Category: Labour history news

News and information of interest to labour historians.

Commentary, Labour history news

‘The most fruitful period in the history of the British left’?: Communists and the Popular Front in the 1930s

In ‘“The most fruitful period in the history of the British left”[1]?: Communists and the Popular Front in the 1930s’, John McIlroy and Alan Campbell introduce a brace of recent articles examining the Comintern, the British Communist Party (CPGB) and the Popular Front in Britain, France and Spain between 1935 and 1939. The Popular Front policy which was put together through 1934 and formally adopted … Continue reading ‘The most fruitful period in the history of the British left’?: Communists and the Popular Front in the 1930s

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Labour history news

WCML gets £100k Big Flame grant

The Working Class Movement Library has been awarded £99,847 to fund a project opening up access to its records of the Big Flame revolutionary group. Started in Liverpool in 1970, Big Flame was a revolutionary socialist group with a feminist, anti-racist, internationalist vision that emphasized mass class engagement and prioritized non-sectarian, non-authoritarian community organizing and political methods. It spread to Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Nottingham and … Continue reading WCML gets £100k Big Flame grant

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Commentary, Labour history news

Inside the NUM archive: 150 years of coal mining history

With the National Union of Mineworkers’ archive now transferred to the Modern Records Centre, work is under way to catalogue this vast collection and decide how it can best be made available to researchers and mining communities. Mark Crail reports on the story so far. On a chilly morning in January 2023, a lorry drew up outside the Modern Records Centre at the University of … Continue reading Inside the NUM archive: 150 years of coal mining history

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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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Labour history news

Cash boost for working-class history projects

Historic England has announced funding for 56 new working-class history projects over the next two years. Awards under the £875,000 Everyday Heritage Grants programme range from £6,800 to £25,000 per individual project. Among those to receive funding are the Tolpuddle Old Chapel Trust, which gets £9,978 for its Tolpuddle Family Lives: A People’s Heritage project, and LGBT+ Northern Social Group, which gets £10,940 for Pink Triangles and … Continue reading Cash boost for working-class history projects

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Books etc, Labour history news

Labour history books in paperback

Two more books in the Studies in Labour History series will soon be published in paperback. The series is published by the Society in association with Liverpool University Press and currently includes nineteen books. Workers of the Empire, Unite: Radical and Popular Challenges to British Imperialism, 1910s-1960s, by Yann Béliard and Professor Neville Kirk, is due out on 1 March 2024. An important contribution to … Continue reading Labour history books in paperback

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Labour history news, SSLH news

Society urges government to drop ‘elitist’ and ‘foolhardy’ plan to destroy historic wills

The Society for the Study of Labour History is calling on the Ministry of Justice to drop plans which would see the destruction of millions of original wills dating as far back as 1858. In a written response to the government’s consultation exercise, the Society argues that the plan is both elitist and flawed. Jump to our response. The proposals were put forward by the … Continue reading Society urges government to drop ‘elitist’ and ‘foolhardy’ plan to destroy historic wills

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Labour history news

One hundred years on: the first Labour government

One hundred years ago today, the first Labour Government took office. Led by James Ramsay MacDonald as prime minister and foreign secretary, the men (though no women) in its ranks included former coal miners and textile workers, a railwayman, an iron founder, and even a labour historian. Many had worked for decades on behalf of the Independent Labour Party or their trade union before entering … Continue reading One hundred years on: the first Labour government

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Labour history news

Inside the archive of Labour MP Ann Clwyd

Rob Phillips outlines the work of the Welsh Political Archive to make a huge archive donated by the former Labour MP Ann Clwyd, who died in 2023, available to researchers. Ann Clwyd, former Labour MP for the Cynon Valley, enjoyed a long and colourful political career. Prior to her election at a by-election in 1984 she had been a Member of the European Parliament for … Continue reading Inside the archive of Labour MP Ann Clwyd

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Labour history news

Labour history on show: highlights from the People’s History Museum collection

From the first ever minute book of the Labour Representation Committee to Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham’s jacket, People’s History Museum is offering people the opportunity to see some of the vast collection of objects in its care that help reflect the story of the Labour Party. Among the highlights of the collection now online to mark the centenary of the first Labour government that … Continue reading Labour history on show: highlights from the People’s History Museum collection

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