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.
Events

Commemorating British labour history: a triple anniversary

This is a year of labour history anniversaries. Both the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick and the South Wales Miners Library at Swansea University hit their fiftieth birthdays in 2023, while the august Marx Memorial Library reaches its ninetieth. The three organisations are organising a joint online symposium titled Commemorating British Labour History: Foundations and Future Plans with talks that celebrate the … Continue reading Commemorating British labour history: a triple anniversary

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Events

Visions of labour and class in Ireland and Europe

The Irish Labour History Society (ILHS), with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) and its Northern Ireland Committee, is holding its third international conference in Dublin from 14-17 September 2023. The event will feature national and international experts and labour movement practitioners in over 30 events at four venues. Titled Visions of Labour and Class in Ireland and Europe, the conference will include 10 … Continue reading Visions of labour and class in Ireland and Europe

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Labour history news

Ireland’s President marks fifty years of the Irish Labour History Society

The President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, has planted a tree and unveiled a commemorative plaque in memory of trade union and labour leader Tom Johnson, author of the Democratic Programme of the First Dáil, at an event to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Irish Labour History Society (ILHS). Tom Johnson, who was born in Liverpool on 17 May 1872, died sixty years ago … Continue reading Ireland’s President marks fifty years of the Irish Labour History Society

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Labour history news

How the ASRS supported the bereaved families of the ‘heroes of the footplate’

When the driver and firemen of an express train were killed in an horrific railway accident in 1898, the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants was on hand to offer financial and moral support to their families. Somewhere in the vast expanse of Kensal Green Cemetery there are two near-identical gravestones. Carved from Portland stone, with plaques depicting a train and green slate ‘rails’ to represent … Continue reading How the ASRS supported the bereaved families of the ‘heroes of the footplate’

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Labour History Review

Labour History Review Volume 88 (2023), issue 1

Labour History Review Volume 87 (2022), Issue 3 has now been published. This issue sees the publication of Greg Billam’s ‘‘Uncomradely and Un-communist’: Breakdown in the Communist Anglosphere? The Communist Party of Great Britain and Communist Party of Australia Debate, 1947–1948’, which was the winner of the Labour History Review Essay Prize in 2022. The article delves into the content of the debate between the … Continue reading Labour History Review Volume 88 (2023), issue 1

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Labour History Review

The First International Seen from the Periphery: The Portuguese Case (1871–1876)

Author: João LázaroThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2023), 88, (1), 1-25. Read more. This article discusses the influence the Spanish workers’ movement had in the creation of the Portuguese section of the First International (the International Working Men’s Association) and the political struggles faced by the First International in Portugal. From 1871 until 1876, a battle for the periphery … Continue reading The First International Seen from the Periphery: The Portuguese Case (1871–1876)

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Labour History Review

Peadar Ó Maicín, the Irish Left and the Irish Language

Author: Aindrias Ó CathasaighThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2023), 88, (1), 27-41. Read more. This article examines the involvement of Peadar Ó Maicín (1878–1916) in the Socialist Party of Ireland/Cumannacht na hÉireann from 1909. It discusses the part played by the Irish language in Ó Maicín’s initial development of a class consciousness; its role in finally converting him … Continue reading Peadar Ó Maicín, the Irish Left and the Irish Language

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Labour History Review

‘Uncomradely and Un-communist’: Breakdown in the Communist Anglosphere? The Communist Party of Great Britain and Communist Party of Australia Debate, 1947–1948

Author: Gregory BillamThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2023), 88, (1), 43-74. Read more. 2022 LABOUR HISTORY REVIEW ESSAY PRIZE WINNER The communist parties of Britain’s empire were notably excluded from the newly established Cominform in September 1947. In their absence, previous hierarchical relationships became less clear, as the fiery exchange between the CPA (Australia) and CPGB (Great Britain) … Continue reading ‘Uncomradely and Un-communist’: Breakdown in the Communist Anglosphere? The Communist Party of Great Britain and Communist Party of Australia Debate, 1947–1948

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Labour History Review

Book reviews in Labour History Review Volume 88 (2023), Issue 1

The books listed below are reviewed in Labour History Review (2023), 88, (1), 323-337. Read more. Edda Nicolson reviews Matthew Roberts, Democratic Passions: The Politics of Feeling in British Popular Radicalism, 1809–48, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2022, pp. vi + 262, h/b, £80, ISBN 978 15261 37043 Colin Heywood reviews Elisabeth Anderson, Agents of Reform: Child Labor and the Origins of the Welfare State, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, … Continue reading Book reviews in Labour History Review Volume 88 (2023), Issue 1

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