Archie Potts, who was one of the founding members of the North East Labour History Society in 1966, has died after a short illness. His long life was marked by a lasting commitment to his community, to working class politics and to the field of labour history. Archie was born in Sunderland on 27 January 1932. His family were hard working, proud trade unionists. In … Continue reading Archie Potts (1932 – 2021)
Two men sit facing one another, rival socialist newspapers in hand as they debate the issues of the day. Clues in the picture have more to tell us about it, and about the political differences between the Labour Leader and the Clarion. But the reason it was taken remains a mystery. Continue reading The Labour Leader and the Clarion: rival socialist newspapers in the Edwardian era
Art and culture are inseparable from labour history, as a GFTU Educational Trust CD on the story of the River Thames from the Nore Mutiny to the Empire Windrush demonstrates, writes SSLH EC member Mike Sanders. Continue reading Celebrating labour history through the songs and music of the River Thames
Labour historian and former People’s History Museum director Nick Mansfield is to deliver his inaugural professorial lecture at the University of Central Lancashire on “Nineteenth century misfits: celebration, insurrection and ‘back to the land’. A lecture for Mental Health Awareness Week, 2021.” Professor Mansfield has researched 19th and 20th century working class history since the 1970s, and has written extensively on artisans, farmworkers, patriotic labour … Continue reading Nineteenth century misfits: Nick Mansfield inaugural professorial lecture
Walter Citrine served as TUC general secretary from the time of the General Strike to the arrival of the post-war Labour Government. Though sometimes seen as a hardline anti-communist, his relationship with communism in the UK and internationally deserves a more nuanced understanding, as his biographer Dr Jim Moher explains Continue reading Walter Citrine’s dealings with communism and communists
George Smith was the final general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers, and the first of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians. His son, also George Smith, offers a personal recollection of his father’s life. Continue reading George Smith (1914-1978) the joiner who built a union
Labour History Review Volume 86 (2021), Issue 1 has now been published. From the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in of 1971, to the Burntisland Fabrications (BiFab) occupation of 2017, there is a long history of workplace occupations. However, despite the prominence and significance of occupation as a tactic, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, current historical examinations have been fragmented. This special issue of Labour History … Continue reading Labour History Review Volume 86 (2021), Issue 1
Author: Alan TuckmanThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2021), 86, (1), 7-35. Find out more. This paper traces the development of this form of industrial action through the 1970s, the emergence of an alternative economic voice, ultimately almost silenced in the 1980s with the dominance of new-liberalism, leaving a sedimentary alternative which periodically reappears. We first need to consider the … Continue reading After UCS: Workplace Occupation in Britain in the 1970s
Author: Andy ClarkThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2021), 86, (1), 37-61. Find out more. This article draws on research into three female-led occupations that occurred across central Scotland in 1981 and 1982. The actions at Lee Jeans, Lovable Bra and Plessey Capacitors were each in response to closure and relocation and, crucially in the context of this time period, … Continue reading ‘There Is Nothing There for Us and Nothing for the Future’: Deindustrialization and Workplace Occupation, 1981-1982
Author: Valerie Wright, Jim Philips, Jim TomlinsonThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2021), 86, (1), 63-90. Find out more. In January 1983 the US-owned multinational Timex, a prominent employer in Dundee since 1946, announced it would cease production of mechanical wristwatches in the city. Substantial redundancies would accompany closure of the Milton of Craigie production unit where 2,000 mainly male … Continue reading Defending the Right to Work: The 1983 Timex Workers’ Occupation in Dundee
Society for the Study of Labour History 