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.
Books etc

Mobbings, struggles and strikes: reclaiming the working class history of Dumfries

Mobbings, Struggles and Strikes: Episodes in the History of the Organised Working Class of Dumfries, 1771-1914, by Ian Gasse: the author, in association with the Scottish Labour History Society, 2022, pp. xvi + 400, h/b, £20 + £4p&p, ISBN 978 9163050 4 5 Class conflict in Dumfries so often centred on that most basic of staples, bread. From food riots in the 1770s during which … Continue reading Mobbings, struggles and strikes: reclaiming the working class history of Dumfries

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Grants

Funding round for 2022 BME history projects now closed

The Joint BME Small Grants Scheme is now closed for applications. The deadline for the current round of grants was 1 December 2022. The scheme provides small grants of up to £1,000 to support Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) historians working in the UK and/or on histories of BME people. Funding can be used to support directly incurred research costs and/or events and activities. We … Continue reading Funding round for 2022 BME history projects now closed

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Documents & objects, Labour history news

Digitised and online: the papers of George Lansbury

As the first of George Lansbury’s papers go online, Daniel Payne sets out how LSE Library is digitising its vast archive of material relating to the former Labour Party leader, and introduces some of the treasures it contains. Starting with the first two volumes, which are available online now, LSE Library recently announced plans to digitise its entire George Lansbury archive. An early supporter of … Continue reading Digitised and online: the papers of George Lansbury

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Events, Grants

The fragmentation of labour over imperial and racial issues, 1870s-1920s

Steven Parfitt reports from a conference at which he and other labour historians addressed issues of race and empire facing the seafarers’ union and outposts of the US Knights of Labor in Britain and elsewhere. Report on the Conference ‘Fragmented Powers: Confrontation and Cooperation in the English-speaking World’ From 23 to 25 June 2022, Yann Béliard, Joe Redmayne and I took part in the ‘Fragmented Powers’ conference, organised … Continue reading The fragmentation of labour over imperial and racial issues, 1870s-1920s

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Commentary, Labour history news

Stalinism and ultra-leftism: a warning from history – the leadership of the CPGB, 1928-1934

Alan Campbell and John McIlroy share headline findings from their research into the leadership of the Communist Party of Great Britain during the Comintern’s Third Period, 1928–1934. In a recent article for Labor History, we continue our extended prosopographical study of leading British Communists between the wars. It reports on a survey of the 66 members who served on the Central Committee (CC) of the … Continue reading Stalinism and ultra-leftism: a warning from history – the leadership of the CPGB, 1928-1934

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Documents & objects

Introducing Labour’s women MPs, 1929

When the Labour Party returned to power in 1929 to form its second minority government, the number of Labour women MPs doubled from four to nine. In this short newsreel, which would have been shown in cinemas all over the country, Margaret Bondfield introduces her colleagues – four of whom had been re-elected in the general election held on 30 May that year, and five … Continue reading Introducing Labour’s women MPs, 1929

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Research bursaries

Petra Seitz (UCL) looks at office design and asks: where do you cry in an open plan office?

Where do you cry in an open plan office? This is the emotional question lingering in the back of my thoughts as I complete research into commercial office interior spaces and the relationship of these spaces to the labour process. My research seeks to revisit the history of office spaces, considering and unpicking the relationship between the design of office interiors and the experience of … Continue reading Petra Seitz (UCL) looks at office design and asks: where do you cry in an open plan office?

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Books etc

Fighting Deindustrialisation: Scottish Women’s Factory Occupations, 1981-1982

The fight led by women workers against factory closures in early 1980s Scotland has been largely ignored in both popular and academic history, argues Andy Clark. His new book aims to bring their story in from the margins and restore the gender balance in accounts of the fight against deindustrialisation. Popular accounts of industrial closure and working-class resistance in the 1980s overwhelmingly focus on the … Continue reading Fighting Deindustrialisation: Scottish Women’s Factory Occupations, 1981-1982

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Obituaries

Stephen Frederick Roberts (1958-2022)

Stephen Roberts, who has died aged 64, was a political, social and cultural historian of Victorian Britain whose focus over more than four decades was on Chartism and the city of Birmingham, two topics on which he was both expert and passionate. Stephen was born in Sutton Coldfield, and his commitment to and fascination with his home town was life long. He first encountered Chartism … Continue reading Stephen Frederick Roberts (1958-2022)

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