Events

Both Sides of the Barricade: Luddite Memorial Lecture 2023

During the Luddite and Peterloo period, many radical activists were ex-servicemen of the Napoleonic Wars. This year’s Luddite Memorial Lecture, titled Both Sides of the Barricade, looked at the soldiers and ex-servicemen in early nineteenth-century popular politics. During the evening, Professor Nick Mansfield of the University of Central Lancashire, the author of a two-volume labour history of rank-and-file soldiers, highlighted many of the ‘military radicals’ … Continue reading Both Sides of the Barricade: Luddite Memorial Lecture 2023

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Documents & objects

The Chartist, his lawyer and a matter ‘of vital importance’

In 1839, the radical London Chartist George Julian Harney was out on bail awaiting trial for sedition. Two letters to his lawyer reveal his anxiety about the case and his desperate lack of cash. Mark Crail tells the story of Harney’s anxious summer. The letter shown here is filled with the angst of a man facing a possible gaol sentence and badly in need of … Continue reading The Chartist, his lawyer and a matter ‘of vital importance’

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Commentary, Labour history news

Exploring the history of the National Union of Public Employees

A series of recent articles from Historical Studies in Industrial Relations (HSIR) which explore the history of the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) are currently free to read for a limited time. The articles are being made freely available thanks to an initiative by HSIR and Liverpool University Press. Writing on the LUP website, Steve French, a member of the journal’s editorial committee, explains … Continue reading Exploring the history of the National Union of Public Employees

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Events

Newport Chartist Convention 2023

The annual Newport Chartist Convention takes place this year on Saturday 4 November at St Woolos Cathedral, Newport. The convention runs from 9.30am to 4pm. The Convention is part of the Newport Rising Festival, which celebrates the Chartist rising of 1839, and is held annually. Speakers will include: Tickets cost £15.00 including lunch, tea and coffee, and will be available nearer to the Convention date … Continue reading Newport Chartist Convention 2023

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Books etc

Artisans Abroad: British Migrant Workers in Industrialising Europe, 1815-1870

Fabrice Bensimon, Artisans Abroad: British Migrant Workers in Industrialising Europe, 1815-1870, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023, pp. 304, h/b, £83, ISBN: 9780198835844. Between 1815 and 1870, when European industrialisation was in its infancy and Britain enjoyed a technological lead, thousands of British workers emigrated to the continent. They played a key role in sectors such as textiles, iron, mechanics, and the railways. These men and … Continue reading Artisans Abroad: British Migrant Workers in Industrialising Europe, 1815-1870

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Labour history news

Cato Street: inside the building where London’s ultra radicals met their end

The picture above shows the former stable in which London’s ultra radicals met in 1820 to plan the murder of the Cabinet and the installation of a provisional government. From the outside, the building in Cato Street, now an expensive residential area close to the busy Edgware Road, appears much as it did two hundred years ago (see below). But behind the blue plaque on … Continue reading Cato Street: inside the building where London’s ultra radicals met their end

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Events, Grants

Finding the Funny: Sam Fitton and the Cotton Factory Times

Sam Fitton made his name as an insightful and funny cartoonist for the Cotton Factory Times, an immensely successful newspaper aimed at workers in Lancashire and Cheshire cotton mills which at its peak sold more than 50,000 copies a week. Beginning in 1907, Fitton would eventually contribute more than 400 cartoons for the paper, creating a unique visual record of the cotton industry, its workers … Continue reading Finding the Funny: Sam Fitton and the Cotton Factory Times

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Labour history news

Britain’s longest strike? How Silentnight bed makers held out for eighteen months

At any other time, a few hundred manufacturing workers calling a strike over pay would hardly merit much more than a footnote in the history books. But the dispute at Silentnight’s bed factories in the mid 1980s was a pivotal moment in industrial relations – and, for trade unions and their members at least, this was a clear warning of the difficult times to come. … Continue reading Britain’s longest strike? How Silentnight bed makers held out for eighteen months

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Labour history news

Box makers at bay: commemorating the Corruganza strike of 1908

As plans come together to unveil a blue plaque marking the Corruganza boxmakers’ strike of 1908, Geoff Simmons explores a dispute that helped Mary Macarthur hone the campaigning skills she would bring to future disputes. In the summer of 1908, 44 young women at the Corruganza box factory in Summerstown, south west London came out on strike in response to a pay cut in the firm’s … Continue reading Box makers at bay: commemorating the Corruganza strike of 1908

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