Category: Labour history news

News and information of interest to labour historians.

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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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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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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Labour history news

Very nearly an armful… donating blood for Vietnam

Protests against the Vietnam War took many forms. But the most sanguine approach to solidarity work was surely that adopted by the Medical Aid Committee for Vietnam (MACV). In 1967, activists in London organised a blood donor session, collecting 56 pints with the help of workers from the blood transfusion service. Further donor sessions were organised, and the MACV developed a system for safely storing … Continue reading Very nearly an armful… donating blood for Vietnam

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Labour history news

Planes, trains and automobiles: rethinking Victorian union imagery in the 1930s

Untold thousands of trade union emblems were produced in the Victorian era, but by the twentieth century they looked out of date and their use was in decline. Mark Crail looks at a 1930s revival that briefly breathed new life into the genre. The trade union membership certificate shown here (Fig. 1) was based on an emblem adopted in the 1930s by the National Union … Continue reading Planes, trains and automobiles: rethinking Victorian union imagery in the 1930s

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Labour history news

The 4:50 from Liverpool Street, a Red Countess and Labour’s country retreat

With the Labour Party on the verge of forming its first government, one of the country’s most glamorous aristocrats decided to offer her childhood home to the party as a ‘Labour Chequers’. Mark Crail looks at what happened next. Liverpool Street Station would have been a hubbub of activity on the afternoon of Friday, 23 March 1923. But as commuters hurried for their rush-hour trains … Continue reading The 4:50 from Liverpool Street, a Red Countess and Labour’s country retreat

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Labour history news

Eight labour history anniversaries in 2023

There is nothing special about anniversaries. No intrinsic reason to look back at events fifty years ago rather than at the years either side. But just as we mark birthdays and other significant events in our lives, so societies do much the same on a bigger scale, not least as a politically charged means of creating shared histories. But what we choose to commemorate and … Continue reading Eight labour history anniversaries in 2023

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Labour history news

Birmingham People’s History Archive finds a home

What started as a personal collection of labour movement papers has grown into a substantial archive for local, national and international working-class history. Now it has found a home and work is under way to catalogue its contents, writes Peter Higgins. The Birmingham People’s History Archive (BPHA) has been a project long in the planning stage. When Paul Cooper, the archive’s creator, was a student … Continue reading Birmingham People’s History Archive finds a home

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Books etc, Labour history news

Going underground: Henry Moore and the Yorkshire miners

Henry Moore is best known for his monumental bronze sculptures. His wartime sketches of Londoners sleeping in the London Underground while sheltering from the Blitz are also widely known and admired. Now a book and accompanying exhibition are drawing attention to a lesser known series of drawings of coal miners at work. Moore was a miner’s son from Castleford in Yorkshire, and commissioned by the … Continue reading Going underground: Henry Moore and the Yorkshire miners

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