In the first of a series of articles on places of significance in labour history, Duncan Hamilton tells the story of the Durham Miners’ Gala’s long association with the County Hotel. On the corner of Old Elvet and New Elvet in the city of Durham sits the Royal County Hotel. The Grade II listed building is an amalgam of upper-class housing from the late eighteenth … Continue reading County Hotel, Durham: a place in labour history
Florencia D’Uva of Universidad de Bueons Aires has been awarded the Labour History Review Post-Graduate Essay Prize for 2025. James Squires of Sheffield Hallam University has been named runner up. LHR editor Professor Peter Gurney presented Dr Uva with her winner’s cheque for £700 at an event held by the Society for the Study of Labour History at the Marx Memorial Library on Saturday 29 … Continue reading SSLH honours Labour History Review essay prize winners 2025
In the 1920s, the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa (ICU) emerged as a significant force in Southern Africa, organising as many as a quarter of a million workers throughout throughout South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Zimbabwe. Its general secretary, Clements Kadalie, was like many of those in the ICU leadership, himself a migrant, from Malawi. A famed orator, journalist and trade union organiser, … Continue reading Book launch: Clements Kadalie and the militant migrant workers of South Africa
Gavin McCann is researching a book on trade unions and education. Here he writes about his visit to the South Wales Miners’ Library in search of a lost culture of socialist education. ‘I was in a second-hand bookshop in Cambridge — it would have been 73-74 — and came across two volumes of the history of the mining industry. I thought, bloody hell, where has … Continue reading Gavin McCann on the libraries of the South Wales miners
My PhD research examines the development of anti-fascist activism within industrial communities in twentieth-century Britain. It explores localised anti-fascist movements and how factors such as class, employment, and education influenced political engagement. Focusing on two case studies, South Wales and North West England, the project examines the shared characteristics and distinctive experiences of anti-fascist activism across different industrial regions. While anti-fascism in Britain has received … Continue reading Harry Griffiths (Bangor) on anti-fascism in South Wales and the North West of England
The organisers of a one-day conference on coal communities, health and welfare in Britain and abroad are calling for contributions from new and established researchers working inside and outside higher education. The event takes place at the University of Warwick, Coventry, on Thursday 18 June 2026, and has a submission deadline of 25 January 2026. Find out more. Conference summaryThis free one-day conference aims to … Continue reading CfP: Blood is the price of coal: coal communities, health and welfare in Britain and beyond
My BA project explores the lived experiences of Gurkha soldiers and their families in Kent, focusing on how they have evolved as a distinctive form of military labour and how they have navigated migration, settlement, and identity in Britain. Gurkhas occupy a unique position as Nepalese nationals who serve under the British Crown. In the British context, they are greatly mythologised as ‘the bravest of … Continue reading Drishya Rai (Cambridge) on Gurkha military labour, identity, and settlement
Author Henry Dee introduces his book, Militant Migrants: Clements Kadalie, the ICU and the Mass Movement of Black Workers in Southern Africa, 1896-1951, volume 21 in the Studies in Labour History book series published by the Society for the Study of Labour History with Liverpool University Press. In the 1920s and 1930s, innumerable workers, as well as leading figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Tom … Continue reading Militant Migrants: Clements Kadalie, the ICU and the Mass Movement of Black Workers in Southern Africa
Join us at the Marx Memorial Library for the launch of Militant Migrants: Clements Kadalie, the ICU and the Mass Movement of Black Workers in Southern Africa, 1896-1951, by Henry Dee. The event takes place at 4pm on Saturday 29 November 2025. The latest book in the Studies in Labour History series published by the Society for the Study of Labour History with Liverpool University … Continue reading Book launch: Militant Migrants
Pritam Singh reports on the roundtable event ‘Freedom and Whatever that Means: A History of the Politics of Overseas Labour Migrations from India c1833-1967’. Following the abolition of slavery in 1833, colonial India was the largest supplier of labour not just to the British but also to French and Dutch colonies. Whether as convicts, as indentured workers on five-year contracts, or under debt bondage to … Continue reading Roundtable report: the politics of overseas labour migrations from India
Society for the Study of Labour History 