Category: Bursary reports

The SSLH runs two bursary schemes. Articles in this section are reports back from the recipients of bursaries setting out how they were able to advance their research.

Bursary reports, MA & BA bursaries

Colm Murphy on researching Labour’s view of the 1980s ‘loony left’

Thanks to the generous support of the Society, I was able to visit the Labour History Archive and Study Centre, located at the People’s History Museum in Manchester. This trip was for my research into the Labour Party in the 1980s. I focus on the Labour leadership’s perceptions of the ‘loony left’ Labour councils, leading up to the 1987 election and Margaret Thatcher’s third victory. … Continue reading Colm Murphy on researching Labour’s view of the 1980s ‘loony left’

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Bursary reports, Research bursaries

Lara Green (Northumbria) on the international networks developed by Russian revolutionaries

My research focuses on transnational networks established by Russian revolutionaries who promoted terrorism in emigration between 1881 and 1915, looking at how they represented themselves in relation to contemporary debates about socialism, anarchism and terrorism abroad in their publications aimed at both English- and Russian-speaking audiences. Émigré communities played an important role in the Russian revolutionary movement from the second half of the nineteenth century … Continue reading Lara Green (Northumbria) on the international networks developed by Russian revolutionaries

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Bursary reports, Research bursaries

David Strittmatter (Buffalo) on the erasure of St Peter’s Field as a site of commemoration

The great E.P. Thompson wrote in his magisterial The Making of the English Working Class that ‘1819 was a rehearsal for 1832’. Thompson drew a direct line from the Peterloo Massacre to the Great Reform Act. Indeed, the crowd of 60,000 that gathered in an open space near St. Peter’s Church in central Manchester on August 16, 1819, came to hear reform-minded speakers. Famously, the … Continue reading David Strittmatter (Buffalo) on the erasure of St Peter’s Field as a site of commemoration

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Bursary reports, Research bursaries

Sophie Roberts (Northumbria) on anti-Vietnam War activist and Labour MP Ann Kerr

I am extremely grateful for the bursary received from the Society for the Study of Labour History (SSLH), which enabled me to undertake archival research at the Hull History Centre in August 2016. The materials I consulted at Hull are essential for my thesis, which looks at a number of British female anti-Vietnam War protesters in the period roughly from 1965-74. The money kindly granted … Continue reading Sophie Roberts (Northumbria) on anti-Vietnam War activist and Labour MP Ann Kerr

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Bursary reports, Research bursaries

Emma Dewhirst (Liverpool) on the interaction between Irish republican organisations, 1912-1923

A number of Irish republican volunteer groups participated in the events that made up the Irish Revolution from 1912-1923, including the Easter Rising, War of Independence, and the Irish Civil War. My PhD thesis does not focus solely on one organisation but the myriad of organisations active during this period: the Irish Citizen Army (ICA), Na Fianna Éireann (Irish Nationalist Boy Scouts), Irish Volunteers, Cumann … Continue reading Emma Dewhirst (Liverpool) on the interaction between Irish republican organisations, 1912-1923

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Bursary reports, Research bursaries

Carin Peller Semmens (Sussex) on the legacies of slavery in North Louisiana’s Red River region

My doctoral work examines the ideological, political, economic and behavioural legacies of slavery in North Louisiana’s Red River region from the early entrenchment of slavery in the 1820s through the violent and charged 1870s and 1880s. It investigates the foundation and significance of white dominated power structures in the shaping of black and white relations. The rigid power dynamic established by slavery proved particularly resilient … Continue reading Carin Peller Semmens (Sussex) on the legacies of slavery in North Louisiana’s Red River region

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Bursary reports, Research bursaries

Christophe Landry (Sussex) on a research trip to South Louisiana

My doctoral thesis, ‘Multilingualism and Language Politics in Post-War Creole Louisiana’, studies the rapid integration of multilingual, Roman Catholic, Latin Southwest Louisiana in the 20th century’s interwar period. More specifically, it traces how French- and Creole-speaking Latins, in this zone, were absorbed into national consciousness through Jim Crowism, Anglicization, Protestantization and infrastructural projects, culminating in a faux-bifurcation of these Creoles along hardened racial lines, of … Continue reading Christophe Landry (Sussex) on a research trip to South Louisiana

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Bursary reports, Research bursaries

Ann-Marie Foster (Northumberland) on the Senghenydd mining disasters and the ephemera of remembrance

In 1913 the worst mining disaster ever to occur in the UK happened at the Universal Colliery in the small village of Senghenydd. This disaster, in which 440 men died, followed just twelve years after another explosion in the same colliery in which 81 men perished. This double tragedy in Senghenydd makes it a significant site of research, not only because of the death toll, … Continue reading Ann-Marie Foster (Northumberland) on the Senghenydd mining disasters and the ephemera of remembrance

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Bursary reports, Research bursaries

Mike Mecham visits Belfast to research Irish labour leader and social activist William Walker

Belfast born William Walker (1870-1918) is considered the most significant labour leader in Ireland in the early 20th century. As a young trade union activist, he established the first union of women linen workers (1893) and helped organise workers in other sectors. A joiner in shipbuilder’s Harland and Wolf, he became a full-time organiser for the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners (1901), delegate to … Continue reading Mike Mecham visits Belfast to research Irish labour leader and social activist William Walker

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Bursary reports, Research bursaries

Joe Cozens (Essex) on civil-military relations and popular protest, 1790-1805

My doctoral thesis is entitled ‘Civil-Military Relations and Popular Protest in England, 1790- 1805’. It addresses issues such as the recruitment of the armed forces, the experiences of ordinary soldiers in the army and militia, and the use of the military by the state to suppress instances of popular protest during the Revolutionary French Wars. In particular, I am interested in the way in which … Continue reading Joe Cozens (Essex) on civil-military relations and popular protest, 1790-1805

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