Labour History Review, Obituaries

John L. Halstead (1936–2021): Some Comments and Reflections

Authors: Keith Laybourn, Emmet O’Connor, Mike Mecham These are the introductions to a series of appreciations published in Labour History Review (2022), 87, (3), 313-322. Keith Laybourn writes: John Halstead is one of those rare individuals genuinely committed to the development of working-class citizenship through the extension of educational opportunities. This is reflected in his support for the active involvement of working-class adults in their … Continue reading John L. Halstead (1936–2021): Some Comments and Reflections

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Books etc, Labour History Review

Book reviews in Labour History Review Volume 87 (2022), Issue 3

The books listed below are reviewed in Labour History Review (2022), 87, (3), 323-337. Find out more. Claudia Jarzebowski reviews Mary Nejedly, The Industrious Child Worker: Child Labour and Childhood in Birmingham and the West Midlands, 1750–1900, Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2021, pp. viii + 214, p/b, £16.99, ISBN 978 19122 60430 Janette Martin reviews Lyndsey Jenkins, Sisters and Sisterhood: The Kenney Family, Class, and Suffrage, 1890–1965, Oxford: Oxford … Continue reading Book reviews in Labour History Review Volume 87 (2022), Issue 3

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Commentary, Documents & objects

Slogans and souvenirs: TUC delegate badges from 1899 to the present day

Delegates to the TUC’s annual congresses have been sent home with a commemorative badge for well over a century. But, as Mark Crail reports, these small souvenirs often carry a message about how the trade union movement sees itself. The Trades Union Congress has produced a badge for delegates to its annual Congress since the very end of the nineteenth century. The practice continues today … Continue reading Slogans and souvenirs: TUC delegate badges from 1899 to the present day

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Labour history news

Labour history journals round-up, 2022

Labour history societies in Scotland, the North-East and North-West of England have published the 2022 issues of their journals, with articles spanning a wide range of topics, from the Lancashire cotton famine to the cultural impact of deindustrialisation. The latest issue of the journal Historical Studies in Industrial Relations is also now available online, with new research on the Master and Servant Statute of 1823 … Continue reading Labour history journals round-up, 2022

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Labour history news

Australian labour history society marks Labour History’s sixtieth year in print

The Australian Society for the Study of Labour History is celebrating sixty years of its journal, Labour History, this month with the publication of a 200-plus page issue which takes the opportunity of this significant anniversary ‘to pause, reflect, take stock, look back and see forward’, as editor Diane Kirkby puts it in an opening editorial. She continues: ‘With a combination of reflections, new research … Continue reading Australian labour history society marks Labour History’s sixtieth year in print

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Books etc, Labour history news

Communist Party bookshops: a history

Alternative and Left book shops were once a common sight in larger cities – and could even be found in smaller towns when there was a sufficiently vibrant radical culture to support them. Some failed after no more than a few months, while others traded more or less successfully for decades. And while many later arrivals from the 1960s onwards were eclectic in their radical … Continue reading Communist Party bookshops: a history

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Labour history news

Society for the Study of Labour History 2023 calendar

The Society for the Study of Labour History calendar for 2023 uses as an illustration the Labour Party poster, ‘To-morrow – When Labour Rules’, created by the artist and lithographer Gerald Spencer Pryse. The original poster was issued for the general election of December 1923, from which Labour emerged in second place, ahead of the Liberals, with 191 seats. The party went on to form … Continue reading Society for the Study of Labour History 2023 calendar

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Books etc

Nature’s missionary: the life of Seth Lister Mosley

Seth Lister Mosley was one of those great Victorian social radicals who by the latter years of the nineteenth century were doing so much to transform life in Britain’s towns and cities. Born into a working-class family and with little formal education, he became a pioneering naturalist and populariser of science – and can fairly be described as an early exponent of environmentalism. Widely known … Continue reading Nature’s missionary: the life of Seth Lister Mosley

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Commentary

Tracing the Labour Research Department’s struggle against fascism in the archives of the TUC Library

The Labour Research Department has been at the forefront of an information war against the far right for the past hundred years. Jeff Howarth tells the story of this century-long struggle through the LRD publications to be found in the TUC Library. Throughout the twentieth century and now into the twenty-first, the trade union movement has monitored the activities of far-right groups in an attempt … Continue reading Tracing the Labour Research Department’s struggle against fascism in the archives of the TUC Library

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Labour history news

How the TUC Library card index went online in its centenary year

The chance discovery of a cache of microfilms enabled the TUC Library to digitise its card index and make a century’s worth of cards covering the publications in its collection available online to all, as Jeff Howarth explains. The TUC Library was founded one hundred years ago, in 1922, with the amalgamation of the TUC Parliamentary Committee, the Labour Party Information Bureau, and the Women’s … Continue reading How the TUC Library card index went online in its centenary year

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