sixty years. Although born in Glasgow, he was at heart a Shetlander. A man of the Iles who nevertheless admitted to having a love-hate relationship with them. But he never left them behind, always keeping in touch wherever he was through reading the island’s press. … Continue reading Willie Thompson (1939-2023)

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Events

Writing up a storm in Paris and London: G.W.M. Reynolds

G.W.M. Reynolds emerged as a significant figure in London Chartism in the spring of 1848, and would later gain a substantial level of fame as the publisher of radical newspapers and author of gothic novels. In an evening meeting at London’s Bow Street Police Museum titled Writing Up a Storm in Paris and London: GWM Reynolds, Dickens’ Radical Rival on Thursday 20 July, Dr Jennifer … Continue reading Writing up a storm in Paris and London: G.W.M. Reynolds

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Labour history news

Saothar 48: Irish Labour History Society journal out now

The 2023 issue of Saothar, the journal of the Irish Labour History Society, is out now. Saothar 48 includes the following articles. Dominick Haugh – Limerick Pork Butchers’ Society – The Formative Years 1871-1890;Hugo McGuinness – William Graham, internationalism, and the 1886 Dublin Glass Bottle Makers Strike;Peter Murray – “Sweated Jewish Labour” and Garment Industry Trade Unions in Early 20th Century Dublin;Luke Crowley Holland – The Labour Movement in … Continue reading Saothar 48: Irish Labour History Society journal out now

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Events, SSLH news

Chartism Day 2023 report: ‘You tyrants of England! Your race may soon be run…’

This year’s Chartism Day was in Sheffield, with papers on the land plan, the poet Thomas Cooper, the ‘paper pantheon’, Chartism’s first historian of the modern era, and the lives of Chartists in France Held on Saturday 17 June, Chartism Day 2023 opened with a fitting tribute to Stephen Roberts – the organiser of the first such event in 1995, and a leading Chartist historian … Continue reading Chartism Day 2023 report: ‘You tyrants of England! Your race may soon be run…’

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Events

Waiting for Wesley: torn between church and rebellion

Set during the events of August 1842 in the Calder Valley, the specially written play Waiting for Wesley is to be performed this summer at Halifax Museum. Commissioned by Heptonstall Museum, written by Michael Crowley and first performed in August 2022 by The Brutish Multitude Theatre Company, the play has since been developed as a result of audience feedback to include the character of Ben … Continue reading Waiting for Wesley: torn between church and rebellion

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Labour history news

University of Sheffield acquires Arthur Scargill archive

The archive of Arthur Scargill, activist and former President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1982-2002, has found a new home at the University of Sheffield Library Special Collections, Heritage and Archives.  The Arthur Scargill Archive covers his life, from the day he started work at the age of 15 at Woolley Colliery in the North Barnsley area; his time in the Young … Continue reading University of Sheffield acquires Arthur Scargill archive

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