‘Wor Bella’: Football, working class women and the First World War

The play, ‘Wor Bella’, which details the story of working class women footballers and munitionettes during the First World War, is to tour the North East, including a cameo from former England footballer, and Newcastle-born, Alan Shearer. Written by Ed Waugh and produced by Wisecrack Productions, the team behind Hadaway Harry, Mr Corvan’s Music Hall, The Great Joe Wilson, Wor Bella, and The Cramlington Train Wreckers, Wor Bella is an one-woman … Continue reading ‘Wor Bella’: Football, working class women and the First World War

Jenkins, Healey, and Crosland: ‘The Gang of Three’ on stage

‘The Gang of Three’: Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey, Tony Crosland: three brilliant friends, three bitter rivals – and all three convinced they should lead the Labour Party. Now, an acclaimed drama, and available for booking on a national tour. Labour historians might be all too familiar with the intricate details, machinations, and history of the three leading Labour Party figures – Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey, … Continue reading Jenkins, Healey, and Crosland: ‘The Gang of Three’ on stage

Online series: Radical Women, 1819 to 1928

Michael Herbert (Red Flag Walks) has announced an eight week course covering the history of radical women in Britain between 1819 and 1918. The course will run online via Zoom each Sunday for eight weeks at 2:00pm, beginning on Sunday 11 October and ending on Sunday 29 November. The course will cover the following themes: Female Reform Societies and the 1819 Peterloo Massacre: In the … Continue reading Online series: Radical Women, 1819 to 1928

Chartism Day 2026: conference report

Some fifty delegates crowded into the seventeenth-century Friends Meeting House at Warwick on Saturday 19 September for Chartism Day 2026 to hear speakers range across the history and historiography of the Chartist movement. Mark Crail reports. Apart from a two-year hiatus during covid, the event has been held annually since September 1995 when, under the guidance of the renowned Chartist historian Dorothy Thompson, the first … Continue reading Chartism Day 2026: conference report

Digitised and online: the Labour Union Journal

A late-nineteenth century labour journal once described as ‘the most flourishing organ of the labour movement in the whole country’, has recently been digitised by the British Newspaper Archive. The Bradford Labour Union was a forerunner of the Independent Labour Party, and later the Labour Party. Its organ, The Labour Union Journal, was first published on 26 May 1892. After the Manningham Mills strike in … Continue reading Digitised and online: the Labour Union Journal

Appeal for help locating a Peace Pledge Union poster

The Peace Museum is looking for help locating a historic poster originally printed by the Peace Pledge Union as part of their upcoming exhibition. The museum, which explores the history and untold stories of peacemakers, reform and peace movements, has issued an appeal to all who may have information about the poster. The museum hopes to acquire a copy so that they can permanently hold … Continue reading Appeal for help locating a Peace Pledge Union poster

Rediscovered Peterloo ephemera digitised

Dr Janette Martin (John Rylands Library) has announced the rediscovery, cataloguing and digitisation of a large bound of newspapers, pamphlets and other materials related to the Peterloo Massacre. Historians of the labour movement will be delighted to hear that the University of Manchester has catalogued and digitised a large bound volume of Peterloo related newspapers, pamphlets, and other materials (1819-1822). This follows the exciting discovery … Continue reading Rediscovered Peterloo ephemera digitised

Cian Ireland (University of York) on worker and trade union responses to deindustrialisation in Wales

Jim Tomlinson has argued that deindustrialisation was the ‘meta-narrative’ of post-war British history. In Wales, its historical economic reliance on extractive industries such as coal and slate saw their decline begin earlier in the twentieth century. Therefore, deindustrialisation has arguably been a ‘meta-narrative’ in Wales for decades longer. My dissertation looks at the history of worker and trade union responses to deindustrialisation in the south … Continue reading Cian Ireland (University of York) on worker and trade union responses to deindustrialisation in Wales

Yasmin Getirana (LSE) on domestic workers’ activism and Catholic internationalism in Cold War Latin America

The Young Christian Workers (Juventude Operária Católica/Juventud Obrera Católica, JOC) was founded by Belgian priest Joseph Cardijn in the 1920s, as a response to the perceived de-Christianisation and spread of communist and anarchist ideologies among the industrial working class in Europe. Rooted in Catholic Action and built around the ‘See-Judge-Act’ pedagogical method Cardijn developed, the JOC aimed for young workers to observe the conditions of … Continue reading Yasmin Getirana (LSE) on domestic workers’ activism and Catholic internationalism in Cold War Latin America

Tomas Einion Holland (Bangor University) on relations between Irish and Welsh socialists during the Irish revolutionary period

My dissertation focuses upon relations between Welsh and Irish socialists during the Irish revolutionary period (1910s–1920s) with a focus on newspapers produced in South Wales. Analysing the social history of these nations outside the strict confines of the British state is a developing field of study. The study aims to better understand how each nation’s socialist movement interpreted, supported or, in other cases, hindered the … Continue reading Tomas Einion Holland (Bangor University) on relations between Irish and Welsh socialists during the Irish revolutionary period