Category: Documents & objects

Photographs and information about documents and objects with some significance in labour history. Many of these items can be found in archives represented on the SSLH archives and resources committee.

Documents & objects

Appeal for help locating a Peace Pledge Union poster

The Peace Museum is looking for help locating a historic poster originally printed by the Peace Pledge Union as part of their upcoming exhibition. The museum, which explores the history and untold stories of peacemakers, reform and peace movements, has issued an appeal to all who may have information about the poster. The museum hopes to acquire a copy so that they can permanently hold … Continue reading Appeal for help locating a Peace Pledge Union poster

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Documents & objects, Labour history news

Exceptionally rare Peterloo commemorative jug discovered

The People’s History Museum has acquired a unique Peterloo commemorative jug, which will be on display from 1 August 2026 until 3 January 2027. The finding will be of interest to labour historians, and historians of protest and working class history more generally, as objects connected to the Peterloo Massacre are few and far between. On 16 August 1819, yeomanry charged into a crowd of … Continue reading Exceptionally rare Peterloo commemorative jug discovered

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Documents & objects

‘Mr Attlee is confident’: a Limehouse declaration

Towards the end of October 1945, Prime Minister Clement Attlee was back in his Limehouse constituency for a victory rally. It had been less than six months since the end of the war in Europe, and just weeks later in the UK a Labour government had been swept to power. A world reshaped by conflict was being remade once again in a new era of … Continue reading ‘Mr Attlee is confident’: a Limehouse declaration

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Documents & objects

A Nation on Strike: first thoughts on 1926

In September 1926, Walter Milne-Bailey, head of the TUC research department, sat down to record his thoughts on the General Strike, which had taken place in May of that year. As we approach the centenary of that event, the typewritten script of his report has been digitized and published online by the TUC Library Collections.1 Milne-Bailey notes at the very start of his report that … Continue reading A Nation on Strike: first thoughts on 1926

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Documents & objects, Events

PHM to unveil 2025 banners exhibition

The People’s History Museum 2025 Banner Exhibition opens on Saturday 18 January. Running until 29 December 2025, the exhibition includes banners produced by trade unions, political parties, the co-operative movement, peace campaigns and others over more than a century of campaigning. Among the historic trade union banners represented in this year’s exhibition is that of the National Union of Railwaymen, Hither Green branch banner, made … Continue reading PHM to unveil 2025 banners exhibition

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Documents & objects

Are you a socialist? The ILP’s six-point test for would-be members

‘Are you a socialist?’ enquired the Independent Labour Party in a recruitment leaflet published in March 1909. It went on to list six questions about the reader’s beliefs, to which, if the answer were to be ‘yes’, the appropriate course of action would be to join the ILP and help carry its principles into effect. The leaflet itself is of little significance. It includes an … Continue reading Are you a socialist? The ILP’s six-point test for would-be members

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Documents & objects

Dockers’ union rosette in red, white and green

This fine rosette carries at its centre the badge of the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Workers’ Union. Originating as the Tea Operatives and General Labourers’ Association in 1887, the union played a central role in the London dock strike two years later, becoming that same year the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers’ Union of Great Britain. The rosette and badge shown here, however, … Continue reading Dockers’ union rosette in red, white and green

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Documents & objects, Labour history news

George Lansbury archives are now online

Seventeen volumes of papers, photographs and other records collected by the former Labour Party leader George Lansbury and his biographer and son-in-law Raymond Postgate have now been digitized and made available online by the LSE Library. This vast archive, which covers the period 1877 to 1955 (from when Lansbury turned eighteen until sometime after his death in 1940 at the age of eighty-one), includes both … Continue reading George Lansbury archives are now online

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Documents & objects, Labour history news

Forty years on: selections from the NUM archive mark the start of the miners’ strike

Forty years on from the start of the 1984-85 miners’ strike, a selection of material from the National Union of Mineworkers’ archive has gone online. Digitised and published by the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick, the selection runs to 95 leaflets, bulletins and other items of ephemera. The collection’s emphasis is on the NUM at local and national level, and the support … Continue reading Forty years on: selections from the NUM archive mark the start of the miners’ strike

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