For conferences and public engagement
The Society for the Study of Labour History offers financial support for conferences and public events with a focus on labour history. We take a broad view of ‘labour history’ that includes cultural and social aspects as well as political and institutional ones. Applications, for a maximum of £850 per event, are welcome at any time of year.
While any reasonable conference costs will be considered, we are particularly interested in supporting:
a) the attendance of postgraduate speakers
b) conferences that are designed to actively engage a public audience.
This engagement might be achieved by the inclusion of sessions or activities that are specifically targeted at a wider audience. We expect all events funded by the SSLH to be accessible to anyone who wants to attend, and for that reason we do not expect conference registration fees to be prohibitive.
If funds are sought to support the attendance of postgraduate speakers, we will support up to five bursaries of a maximum of £150 per student, on the condition that the recipients join the SSLH. Student membership of the Society costs £20. The bursary should be used to subsidize travel and accommodation costs, and we will require evidence of the attendance of these speakers and of their membership of SSLH.
In addition to running its own Conference and Public Engagement scheme, SSLH also participates in the BME Events and Activities Small Grants Scheme, together with the Social History Society, the Economic History Society and History UK.
How to apply
To apply, please send the following information to the SSLH conference secretary, Joe Stanley, at j.w.stanley@leeds.ac.uk:
- A description of the conference, including call for papers or indicative programme if applicable
- A breakdown of the costs of the conference
- A clear statement of what the funding requested from SSLH will cover.
If your application is successful we will require evidence of expenditure for the SSLH funded aspects of the conference, a short report (500 words, and images) for the Society’s website, and, in the case of subsidies being provided for postgraduate speakers, evidence of their attendance and of their membership of SSLH.
Recent events organised or funded by SSLH
- Llafur, the Welsh People’s History Society, continues its summer series commemorating the centenary of the 1926 General Strike and seven-month lock-out. The final two sessions look at 1926 in archives, libraries, and collections, as well as the strike’s enduring legacy in the present. All online sessions are accessible to all and will be held via […]
- The programme for Chartism Day 2026 is now live. What is Chartism Day? The Chartism Day Conferences were launched at the University of Birmingham in September 1995 by the renowned Chartist historian Dorothy Thompson (1923–2011). Apart from the disruption caused by the Covid pandemic, the annual meetings, which are endorsed by the Society for the […]
- Tickets for Chartism Day 2026 are now available. This year’s event takes place on Saturday 19 September at Friends Meeting House, Warwick, and is open to all. Among the topics covered in this year’s conference will be talks on: We will also be discussing the Chartist Lives of the radical vicar of Warwick, Rev Arthur […]
- A new biography of Manchester Irishwoman and trade union organiser, Mary Quaile, will be launched on Saturday 8th August in Manchester. Bernadette Hyland and Michael Herbert’s new book: ‘To her the trade union movement was her life’ – Mary Quaile: Manchester Irishwoman and trade union organiser of women workers traces the story of Mary’s life […]
- The People’s History Museum has announced a series of guided tours of its new exhibition, ‘On the Line: 100 years of strikes and solidarity’, led by curator, Mark Wilson. Marking the centenary of the 1926 strike, the exhibition opened at PHM in Manchester on Saturday 21 March and runs until Monday 2 November 2026, taking […]
Earlier SSLH-Supported Events and Public Engagement Activities
Non-Conformity, Critiques and Contention under Communist Rule in the 1970s and 1980s, two online symposia organised by the Histories of Activism research group at Northumbria, based on an SSLH-funded conference that had to be rescheduled owing to Covid, November 2020. Find out more.
Huddersfield’s NHS: the Caribbean Connection, a film produced by Kirklees Local TV, based on the research of Dr Heather Norris Nicholson and directed by Milton Brown, October 2020. Find out more.
Working River: Songs and Music of the Thames, a recording project by Brian Denny, 2020.
Leisure and Recreation History and Heritage Day, Middlesbrough Town Hall, October 2019.
Rebellion, Revolution and Resistance in the Twentieth Century: Class, Networks and Political Violence, Newcastle University, October 2019.
Not just Peterloo: remembering the 1969 Manchester anti-apartheid march to the Springboks match, Working Class Movement Library, Salford, October 2019.
Gender, Labour and Consumption in Historical Perspective, University of Essex, September 2019.
Peterloo 1819–2020, People’s History Museum, Manchester, May 2019.
The Global Challenge of Peace: 1919 as a Contested Threshold to a New World Order, Newcastle University, May 2019.
Labour in History and Economics, All Souls College, Oxford, April 2019.
Women, Work, and Activism: Pasts, Presents & Futures, Great North Museum, Newcastle University, 9-10 November 2018. Organisers: Hannah Martin (Northumbria University), Stacy Gillis (Newcastle University) and Jemima Short (Newcastle University). Read the full report here.
Radicalism and Popular Protest in Britain 1790-1820, Derby Museum and Art Gallery, 9 June 2017.
Organiser: Ruth Larsen (University of Derby). Full report here.
‘Grim up North? Northern Identity, History & Heritage’, 16 September 2016, The Leeds Library, Leeds.
Organisers: Michael Reeve (Hull) and Andrew McTominey (Leeds Beckett). Full report here.
Society for the Study of Labour History 