Labour history news

Very nearly an armful… donating blood for Vietnam

Protests against the Vietnam War took many forms. But the most sanguine approach to solidarity work was surely that adopted by the Medical Aid Committee for Vietnam (MACV). In 1967, activists in London organised a blood donor session, collecting 56 pints with the help of workers from the blood transfusion service. Further donor sessions were organised, and the MACV developed a system for safely storing … Continue reading Very nearly an armful… donating blood for Vietnam

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Documents & objects

Who needs the ILP? How Labour’s 1918 constitution set it an existential challenge

In 1918, the Independent Labour Party faced the biggest question in its history to date: if the Labour Party, to which it had been affiliated from the start, was now an individual membership organisation with an avowedly socialist platform, what was the point of the ILP? The leaflet shown here was its first attempt to provide an answer to that far from trivial question. Formally … Continue reading Who needs the ILP? How Labour’s 1918 constitution set it an existential challenge

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Labour history news

Planes, trains and automobiles: rethinking Victorian union imagery in the 1930s

Untold thousands of trade union emblems were produced in the Victorian era, but by the twentieth century they looked out of date and their use was in decline. Mark Crail looks at a 1930s revival that briefly breathed new life into the genre. The trade union membership certificate shown here (Fig. 1) was based on an emblem adopted in the 1930s by the National Union … Continue reading Planes, trains and automobiles: rethinking Victorian union imagery in the 1930s

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Events, Grants

Strike! The story of the Dunnes Stores strikers…

Ardent Theatre Company presents STRIKE! By Tracy Ryan and directed by Kirsty Patrick Ward. Dunne’s Stores, Dublin, July 1984: a South African grapefruit starts something that will take nearly three years to finish… It’s a hot, hot summer and Frankie Goes to Hollywood are riding high in the charts. At Dunne’s Store, shop assistant Mary Manning refuses to ring up a grapefruit, sticking to her … Continue reading Strike! The story of the Dunnes Stores strikers…

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Obituaries

Richard Croucher (1949 – 2022)

Richard Croucher, who died aged 73 on 16 December 2022, was a versatile scholar and talented labour historian who became well-known as a teacher and researcher in the field of employment relations and management studies. He played a prominent part in the field of labour history from the mid-1970s into the 1990s. His books Engineers at War and We Refuse to Starve in Silence constituted … Continue reading Richard Croucher (1949 – 2022)

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Commentary, SSLH news

In Our Time: Chartism

On 21 May 1838 an estimated 150,000 people assembled on Glasgow Green for a mass demonstration. There they witnessed the launch of the People’s Charter, a list of demands for political reform. The changes they called for included voting by secret ballot, equal-sized constituencies and, most importantly, that all men should have the vote.  The Chartist were the first national mass working-class movement. In the … Continue reading In Our Time: Chartism

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Events

Workers’ Playtime: culture and community in industrial Lancashire

Nineteenth century industrial Lancashire was a land of smoke and tall chimneys, fortunes for the Cotton Lords and misery for their workers, the ‘hands’. But that’s only part of the story.   Workers’ Playtime: culture and community in industrial Lancashire is an exhibition that goes beyond the factories to explore the cultures and communities created by the workers in pursuit of a better, fuller life … Continue reading Workers’ Playtime: culture and community in industrial Lancashire

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Documents & objects

‘There will be no bevvying’: the 1971 UCS work-in

Introducing a pamphlet published by the Communist Party of Great Britain during the 1971 Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in. The pamphlet can be downloaded from this page. ‘We are not going to strike. We are not even having a sit-in strike. Nobody and nothing will come in, and nothing will go out, without our permission. And there will be no hooliganism, there will be no vandalism, … Continue reading ‘There will be no bevvying’: the 1971 UCS work-in

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Books etc, Commentary

How the study of transnational history could help to revitalize labour history

The rise of comparative and transnational history offers an opportunity to rejuvenate the study of labour history itself, argues Neville Kirk. Here, tracing his own transnational engagement with labour history through more than fifty years of teaching, publication and research across continents, he introduces his recent book on the lives of labour activists Tom Mann and Robert Samuel Ross. While interests in comparative and transnational … Continue reading How the study of transnational history could help to revitalize labour history

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Books etc

Rotten Prod: the story of a Belfast boilermaker

Rotten Prod: The Unlikely Career of Dongaree Baird, Emmet O’Connor, University College Dublin Press, 2022. The Irish labour historian Austen Morgan dedicated his study of Belfast labour ‘to the “rotten Prods” of Belfast, victims of unionist violence and nationalist myopia.’ A derogatory label used by loyalists/Unionists against Protestant labour activists, it was laced with venom that brought threats, violence and loss of work. For Unionist … Continue reading Rotten Prod: the story of a Belfast boilermaker

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